use a print.css.

i once suggested creating a "print skin" and calling it with b2evo's "?tempskin" function for global use instead of creating print.css files for every skin, which made pretty much sense to everyone, somehow never has been put into usage.

tilqicom wrote:

use a print.css.

i once suggested creating a "print skin" and calling it with b2evo's "?tempskin" function for global use instead of creating print.css files for every skin, which made pretty much sense to everyone, somehow never has been put into usage.

sometimes good ideas take a while to be implemented!

Couple of drawbacks to a tempskin idea: first is that it means a visitor would have to use your "print" button. second is that it means all skins would have to have the same IDs and classes in order for the print instructions to work properly.

Using a print.css means it is part and parcel of the skin so it matches the IDs and classes, and the visitor (given no 'print me' button) will of course use file->print which will automagically use print.css ... assuming of course the media is defined that way.

mochababy wrote:

sometimes good ideas take a while to be implemented!

There's nothing to implement, all to be done is to make a skeleton skin with a few modifications.

EdB wrote:

Couple of drawbacks to a tempskin idea: first is that it means a visitor would have to use your "print" button. second is that it means all skins would have to have the same IDs and classes in order for the print instructions to work properly.

So ? I dont think that is really a disadvantage, after all, the goal is to print out the content and/or the content images stripped off of the skin

A random website from b2 home page:

http://blog.fiat-actions.be/blog1.php?tempskin=basic

that is pretty much what we need right

But it most certainly is a drawback. You can't tell everyone in the world to use the IDs and classes you want, or to use your print button. So now what?

why are id/classes a concern for printing ? and what better do you have to offer other than a print button ? switch automagically when ctrl p is pressed ?

What I really want is a "print" button in each blog entry so a reader can print just the article he wants to.

Any suggestions on the best way to do that?

I understand from EdB's comments that I could have a reader click on the blog entry to open it in a page containing only that entry and then use the browser's print function.

It's not as pretty as I like but since I'm not good with programming, I might have to go that way.

So, a couple of questions, following up on the thread here:
http://forums.b2evolution.net/viewtopic.php?t=18434 and the thread referenced in that one...

What folder does print.css go in? /blog/skins or /blog/skins/myskinname ?

Is it possible that when I put it in the latter, it got automatically copied to the former? Seemed like that happened.

Also, I don't understand where to put ".bSideBar" (just as one example) so that it doesn't print. I don't want anything to print except the blog title, date, author, and text.

Right now, my lines 49 and 50 of _html_header.inc.php in folder /blog/skins say:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="print.css" type="text/css" media="print" />

Does that look right?

I'm pretty much at a loss here... I'm capable of editing these files and occasionally of figuring out where a problem is, but that's about it at this point.