Site style sheet edit feature?

An initial issue I had with CSS Sculpter was that once a CSS theme was defined for a site and templates put in place, I could not maintain the CSS styles in that site by simply reinvoking CSS Sculpter and edit the site style sheets.

This is an example of a feature that you would reasonably expect to be there when you buy the product but you only find out about it being missing when it's too late.

I have been patiently waiting for this to be implemented. Is it now included in CSS Sculpter 3?

The way CSS Sculptor works is you save a preset if you want to revisit your settings at a later time. This has not changed for CSS Sculptor 3, it still works that way.

Due to the nature of CSS, Sculptor is no re-entrant. Its possible you can run CSS Sculptor, then change every single CSS attribute, add more, and delete some. It would be hard to guarantee a good result if we tried to interpret those changes in CSS Sculptor. Instead, we allow you to save a preset. This way, if you generate a page, then realize you need to update some things, you just load up your preset and that gives you a very good starting point.

If you are looking for something to be re-entrant and maintain your entire site, SiteAssist Professional works that way.

Thanks Justin. I'm sorry for being a bit naive on this but for whatever reason I struggle with CSS for than I thought possible. Maybe I'm just missing something very basic.

I would like to have the same css sheet to govern the entire web site. If I was to only use css Sculpter to edit what I needed then I can't see the issue?

Can you please try to enlighten me further - I just want a methodology that works.

It sounds like what you would do is first use CSS Sculptor to style and create your page. Then using Dreamweaver, you can make a Template. Then, you would create new pages based on that Dreamweaver Template. If you wanted to make global changes, you would simply update the Template using Dreamweaver then it will apply the changes to all the pages derived from that Template.

Another solution is to use our SiteAssist Professional extension. SiteAssist Pro allows you to manage your entire site including adding and removing pages. It is also possible to design something in CSS Sculptor, then add that to SiteAssist Pro as a custom preset.

-justin

Here is my methodology:

1. I create a "what I think I want" style using Sculpter (and it works pretty well)
2. Build a temporary page for verification of style
3. Base a template on that page
4. Base site pages from the template
5. The site has progressed but the overall style needs some tweaking
6. I consider manually changing the style sheet but my working expertise with CSS isn't all that expert - but hold on that's why I bought CSS Sculpter!

I expected Sculpter to be able to read my style sheet (created by CSS Sculpter) and make changes. Why is that too much to ask? Otherwise the process suggests that I have to get it exactly right on the first attempt.

Am I missing something? And please let's keep SiteAssist Professional out of the discussion.

There are too many variables to guarantee we could read a custom stylesheet created (or updated) outside of Sculptor. There is no guarantee the CSS code is even valid, and there are complex things you can do such as linking in multiple stylesheets, cascade properties, use hacks, use different media types and things like that. It would be very complex to know exactly what the users intent was with their hand coding.

In your case, I would recommend always saving a preset in Sculptor. That way when you get to step 6, you can load up your preset as a starting point, then update what you need to into Sculptor. Once you have generated the new page, you would have to update your template with the changes which would then update all of your pages accordingly.

I have the same problem. It is impossible to have everything perfect from the start.
I need to modify the screen.css file at any point after using CSS Sculptor to create the first page.
I tried editing the file but it does not work.

If this is not possible using Sculptor, then can I at least create the page and then "detach" it from Sculptor so that I can edit everything?

Please help!

Never mind. I solved it.

Before I first launched Sculptor, I viewed the feature tours and getting started guide. I think got started, and decided to create a sample page one step at a time, to see how it progressed, I chose a simple layout and saved it.

The very next thing I did was to look for the wizard again to make some edits to my layout. After an hour of that, I finally came here and did further research and discovered what this thread is about. I was let down, because I was excited about this tool to start with.

Yes, I assumed this was possible - basically because every other extension in the world provides re-entry and editing. So, it's still useful but not to the extent I had thought at the time.

If you save your preset, then you effectively are able to go back in, load up that preset, then make further modifications. As I mentioned above, there are just too many variables to account for to be able to read in a modified stylesheet after the fact. Saving/editing your presets still gives a lot of control.