MAKECSS.EX

PURPOSE

This program is intended to let you create the basic elements of a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) quickly and easily. It is aimed particularly at beginners to CSS, although experts fluent in the writing of CSS might also find it useful for doing a "quick-and-nasty" sheet, for minimising lots of otherwise boring typing, or for getting a new CSS off the ground quickly.

USEAGE

The program is run from a main menu with the following choices:

MAKE A CSS SHEET : MAIN MENU

Create or add to a CSS sheet
View CSS sheet
Save CSS sheet
Quit program

Just left-click on whichever you want to do.

1. CREATE OR ADD TO A CSS SHEET

When you are creating or editing a CSS you will see a list of offerings like this will appear:

CREATE/ADD TO CSS

body	Create specifications for the body of the web page.
p	Create specifications for a paragraph.
h1	Create specifications for a heading - level 1.
h2	Create specifications for a heading - level 2.
h3	Create specifications for a heading - level 3.
h4	Create specifications for a heading - level 4.
h5	Create specifications for a heading - level 5.
h6	Create specifications for a heading - level 6.
img	Create specifications for an image.
a:link	Create specifications for an unvisited link.
a:visited	Create specifications for a visited link.
a:active	Create specifications for most recently visited link.
a:hover	Create specifications for mouse-over-link.
finish	End CSS creation.

By left-clicking on one of these lines you select that element as the next one you will add to the CSS in progress (the last line ends work on the CSS and returns you to the main menu).

When you click a line above referring to an element,

If this is a new, empty CSS you will be asked to enter lines of comment. You can use these to identify and briefly describe the new CSS.
With elements other than 'body' and 'a:.....' (anchor), you will be asked if you want to qualify the style with a class. If you do, type 'Y', and enter the name of the class when prompted. The style will be qualified with the class name.
After this the program goes into a process of asking you to add properties to the current style, along with an attribute value for each property. If you don't want to add a property to the style, just hit Enter to skip the property; otherwise select one of the attribute values and that attribute will be combined with the property and added to the current style, which is continually updated and displayed on the left of the screen.
When all the properties available for the style have been exhausted the style is added to the CSS and the program returns you to the CREATE/ADD TO CSS menu, from where you can add another style to the CSS or to exit to the main menu.

2. VIEW CSS SHEET

Use this option to see the progress of your CSS sheet in full.

3. SAVE CSS SHEET

This will save your CSS to disk. You can do this at any time during the progress of your work.

When you left-click this option you will see a display of the names of all the CSS files in the current directory, or if there are no CSS files, the word '- none -'. Type the name you want to use to save the CSS text in memory (8 characters, without extension). Your CSS will be saved to disk in the currently active folder, and you will be advised of the success or failure of the save, after which you return to the main menu.

NB: Saving to disk will blythly over-write, without warning, any pre-existing CSS file having the same name as the name you typed, so take care with your naming.

4. QUIT PROGRAM

Pretty obvious. You will be prompted to save to disk if you have any work which has been modified but not saved.

HINTS AND TIPS

It seems almost too obvious for words to start a new CSS sheet by defining the properties for the body element, followed by defining properties of the p (paragraph) element and then class variants of p.
Not all the choices offered by the program will be to your liking. For instance, only a restricted number of colours are offered. It is impractical to offer all the colours possible in HTML. Use the colours available, then, using an ordinary text editor, load the CSS sheet and manually modify the colours to your liking.
There are lots of aspects of CSS not catered for in MAKECSS.EX. But using it, you are off to a good start and you can add the more tricky stuff manually in an ordinary editor.

MODIFYING THE PROGRAM

Since the program code is included, you can modify its text. If the program as written contains styles, properties or attributes you do not like, you can alter that; the alterations you need to do will be confined to the tables which appear at the start of the program. Similarly, if the program lacks your favourite style, you can add it, along with any properties it may have not found in the existing tables. When done and tested, rebind the program.
Just be sure to make a backup copy of the original source code before you start modifying, in case you make a muck up.