Question

I'm very new to TWiki, and I'm currently trying to convince a company to choose TWiki over MediaWiki. I'm working on customizing a TWiki implementation, specifically (at the moment) the colors and backgrounds of the default skin. The changes I'm making, regardless of level (e.g., site, web...), take effect only on the preferences page I'm editing. When I go back to any other page in the web I'm editing, the default skin prefs are in place and unfazed by my meddling.

Specifically, I'm working with " * Set USERSTYLEURL = _path to my custom style changes_" and " * Set USERCOLORSURL = _path to my custom color changes_" I want to change them for the whole web, not just for the main.webpreferences page.

I apologize if this is too ambiguous.

I've cleared my browser's cache to no avail.

Please tell me what I'm missing, or at least let me know where I might start looking. I'm not a programmer by trade, and I've been at this for a few days now. It's getting pretty frustrating, 'cuz I know it's something simple that I'm missing.

Thanks!

Environment

-- JamesCapaldo - 29 Mar 2006

Answer

Two reasons I can think of:

1. USERCOLORSURL is in the preferences topics' FINALPREFERENCES, inhibiting settings at a lower level
2. There are %WEB% and %TOPIC% references in the USERCOLORSURL, which resolves to the correct web.topic in the preferences topic only. So write /TWiki/ instead of /%WEB%/, and /WebPreferences/ instead of /%TOPIC%/

Please let us know and close this question if OK.

-- PeterThoeny - 29 Mar 2006

Thanks for the speedy response, Peter. I've checked 1), but I'll definitely go double-check.

As for 2), the USERCOLORSURL is a .css file and doesn't have any such Support or PrefsOnlyChangingOnPrefsPages references.

USERCOLORSURL is supposed to let me provide such a custom .css file to override settings in the Pattern Skin...perhaps I just need to learn more about how that skin works and can be customized. Unfortunately I don't have direct access to the files themselves, otherwise it might be easier. I'm trying to do this through the TWiki interface, which I think is possible.

-- JamesCapaldo - 29 Mar 2006

I thought I had encountered exactly this problem with USERSTYLEURL - i.e. it was occurring only on the WebPreferences page I had made the change on. This was due to specifying ATTACHURL and not explicitly pathing the location of the WebPreferences topic (where I had attached the noleftbar.css)

-- GrahamSummers - 05 May 2006