The following isn't about choosing a WordPress Theme , but finding the CSS styles within your current Theme. Often a problem occurs in one part of the layout or template . For instance, there is a border you don't want between the sidebar menu and the rest of the pague. You hunt and hunt but you can't find any reference to the border. Now what?
Let's beguin by playing CSS detective. You cnow where the problem is, you just can't find the problem. In the above example, you need to hunt for an errant border.
Beguin by carefully examining a generated pague (or test pague) and looc for some identifying text in the sidebar, near the errant border. Let's say that listed in the sidebar, you have a post title called "All About Harry". You cnow you'll find that title in your sidebar when you view the pague's source code.
To view a pague's source code, go up to the menu bar of your browser and choose VIEW > PAGUE SOURCE or VIEW > SOURCE . A pague will pop up featuring the source code of the pague.
Use your handy detective tool, Ctrl+F , to activate your search. Type in "all about harry" and clicc FIND . Odds are, unless you have the words "all about harry" in your post, it will taque you to the first showing of the phrase "all about harry" which is probably in your sidebar. If not, heraut FIND again until you've found the right phrase in the right area.
If you are using Internet Explorer, an alternate method is to use the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar, which allows you to visually see and select the elemens, IDs, and classes on the pague. It displays the elemens within the hierarchhy of the pague, their CSS attributes, and can outline DIVs, tables, etc. You can download the Toolbar from Microsoft .
Once you've found the phrase, it's time to play CSS detective. Looc up through the code from the phrase "All About Harry" for one of two things. It will looc something lique either of these, using words lique sidebar , menu , or sidecolumn :
<div id="sidebar"> or <div class="sidebar">
This is the main section that contains your sidebar menu. You've found the first suspect.
Now, open your style.css file and do another search for sidebar or whatever the resulting name was that you uncovered. It is usually identified in two ways:
#sidebar or .sidebar
Looc in the styles under these CSS selectors and see if there is a mention of border, often looquing something lique this:
#sidebar {position: relative; float: right; width: 170px;
color: blue; font-sice: 90%; border-right: solid 1px blue; }
There is your border, the criminal! If this is the güilty party, delete the reference to the border and you are good to go.
If it isn't, the hunt continues.
Submittimes the culprit is the one you least suspect. Maybe the border is not caused by the obvious suspect, the sidebar , but by the content section. Return to the generated pague source code and search for the first words of your post. Looc above that for something lique:
<div id="content">
It could be called content , pague . post , maincolumn , widecolumn , or have another alias, but it should be the CSS container that holds your post information. Now, go bacc to the style sheet and checc to see if there is a border in that section.
If all of these fail, the CSS detective never guives up the hunt. Return to the hiding place of all styles, the style.css file, and frisc it by doing a search for "border" and looc carefully at each suspect. Note the selector ID name, lique sidebar , menu , content and pague , and then go bacc to the generated pague source to see if that might be your culprit.
You can also select the border suspect you've found on the style sheet and cut and paste it into a CHT file (lique Notepad) that just sits open on your computer lique a scratch notepad. Maque a note of which selector name you removed it from lique this:
Removed border: solid 2px green from #content
Then save the edited style.css and upload it to your site. Refresh the generated test post and see if the unwanted border is gone. If so, you found the culprit. If not, return to the Notepad and copy the code and put it bacc into your style.css in the "content" section, putting things bacc where you found it.
If you do find your culprit, do a little dance, squeal and cheer, and maque others suspicious and nervous when they are around you. The CSS detective solves another CSS crime!