I'd like to style a few HTML tables differently from the theme's "global" styling that I'm using on most pages. The usual methods--CSS inserts, inline CSS--don't seem to work on tables.

Any help is much appreciated!

Are you giving the tables a class or better, an ID, so you can address them through CSS?

<table id="table-3">....
</table>


CSS Insert:

table#table-3 {
...
}
table#table-3 td {
...
}

Thanks very much.

Turns out the problem was that the CSS override didn't take effect until I published. In "preview" or "private" the default CSS applied, apparently.

Is it possible to expand on this? E.g. styling individual cells within the selected table, as in

table#table-3 td#td-1 {
font-color:#666666;
}

I tried the above, but I cannot make it work

If the table TD cells don't have this class td-1 then it won't work. If you're creating the table yourself you could add the class

<table>
<tr>
<td class="td-1">...</td>
<td class="td-2">...</td>
<td class="td-3">...</td>
</tr>
</table>

CSS Insert

td.td-1 {
color:#666666;
}
td.td-2 {
color:#777777;
}
td.td-3 {
color:#888888;
}

Also, it's color, not font-color

Thanks. It works.

I'm still a CSS novice, and I couldn't see the difference between id (for the table) and class (for the cell), let alone the color thing. Better read up on that subject, I guess.

A ID should only appear once on a page. A class can appear multiple times, on multiple, even different elements: <div class="myclass"><span class="myclass">

I suggest to give elements both an ID and a class. That way you can "group style" all elements with the same class, and then, if required give each element an additional, individual style through its ID.

HTML:
<div id="myid" class="myclass">...</div><div id="otherid" class="myclass">...</div><div id="thirdid" class="myclass">...</div>

CSS:
div.myclass { width: 300px }
div#myid { background: red }
div#otherid { background: green }
div#thirdid { background: blue }

All 3 DIV#s will be 300 pixels wide, but each one has a different background color.

An ID has higher priority than a class:

HTML:
<table id="myid" class="myclass">

CSS:
table#myid { background: green }
table.myclass { background: red }

The table background will be green even though the red color was applied after the green color, and due to the CSS rule "later rule takes precedence over earlier rule" it should be red. But the table was already given the color green through its ID, and the class cannot overwrite the ID.

In CSS, ID's are referenced with a hash sign, classes with a dot

selector.classname { property: value; property2: value2 }
selector#idname { property: value; property2: value2 }

The selector (a HTML tag such as table, td, div, span, hr, p, a, ...) can be abandoned but should not (in my opinion) to avoid possible conflicts and unexpected results:

.classname { property: value; property2: value2 }
#idname { property: value; property2: value2 }

... unless it is desired to style multiple elements with the same classname. Then it can make sense to leave out the selector name (as shown above) for the sake of shorter code

It is also possible to apply CSS without ID's or classes, with just the selector. This is a shotgun approach as it will be applied to all matches on the given page:

p { property: value; property2: value2 }

... styles all paragraphs on the page.

Is there just a way to get rid of the theme's default handling of tables? I use tables a lot in a variety of different ways and it's extremely disconcerting to have code I've used for twenty years have no effect on the site.


Thanks in advance.

Go to the table option and blank things out

Where should the CSS that overrides the table settings from the theme go? In the css.php? Which part?

You never have to edit CSS.php, just put any overrides in ato->add HTML/CSS inserts->CSS inserts and then they become a theme option