Hi, I was trying to use the Curly Red on Black template for a new listing (I actually tried to apply it to an existing listing too). In the "Modify Layout" the section titles - Payment, Shipping, About Us etc - appear in a red-coloured text, which is what I want. Sections are in white text. BUT when I actually create or modify a listing, EVERYTHING appears in white text in "Curly Red on Black". Ie it seems to be ignoring its own code and doesn't actually look like the preview...??

Also with Curly Red on Black, it doesn't matter if you change the font style or colour in the item description - it ignores everything - and just puts white text in the template's default font. I changed text in my description to bright orange Comic Sans (awful I know but I was testing!!) and it still came up white, in the default serifed font.

I then tried the "Curly Red" template, which is on a white background. This fixed the problem of the colours - the sections appear in the red colour, and changes to the item description text do show up as the correct colours BUT you still can't change the font style. Eg I have all my listing text (and my Seller Details) specifically set to Verdana, but the Curly Red templates just ignore all that.

I was thinking of trying to cheat and set the Curly Red template background to black via customising it - hopefully that will preserve font colours - but it still doesn't fix font styles. (I do want the black background but the white template is less dodgy than the black one at the moment!)

I am pretty much a luddite at HTML and I am amazed I've worked out as much as I already have, but it's still relatively little

Anyone else experienced this or have any ideas?? Auctiva Support? I know it's a free template but I still have this expectation it should do what it says it's supposed to (sorry).

I also wanted to find out how to stop 'wrapping' the Seller Details text as it seems to go in a single long block just down the left of the listing, even after the pictures finish. On the template I've been using to date (Black Reflection), the text automatically stretches to the right hand side after the pictures finish...but if I can work out the font colours and styles that'll be a start


Thanks in advance!

I've had the same problems with the 'curly' templates. I just changed to another one instead
It's not just you. It wasn't exactly the look I was going for anyway, so I didn't even bother to try to fix it....have you filed a support request? Maybe Auctiva is unaware of the problem??

Nope, we're aware of it. Revised versions of the curly series should be out soon. In the meantime, look for

 #wrapper * { color: #fff; } 

and

 #wrapper * { font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif; } 

and change them to

 .acttbl { color: #fff; } 

and

 .acttbl, .section, .section_desc, .section p, h1, h2 { font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif; } 

That should give more flexibility with font family and color choice.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Auctiva Neil G.,

Hi Neil,
thanks for the reply and great news! I would like to try out that design so I look forward to the revised templates. I am glad to know that it isn't some gremlin in my PC only...and that I'm not going mad(der).

Er...not to be too pushy and all that, but...when you say 'soon'...?

I will try that HTML change on the weekend when I can uncross my eyes enough to find that in the code (I DO wish there was a way you could maximise the HTML code window when customising a template!!)

Many thanks to you also member_8880 for your reply and for confirming it's not just me - I always feel better when I know the universe is picking on everyone equally.

Cheers...EJ

I know what you mean about wanting to maximize the code window.

What I usually do is copy and paste the code into a text editor, such as Notepad, when I want to work on it. That way I can increase the window and text size, add spaces, use FIND and lots of other things without affecting the code.

The important thing is to use a "text" editor (a program that saves things as a .txt) rather than a program such as MS Word - which may add a bunch of junk to your code.

Then when you are done, you just copy and paste it back into the code window - be sure to press CTRL+A (Select All) inside the code window first - to be sure that you are pasting over everything in the box (otherwise you could get parts of the code repeated).

Good Luck

Neil,

When I try to modify the Curly Red template in the customize mode, the default code results in the "Description" heading being left justified, the wrong font, and wrong color. Seems that there is a bug in the template likely related to the other problems with font, but it now affects one of the basic template components preventing the work around you mentioned above.

Fortunately we had a similar issue come up earlier in the week, so I should know the answer to this one. Look for:

<h2 id="desc"><span></span>Description</h2>[DESCRIPTION_AND_IMAGES][PAYMENTINFO] 

and wrap it with a div that has a class of "section_desc". So:

<div class="section_desc"> 
<h2 id="desc"><span></span>Description</h2>[DESCRIPTION_AND_IMAGES][PAYMENTINFO]
</div>

This is code that is in the original template, but appears to get left behind when customizing. Also, see my first post above for a revision to the work around.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Auctiva Neil G.,

Neil - Perfect, that took care of it! Thanks for the very fast response time. I really appreciate it. Will you post back here once the updated curly red template is released? Until then, I'll just use the modified custom curly red template.

Thanks,

Geoff

Thanks everyone for the replies and workarounds etc, great to see.

Neil, I wanted to list some items today so I went with my other customised Black Reflection template. Thanks for the further info you provided which has helped others here too. Are you please able to give us a vague ball-park heads-up on roughly when the new versions of Curly Red (white) and Curly Red on Black (the one I'm after) might be available?

I did read and theoretically understand your instructions, but I'm actually just terrified of trying them

Katie, thanks for the tip and I'm glad you agree with me; I have on occasion copied things to a text editor. It's mostly when I've needed to find a word that I know is in there, but I just can't see it. And the line breaks etc can be useful; I tend to get a bit lost in all the <>...</> so I can't see if I've closed everything off.

What I've been doing so far, is just tweaking HTML but not using Standard view, and not using "Save and Preview". I seem to recall even these simple acts also add more code to the HTML. So I semi-accidentally worked out that "Update" is a Save, but without a Preview and without switching it to Standard view (which "Save and Preview" seems to do). So I've been tweaking, Updating, then going back to my listing and clicking on Preview from there to see the changes. Clunky, but with less chance of mucking up HTML code, at least for me (I did say I was a luddite).

Thanks again for all the contributions to this thread!
EJ

EJ - One thing that makes it easy to find Neil's sections to fix is ctrl-f when I have the edit screen open. I copy & paste a section of his text into the search box brought up by hitting ctrl-f and it takes me right to the part of the HTML code Neil is talking about.

Also, with HTML you can put hard returns into the code and it won't display when viewed with a browser, so once I've identified the section Neil is talking about I put a few returns before & after it to set it apart from the rest of the code. Makes updating it pretty easy after that.

-Geoff

Honestly not sure when the revised versions will get released, but will certainly try and post here when they do.

Many thanks Neil! Will just forge ahead using Black Reflection custom template, and have a go at customising the Curly one if I am feeling brave! Thanks again for the workarounds above.

Hi guys,

The revised versions of the curly templates have been released!

Hi Neil,

Sorry, have only just seen your post now. THANK YOU!!! Thanks to Auctiva for updating the templates, and to you for remembering to post here