The mailing list for listmasters using Sympa

[Olivier Salaün <address@concealed>]

Hi David,

David Mayo wrote:

> Can I get some clarification about how CSS files are handled in Sympa.
>  
Sure.

> When I upgraded from 5.2.4 to 5.3b.4 the process created a new directory,
> static_content, that had not been there in the previous version. Within
> that directory is a new file, style.css. Suddenly the CSS stopped working
> and I had to play around to get it back again. I settled on creating a
> symlink to the directory from Apache's DocumentRoot to the relevant place
> in the Sympa tree.
> [...]
> My questions are:
>
> - What file should I be editing to make changes to my CSS?
>  
Sympa 5.3.X introduced the new static content directory. The aim is to 
store in this directory all files that might be generated by Sympa but 
that don't change that often, ie the CSS. The Sympa documentation now 
states that you need to define an Apache  Alias directive to access this 
directory : Alias /static-sympa /home/sympa/static_content

If you wish to customize the CSS you should choose one solution among 
these :

  1. edit the css_url parameter to the URL of your CSS. Just make sure
     your custom CSS is not located in Sympa's default place (within
     static_content) otherwise it might be overridden during a Sympa
     upgrade.
  2. customize main.tt2 and hard-code your CSS URL in it

> - The button 'install static css' - does this simply take the relevant
> css.tt2 for that robot and turn it into a static version?
>  
That's right.
It used to be a usefull feature, but recent versions of Sympa 
automatically update the stratic CSS at sympa.pl startup either if the 
static CSS does not exist or if the css.tt2 has changed on disk.

> - Will I be 'penalised' for just editing the static style.css file without
> using the ccs.tt2 file? ie. will it lead to unexpected changes the next
> time I upgrade? Will it harm my ability to integrate with new planned
> features like stylesheets and icons? Or should I be editing css.tt2 and
> generating a static version each time?
>  
As I wrote above, it's safer to store your custom in a different place 
and just customize the css_url sympa.conf parameter.