Styling Your Wikka Wiki: Getting Started

I will assume that you have successfully installed WikkaWiki. And that you know how to download/upload files to your server. (If you need help with any of that, leave a comment, and I'll be happy to help.)

So, I will begin with how to edit the files that affect the style of your Wiki. All of the files we need to edit... indeed, all of the files that make up the WikkaWiki installation... are plain text files, which you can edit with any plain text editer. Note, MS Word is NOT a plain text editor! Neither is any word processor or any desktop publisher! If you are using MS windows, Notepad is a plain text editor. But you will have to make sure you save the file with the correct file extension. Notepad, by default, appends .txt to whatever filename/extension you save as. Windows, by default will hide the extension from you. But, you are a power user now! Turn on show filename extensions! Now, close Notepad, and get a far better file editor: Notepad++∞. I highly recommend it.

Okay, so how do we change the style? Most of the style info is in a file, called a 'style sheet', named "wikka.css", located in the folder, "css". It is a powerful file, and controls colors, positioning, backgrounds, and more. You should have a copy of this file on your own machine, at whatever location you unzipped your Wikka to before you uploaded it to your server. Open it in Notepad++ or whatever editor you use, but save it to a different folder. That way you have the original file as a back up. Now, the general procedure is to make modifications to your file(s), upload to the server, and then test in your browser. (you will need to hit refresh to see the changes) There are options that will simplify this for you, and not break a working site if you goof... and yes you will goof, there is a lot of trial and error involved in web development. However, unless you have a server running on your local machine, Wikka won't run on your own machine. It needs PHP and MySql running on a server. If you want to do some simple changes, you can make a DummyPage. More complex hacks can be trialed at home by installing EasyPhP. Ok, go check out those two options, and choose either one, or neither if you prefer to hack your live installation. I'll meet you back at WikkaStyle when your done! ;)

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WikkaStyle