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SimplySilent — Journal Skins for Dummies Part 1

Published: 2013-07-08 05:04:40 +0000 UTC; Views: 44212; Favourites: 1787; Downloads: 223
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Description Here is Part 1 of Journal Skins for s. Sorry it's so obnoxiously long. Here's the Live Version of the journal.


Do make sure to check out miontre's Do-It-Yourself Journal Skin article as well as ginkgografix 's Old vs Gruze Journal guide. The layout we're using in this skin is the gruze layout, so be sure to take a look at that one.


Step by Step
Here is all the code used in the tutorial. Only the new codes that are added with each step are shown, and the final journal skin with everything put together is at the bottom.

1. Getting Rid of the Junk:

* {background: transparent; border: none; margin: 0; padding: 0;}

.gr-top img {display: none;}
.gr {padding: 0 !important;}
li.a.f {background:transparent;}

2. Adding Background Colors:

.gr-top{background: #4fbcbd ;}
.gr-body{background: #eee ;}
.text{background: #fff ;}

3. Changing Text Colors:

.gr-top h2 a{color:#fff ;}
.gr-top .timestamp{color: #fff ;}
h1{color: #4fbcbd ;}
h2{color:#4fbcbd ;}
.commentslink {color: #4fbcbd ;}

Note! If you want to be fancy, you can also add .gr-top h2{color:#ffffff } to your code. This makes the title white when you type it into your journal.

4. Formatting Text:

.gr-top{text-align:center;}
.list{text-align:center;}

5. Adding Padding:

.gr-top{padding:40px;}
.gr-body{padding:30px;}
.text{padding:40px 30px 20px 30px;}

Note! Alternative way to do padding (these can be in any order btw)

.text{
padding-top: 40px;
padding-right: 30px;
padding-bottom: 20px;
padding-left: 30px;
}

6. Adding Margins:

.text{margin-bottom: 20px;}
.list{margin-top: 20px;}


The Full Skin:
Mostly in order of how the tutorial progressed. This can be copied and pasted straight into the CSS box in the journals for you to use and modify as you wish.

* {background: transparent; border: none; margin: 0; padding: 0;}

.gr-top img{display:none;}
.gr {padding: 0 !important;}
li.a.f{background:transparent;}

.gr-top{
background: #4fbcbd ;
text-align:center;
padding:40px;}

.gr-body{
background: #eee ;
padding:30px;}

.text{
background: #fff ;
padding:40px 30px 20px 30px;
margin-bottom: 20px;}

.gr-top h2 a{color:#fff ;}
.gr-top .timestamp{color: #fff ;}
h1{color: #4fbcbd ;}
h2{color: #4fbcbd ;}
.commentslink{color: #4fbcbd ;}

.list{
text-align:center;
margin-top: 20px;}


Journal Creator
Is all the code making your head hurt? If you're more interested in creating a custom journal skin rather than actually learning the code, you can try my DeviantART Journal Creator . Just plug and chug, and you'll have your very own skin!
Related content
Comments: 249

Yohadoptee [2015-05-25 06:20:07 +0000 UTC]

Thanks simply for the devious journal skin creator on your web! It's really helping me a lot! . I did credit you on my journal. Cheers!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

EMShelley In reply to ??? [2015-05-18 22:16:25 +0000 UTC]

Thank you!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Lady-Compassion [2015-05-17 07:41:54 +0000 UTC]

Hey!  I already faved this....still love it...still need to try this out  

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PaMonk In reply to ??? [2015-05-15 05:18:55 +0000 UTC]

Awesome Thanks for sharing this Info will have to try this one day thanks.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

lifewatery [2015-05-09 21:13:05 +0000 UTC]

well i used your Journal skin creator but i wanna add ''Art made by lifewatery .'' How to add it? And may we upload it to dA for everyone to use?

Edit: Okay i did it  

Thanks a lot.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Novatrixy [2015-04-15 15:35:25 +0000 UTC]

OMG! this made is so much easier to understand than most tutorials I looked up!
Thank you so much. Though I do have a small question what command would I use if I want to add in an image instead of solid colors?
(Also a FAQ's section would be nice. I am not sure how many people asked this question...)

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

IggyVillageKoopa [2015-03-11 13:46:06 +0000 UTC]

All the code is making my head hurt

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

JuniperJoy [2015-03-03 19:36:14 +0000 UTC]

Just wondering, if I were to use as kind like this th08.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i… would it distort the skin if it were really long or would it repeat it or...what would happen 

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Metalhead-777 [2015-02-20 17:57:27 +0000 UTC]

Thank you so much for this!

Just one question: How do you change the text color of a link?

IE: I put at the bottom of my journal:
Made by Metalhead-777  
How do I change the link text color?

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

AniPal In reply to Metalhead-777 [2015-02-23 13:23:59 +0000 UTC]

a{
    color: /*color here*/;
}

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Metalhead-777 In reply to AniPal [2015-02-23 13:28:27 +0000 UTC]

Thnx :3

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

AniPal In reply to Metalhead-777 [2015-02-23 14:10:03 +0000 UTC]

happy to help

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Metalhead-777 In reply to AniPal [2015-02-23 20:35:56 +0000 UTC]

It doesn't work :I

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

AniPal In reply to Metalhead-777 [2015-02-24 03:23:54 +0000 UTC]

edited. try again. it will apply to all links. if you want to further decorate your links, try pseudo-selectors.

/* unvisited link */
a:link {
    color: /*color here*/;
}

/* visited link */
a:visited {
    color: /*color here*/;
}

/* mouse over link */
a:hover {
    color: /*color here*/;
}

/* selected link */
a:active {
    color: /*color here*/;
}

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Metalhead-777 In reply to AniPal [2015-02-24 03:29:56 +0000 UTC]

Thnx :3

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Butt-mira [2015-02-13 00:37:31 +0000 UTC]

Okay, my head hurts so much right now ;//v//; I managed to understand all of this, but there is one thing i didn't understand :I Where do you put all these codes? On the Skin CSS?(sorry for such stupid questions i'm completely new to this xDD)
Another thing, how do i create a skin? Like lets say i want to do something for my front page, and i want a customized skin, like lets say a bunch of flowers on my widgets, and i want to draw the flowers myself... how do i draw them and add the to the behind of my widgets?

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

AniPal In reply to Butt-mira [2015-02-23 13:32:12 +0000 UTC]

yes. write it all in skin css.

to add your art in background, use:

.gr-box{
    background: url('/*your_link_here.extension/*') repeat;
}

that shall do the trick

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Butt-mira In reply to AniPal [2015-02-23 17:57:24 +0000 UTC]

Ok thank you very much<3

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

AniPal In reply to Butt-mira [2015-02-24 03:27:45 +0000 UTC]

:3

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

kohu-arts [2015-01-31 14:10:54 +0000 UTC]

I would like to thank you for posting this for people like me, who really are dummies in terms of CSS/coding. xD This is extremely helpful! 

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Crysenley [2015-01-17 03:46:50 +0000 UTC]

Thank you so much for this comprehensive tutorial! Now I know exactly which classes to change.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SimplySilent In reply to Crysenley [2015-01-19 01:12:51 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome! I'm glad it was helpful.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

LunarEstrella [2015-01-04 06:46:34 +0000 UTC]

I appreciate this soooooooooooooo much! Thank you!

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SimplySilent In reply to LunarEstrella [2015-01-19 01:12:55 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

PPGirl16 [2015-01-02 02:16:17 +0000 UTC]

On your DeviantART Journal Creator, I noticed there was a blockquote feature. How does one get rid of it?

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

iTutorialsYT [2014-10-20 19:47:08 +0000 UTC]

Hi, this may sound a little bit stupid but, How can I Put the skin xD Sorry for beeing so ignorant :/

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

RaraSobak [2014-10-19 06:10:56 +0000 UTC]

Is there a way I can change the text color?

EDIT: Nevermind! I figured it out<3

THANK YOU FOR THIS LOVELY TUTORIAL

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

RebekahKroeplin [2014-09-22 23:49:36 +0000 UTC]

I'm trying to get rid of my ENTIRE header, not just the journal icon, etc.  Can you help?

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

SoundTheAnthem [2014-09-21 23:17:16 +0000 UTC]

This is awesome!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Spiritspixels In reply to ??? [2014-09-14 18:57:35 +0000 UTC]

this tutorial is great!
i made this!
spiritspixels.deviantart.com/j…

i figure out how to change the font and font-size by myself!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Aricy In reply to ??? [2014-09-06 02:21:41 +0000 UTC]

Do you know how to add images to your journal skin? Like where it's at the top by the heading or at the bottom by the comments thingy?

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SimplySilent In reply to Aricy [2014-09-06 03:35:05 +0000 UTC]

The easy way is to stick the image code in the header or footer part of the journal skin (the top and bottom boxes in the CSS editor pop-up window)

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Aricy In reply to SimplySilent [2014-09-06 04:32:24 +0000 UTC]

Thank you so much!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

v-for-vincent [2014-08-27 13:35:20 +0000 UTC]

BIG question here (and sorry to sound like a dummy but I've just learnt some HTML/CSS):
So, for the DA journal skin, do we require the whole HTML coding with divs, ps etc, or is it just the CSS coding with ids, classes?
I'm very confused

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SimplySilent In reply to v-for-vincent [2014-08-27 17:33:40 +0000 UTC]

Not quite sure what you mean? ids don't work in DA btw, though.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

MowingAdopts [2014-08-03 10:04:40 +0000 UTC]

May i ask,how do we add pictures behind? I know i don't have PM,but i want to try out the journal skin

👍: 0 ⏩: 2

AniPal In reply to MowingAdopts [2015-02-23 13:35:37 +0000 UTC]

here

.gr-box{
    background: url('/*your_link_here.extension/*') repeat;
}

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Spiritspixels In reply to MowingAdopts [2014-09-14 18:33:45 +0000 UTC]

you cant do journal skins without a PM

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Honeycrisp1012 In reply to ??? [2014-07-31 05:02:37 +0000 UTC]

I have a question: I used the Journal Creator to make my Journal Skin and it looks great on my page.
However, when I write a new journal, I notice that the background image for the header and footer seem too small and look like they need to be stretched to fit the page in stash writer, like so: sta.sh/0dl5htnj49z Is there any certain size the header and footer have to be to fit?

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SimplySilent In reply to Honeycrisp1012 [2014-07-31 05:09:33 +0000 UTC]

There's no "best fit" because everyone has different monitor sizes. Your options are to:

- Have a header that's fine with any width (your image probably doesn't qualify here)
- Make the header repeating (probably doesn't work either)
- Add a max width to your journal so that it looks the same on everyone's monitor (there's an option for this in my journal creator).

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Honeycrisp1012 In reply to SimplySilent [2014-07-31 12:44:47 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for your help.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

BirdyCrossing [2014-07-29 01:35:09 +0000 UTC]

This is the first time I've ever had CSS explained so simply, and I really can not thank you enough haha<33!

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SimplySilent In reply to BirdyCrossing [2014-08-02 19:35:53 +0000 UTC]

I'm hoping to make a better tutorial sometime, but it's proving surprisingly difficult to make myself do it.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

rena212 In reply to ??? [2014-07-25 01:51:34 +0000 UTC]

Is there a way to increase the distance between each line of text? For some reason the journal skin I'm using now has the words all squeezed together, as you can see here: mikomikisomi.deviantart.com/jo…

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SimplySilent In reply to rena212 [2014-07-25 02:16:07 +0000 UTC]

Add line-height within your text:

.text{
line-height:20px;
}

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

rena212 In reply to SimplySilent [2014-07-25 02:19:33 +0000 UTC]

Thank you so much! It looks a lot better now! ♥

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

cogwurx In reply to ??? [2014-07-22 10:36:31 +0000 UTC]

Excellent resource.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SimplySilent In reply to cogwurx [2014-07-24 21:53:33 +0000 UTC]

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

MissAbbeline In reply to ??? [2014-07-08 08:02:03 +0000 UTC]

Is there any way to get the text to be centered? I've tried the usual code, but it doesn't seem to work.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SimplySilent In reply to MissAbbeline [2014-07-08 20:28:16 +0000 UTC]

You would typically use text-align:center;

👍: 0 ⏩: 0


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