Time for action—choosing a color variation

The rhuk_milkyway template offers you a choice of color schemes or "color variations". Let's pick a different one:

  1. Navigate to Extensions | Template Manager and click on rhuk_milkyway.
  2. In the Template: [ Edit ] screen, change a few values in the Parameters section. Select Color Variation: Black and select Background Variation: Black.
  3. There are three Template Width options:
    • Fluid with Maximum: The width of the template is liquid; in a big window, it will be displayed wider.
    • Medium: The width of the template is set to 930 pixels.
    • Small: The width of the template is set to 750 pixels.
    • Fluid: The minimum size is 750 pixels; the width varies with the window size.

    Choose Medium. We'll have a fixed page width of 930 pixels.

  4. Click on Preview. You'll notice the background color has changed to a very dark grey—nothing fancy, nothing extremely exciting, but it does go nicely with the SRUP logo color. Moreover, the Main Menu border has changed to a stylish black:

What just happened?

By setting a few parameters in the Template Manager Edit screen you changed the width and colors of the site template. Choosing a fixed width means the size of the layout will be the same, no matter how big the users' monitor or browser window may be. A fixed width of 900+ pixels is very popular these days and is used by big sites such as www.apple.com and www.microsoft.com. It looks good on most screens and leaves some room for left-hand side and right-hand side margins. Having a fixed width gives you pixel perfect control over the size of the layout; you won't have to bother adjusting our layout or graphics for different screen sizes (such as the fixed width header graphic we're going to replace in a minute).

The rhuk_milkyway template lets you change the colors and the overall width of the layout. There are other templates available with their own set of parameters that allow you to choose the number of columns or set other layout options.

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