Change the Default Green-to-Black Gradient on All the Backgrouds?

I apologize in advance if this has been asked before, but I hadn't been able to find a comprehensive answer to the subject question.

Summing up what I have read in the Forum on the matter, it seems that the color changes need to be made to
includes/templates/my_template/css/stylesheet.css. I am using ver. 1.5.

I have been scouring through the stylesheet (and I do believe I am using the CORRECT one/in the correct folder b/c it was the one I had altered in an earlier successful customization), searching for the green color by basically pasting all the color codes I encounter into http://www.color-hex.com to id them. I have changed ALL the green shades to blue, but, alas, no changes are visible on my site.

Here is the url of what I am talking about: https://www.perfecthindsight.com

I would like to move away from the green-to-black color scheme to match the neon/fluorescent colors of my products. These would be the day-glo orange and the neon shade of yellow-green that you see there.

It seems to me I am missing something very basic in all this.

Thank you for your help and any insight. I am loving the Zen Cart, btw.. What a great package for me after the years of suffering with an inferior and half-assed cart.

Looks pretty much like the Classic template to me, which I guess you are trying to work with.

Most of the green I see is the green background image for the category/sidebox headings and such. Did you try changing those images either with another image or just a plain color-code background?

Also, did you not find a suitable free template to work with? There are so many new, free templates out now that one should be close to what you want...or may give new ideas of what you might want.

You can find many here:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forumdisplay.php?41-Addon-Templates

My main site - prommart com - is currently using the new TB Supreme template.

Picaflor-Azul has many free templates, use her template switcher here to see them:

http://www.picaflor-azul.com/free-demos/index.php?main_page=index&template_switch_id=preston_elite

SPH,
Thank you for your reply.
A 4-day-old Zenner, I didn't know about the free template options when I installed the cart last week. Now that I implemented the slide show and adapted the cart to my needs, I am a little nervous making what at the moment look like "drastic" changes. Another concern of mine (based completely on my negative 3 year experience with my previous "free" cart) is potentially decreasing the amount of available support to the creator of the particular template I choose vs the wider Zen community.

One of the things I love about Zen is this instant and helpful support I see users get in all the threads I read to help me start out. I do not want to lose/limit that by going with a template. That fear might be unwarranted, but it is very much real until I hear otherwise.

If I may, a follow-up question:

SPH:

Looks pretty much like the Classic template to me, which I guess you are trying to work with.

Most of the green I see is the green background image for the category/sidebox headings and such. Did you try changing those images either with another image or just a plain color-code background?

Where are these images stored? Can you please give me a path or a directory to help me out?
In the stylesheet.css I see various #image tags when the margins and alignments are defined. But where is color of their background boxes defined?

If there is a term by which the stylesheet.css (or whatever other document) refers to those background boxes that would be helpful too.
Thanks!

The image for the Classic template headers is called tile_back.gif and is in includes/templates/classic/images.

The rule where you find that image name will also contain a background color definition, if that's what you mean by 'background boxes'.

Before you go any further, it's really important that you create your custom template. http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?180-how-do-i-create-a-new-custom-template

Then you can move the files you've changed so far into your custom template folders and carry on.

Stevesh gave some info on working with the background images. And right now, it looks like your site is on the template default.

I just want to say that your fear of these free templates is unwarranted. Even where the template designer is long gone, most templates still have a support forum where others - including, I believe, Stevesh - come around and offer help where they can. And if you choose a Picaflor template, she is VERY active in offering support for her free templates on their various support threads.*

Just late last night I installed Picaflor's Newport Eco template on my secondary site here to see what it will look like:

http://www.fashion-mart.biz/

I'm not finished, but I think it looks even better than I thought. And no validation errors except for the social stuff on product pages.

But templates have been my main thing at Zencart, having tested many, so I can put one up pretty quick. But the free templates are pretty straight-forward to install and Picaflor's come with pretty good instructions.

Here is probably the oldest zencart collection of free templates, many going back to being based off the Classic template (not all newest templates are there):

http://(sorry, site offline)/zc150/

Hope you get where you want to go!

PS: If you don't mind, what was your other cart you are unhappy with?

=============

• My main pet peeve is people taking a nice free template and immediately want to begin changing everything from color to complete re-design, usually bringing the template down. FREE support from the designer may only go so far in such a case, but probably depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

One more thing about free templates. Some validate better than others when run through

http://validator.w3.org/

Personally, I prefer to begin with a template that is a green/pass on validation. My current template on prommart com doesn't completely validate, but I'll trade what I THINK are minor validation errors for an especially good-looking template. But I hope to eventually clean those errors up.

I have three Blingtheme templates on my demo site here (use template switcher)

http://www.prom-mart.com/demo-3/index.php?main_page=index&template_switch_id=estorenow

Now, these are examples of where the designer has disappeared and apparently gone out of business. These templates seem to me rather complicated with some validation errors. I consider these templates abandoned and up-for-grabs and hope to figure them out and fix them up someday soon.

SPH:

Stevesh gave some info on working with the background images. And right now, it looks like your site is on the template default.

Yup, that's the template_default appearance, which tells me you copied the stylesheet(s) from template_default/css rather than classic/css into your custom css folder. Nothing wrong with that, unless you were expecting the classic template appearance.

Even though the Classic template is installed by default, it isn't the default template, but rather an example of a custom template.

Steve,
While doing that, I think I screwed something up because all my sideboxes have disappeared :(

I now also could use a copy of the template_default version of the stylesheet.css. I backed the original up somewhere, but now I have too many stylesheets floating around in different folders and I cannot tell which one was the original/default. Can someone please post a link to just that one file or should I go to my downloaded 1.5 cart and try to extract it from there?

Thanks and sorry for all the trouble.

Sorry, I missed the last post by SPH and stevesh -

Your diagnosis is dead-on: I never backed up the default_template stylesheet.css working with it.
I ended up going to classic stylesheet which is an earlier 1.3 cart version because I cannot google my way to finding the original that I screwed up.
Well, *that *and the sideboxes.
Other than that, I figured out the color scheme I wanted Photoshopping tile_back.gif file to my preference. Thanks for that hint.

Triple self-follow-up.
That might be a new sub-topic record.

In any case, I figured some things out. One of them is what happened to the sideboxes. In copying/moving the folders around and changing the loaded template, all of the sidebox options got turned off in Column Box Controller in the back end of the store for that particular template which prob. appeared to be new to the shop. Guess the default setting was off for all of them.

That's right. Part of the process of selecting a new template in admin is clicking Reset on the Layout Boxes Controller page.

Not sure what you mean by having to use a 1.3 stylesheet (which is the same as the 1.5 sheet, anyway). You can download the 1.5.0 zip file at the main page of this site.