Choosing website colors (Web Publishing mode only)

A website may have an adopted color scheme, selected by using the Schemes tab. Each scheme has a name and consists of five complementary basic colors (plus additional web colors) which you can apply to any design element (see Using color schemes).

A selection of schemes (named “WWW 1″ through “WWW 9″) appearing at the bottom of the tab’s scheme list are specifically designed for web use.

The currently set color scheme is also shown at the bottom of the Swatches tab for convenience. For example for the color scheme “WWW3″, numbers or letters represent basic or web color sets, respectively:

PagePlus tab swatches schemesweb Choosing website colors

Web colors

Websites have several special web color settings, usually defined as part of a color scheme in the Color Scheme Designer. You’ll need to know about these settings, even if you haven’t applied scheme colors to other elements in your site.

  • The Hyperlink color (labeled H above) applies to hyperlinked text before it’s been clicked on.

  • The Followed Hyperlink color (labeled F), applies to hyperlinked text after a visitor has clicked to “follow” the link.

  • The Active Hyperlink color (labeled A), applies to hyperlinked text when a visitor’s mouse button is depressed. Typically this is the color shown after clicking and before the hyperlink’s page is displayed.

  • The Rollover color (labeled R), applies to hyperlinked text when a visitor’s mouse button rolls over it.

  • A website’s Background (labeled B) is a solid color which will fill any blank space left in the browser when displayed on a larger screen.

  • The On-page color (labeled O) allows you to have a distinct color for the defined page area. If set to transparent, it will display the current background color.

  • Click the PagePlus tab schemes schememanager Choosing website colors button to access the Color Scheme Designer.

PagePlus websch Choosing website colors

In Web Publishing mode, color scheme samples in the Schemes tab show some web colors along with the five basic scheme colors, as shown at left.

The easiest way to apply new web colors is to select a different color scheme by clicking a sample on the Schemes tab.

You can also change any of the web colors within a scheme using the Color Scheme Designer, in the same way that you would modify the scheme’s five basic colors. See Creating custom schemes.

The web colors defined in the Color Scheme Designer normally apply throughout the site, but you can override the current scheme’s on-page and background color setting for one or more specific pages. See Setting custom backgrounds.

Using background images

You can include an image as a background instead of using the background color at any time. Being part of a scheme, the image background will apply to all of your site’s pages unless custom image backgrounds are used for individual pages.

To set a background image for a scheme:

  1. Select Color Scheme Designer… from the Tools menu.

  2. Under Background Image Properties, click Change.

  3. Check Use Background Image, click Browse…, and locate then select the image from the Import Picture dialog. Click Open.

  4. When checked, Scrolls with page scrolls the image background independently of the page contents in the browser window; if unchecked the background cannot scroll with page content.

  5. The Repeat drop-down list controls how your image is repeated on the background (Horizontal, Vertical, or Tiled). The option None places just a single image.

  6. The Position drop-down list sets the position of your image (e.g., Top Center). For repeating image backgrounds, the image is repeated from this initial position. You can also specify a Custom… position, which sets the image’s position in relation to its top-left corner.

  1. Click OK.

All site pages using the scheme will possess the chosen image background.

  • If you use a background image with transparent regions, the Background color is still active and will show through; otherwise the image will cover the background color.

  • If an on-page color is set in your scheme, it will be shown on the page in front of the background image. If you make the on-page color transparent, the image background shows, making the page boundaries invisible (content is still constrained to page dimensions).

Setting custom backgrounds

The web colors defined in the Color Scheme Designer normally apply throughout the site, as described above, but you can use a background image or override the site’s on-page and window background settings for any particular page instead.

To set a custom background image:

  1. Select the page from the Pages tab.

  2. Choose Web Site Properties… from the File menu.

  3. From the dialog’s Background tab, uncheck Use Scheme Designer settings and check Use Background Image, click Browse…, and locate then select the image from the Import Picture dialog. Click Open.

  4. Adjust the scrolling, repeating and position options.

  5. Click OK.

To set a custom on-page and background color:

  • As above, but select a page color from the On-Page drop-down list.

  • For an off-page background color, select a color from the Background drop-down list. Select More C
    olor…     to optionally pick from a Color Selector dialog.

Choosing website colors