Default Color Editing

**doceye** · 23 September 2010, 04:50 AM

Need some help here. Watched the first movie from the link in the Help drop down and the gal was simply picking theme colors, going to the editor and sliding them to where she wanted. The theme colors changed instantly. She also changed the color of the nav bar too.

I've begun a web site where I used the Social Networker theme from the Design Gallery and only some of the elements of these pages seem editable or will change colors. If I click on the nav bar, I can't edit the color at all. If I double click to get the nav bar properties box and try and change the color there, it still won't change.

The video makes this look like child's play, yet I've spent two hours reading posts, reading the help file, and watching videos. And nowhere can I see where it's explained any other way how to do something as simple as changing certain elements of a theme's color.

I don't want to get all snotty, but there needs to be a LOT of work done on a comprehensive manual for users who aren't necessarily Gary Priester in their experience.

I find WD6 maddeningly frustrating for doing the most simple things. There seems to be little adherence to a normal work flow. Things I did intuitively in products that go as far back as NetObjects Fusion 4 and the first few iterations of Front Page, are an exercise in frustration in this program.

Will someone please explain, like I'm an idiot, how the heck you change the colors on design gallery template elements like the nav bar or it's background?

The native colors in the Social Networker design are not all listed as theme colors per the video. Where do you edit these colors?

Arrrggghh!

**steve.ledger** · 23 September 2010, 05:44 AM

Originally Posted by doceye

The native colors in the Social Networker design are not all listed as theme colors per the video. Where do you edit these colors?

In my copy of WD6 and the SocialNetworker_website.web template, the theme colours are listed as 'Theme color1' and Theme color2'
There is also 'Page background color' and 'Page color'
All of these are editable via the color editor (Ctrl+E)

The mouseoff navbar color is linked to Theme1 color while the mouseover is linked to Theme color2.
If you hide the mouseoff layer then unhide the mouseover layer you will see the mouseover colours.

To edit the two navbar colours states you will need to double-click the navbar and disable:
• Adjust button widths to labels
• Site navigation bar

Then you can ctrl+click to select each navbar button background rectangle to alter it's color without affecting the text.
Repeat this for each button background on the navbar then hide the mouse off layer and unhide the mouseover layer.
Repeat the crtl+click to select the button background rectangle and change the colour from 'Shade of another color' to 'Normal color'. Select you new color for the mouseover state, repeating for all buttons.
You only need do this on the first page because once this is done you can select 'Update repeating objects from the
Arrange menu.

Once done, double-click the navbar and re-enable:
• Adjust button widths to labels
• Site navigation bar

That's it.

**doceye** · 23 September 2010, 06:26 AM

Sledger,

Thanks for the quick response. I know it's early where you are, but it's late here and I have to hit the hay. I'll try what you outlined tomorrow.

I've got to be honest here and say if that's the most direct way to do this, something's very wrong with the usability of this program. First, why make something so simple so dang complicated? Why so many convoluted steps? Second, where is this rather lengthy process explained anywhere in the help or documentation?

I do appreciate the help, but problems with usability and just keeping the program running are furthering my dislike of WD6. If the idea behind this software is to be an easy-to-use, template-based alternative to developing web sites quickly I have to give the program an F. I guess the chance exists that I just flat don't "interface" with this program, but as I stated in other posts, I'm no newbie to computers.

Regardless, thanks for your help.

Doc