New Look

Those of you who read this blog in an RSS reader may not have noticed, but this blog underwent some cosmetic surgery recently.

I used some instructions I found on Guy Burstein's blog, but some some modifications. So as a public service, I'm posting the instructions plus my modifications here.

Needless to say, you need Community Server 2.1 (or higher). First, you need to go to your blog dashboard, and select Global Settings, Change how my blog looks.

Pick one of the Paperclip themes. Then, go to the CSS Overrides tab and paste the following code:

 #content 
{
    width: 984px;
}
#masthead 
{
    background-image: url(https://blogs.msdn.com/photos/justsean/images/2621767/original.aspx);
    width: 996px;
}
#main 
{
     width: 726px;
}
#nav 
{
     width: 984px;
}

The problem with the default Paperclip themes is that they are a bit small. These CSS overrides make it wider. Once you do that, the default image won't fit properly anymore, so you need to include your own.

Guy was kind enough to include a PSD for creating the paperclip-integrated top-graphic, but unfortunately, the default sizes in that PSD didn't match the CSS he included. I've updated the PSD and put it up for download on Skydrive. This PSD includes the images I used on this blog, and over on the RSS blog (which also got the same surgery).

You'll want to replace the Motion layer in exactly that location and exactly those dimensions. For Photoshop users, (and perhaps other editors), you can use the saved selection to crop out images to exactly the right size. Another thing, if you use a different variation of Paperclip with a different background color, you'll want to change the bottom layer color to match it.

Save it out to a JPEG (I found that works better than PNG) and upload it to the location of your choice, and change the URL above to point to it.

Of course, you can feel free to use my title graphic (which is based on a photograph I took from the top of the Space Needle of the Seattle skyline).

Enjoy,
Sean