Replies

Actually, there is a way to do this for you on the beta site. It isn't that difficult, although if you aren't familiar with cascading style sheets, this may seem strange to you, and the way to do this isn't documented well yet. But here goes.

Log in to the beta site here.
Right click this following link and ssave the file to your hard drive: http://beta.FreeRepublic.com/css/normal.css
Open that file using wordpad or some other text editor.
Find the section near the top that starts with:
```

BODY 
{ 
```
Make it look like this:
```

BODY 
{ 
     BACKGROUND-COLOR: ivory;
}
```
Or choose some other color that you like for your background.
Save your changes to that file.
Go to this link here.
On this page, there is a browse button. Click it, and then navigate to find the saved version of the file you just edited. Then click upload.
Then go to this link. On this page, enter the following in the text box:
```
/perl/css
```
Press the update button.

There, you now have FR with the background of your choice. This may seem like a lot to go through to change something like that, but if you know how to use cascading style sheets, it allows you to basically control tons of the way pages look on Free Republic.

I kind of like the style sheet I am using. If you want to see what FR looks like for me, then take the following and save it to a file on your hard drive (call it something like dales.css) and then follow the above directions, except instead of uploading the version of normal.css you edited, upload that dales.css file. Follow the rest of the directions and voila!

Also, on the link given in step 9 above, there are a few options for stylesheets that John has provided that you can choose instead, and there is a link to reset your stylesheet to the normal look. Anyway, here is my sheet for those who are interested:


/*
 * Sans Serif
 * ------------
 */

A {
    text-decoration: none;
}
 
BODY 
{ 
    BACKGROUND-COLOR: #d1eeee; 
    BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat; 
} 

BODY.menu B {
    font-family: "Arial Black";
    font-weight: normal;
}

BODY.menu .content A:link, BODY.menu .content A:visited {
    color: #779;
}
 
 
DIV.text BLOCKQUOTE 
{ 
    margin-left: 10px; 
    margin-right: 10px; 
    PADDING-BOTTOM: 1%; 
    PADDING-TOP: 1%; 
    padding-left: 1%; 
    padding-right: 1%; 
} 

.header {
    padding-bottom: 5px;
    border-style=outset; 
}

.title {
    font-size: 110%;
    padding-bottom: 3px;
}

.title B {
    font-weight: normal;
}
 
.thread { 
    border-style=outset; 
} 
 
.sb { 
    PADDING-BOTTOM: 1%; 
    PADDING-TOP: 1%; 
    padding-left: 1%; 
    padding-right: 1%; 
    border-style=outset; 
} 
 
.msg { 
    border-style=outset; 
} 

.meta {
    font-size: 90%;
}
 
.meta B { 
    font-weight: 500; 
} 

.text { 
    margin-left: 15px; 
    margin-right: 15px; 
    PADDING-BOTTOM: 1%; 
    PADDING-TOP: 1%; 
    padding-left: 1%; 
    padding-right: 1%; 
    border-style=inset; 
} 
 
.msg .nav, .thread .nav, .meta {
    margin-left: 15px;
    margin-right: 15px;
}

.nav A:link, .nav A:visited {
    font-size: 90%;
    color: #009;
}

.deleted {
    padding-left: 5px;
    padding-right: 5px;
    padding-top: 10px;

    border-left: thick solid red;
    border-right: thick solid red;
    background-color: #ffcccc;
}