A few days ago Ikki made me aware of the fact that it's possible to insert HTML in your profile, which means that you can put CSS in your profile, which means that you can make your profile look like damn near anything you want it to.

Here's a quick overview of CSS that I've shamelessly stolen from W3Schools in case you have no idea what I'm on about:

quote:

HTML tags were originally designed to define the content of a document. They were supposed to say "This is a header", "This is a paragraph", "This is a table", by using tags like <h1>, <p>, <table>, and so on. The layout of the document was supposed to be taken care of by the browser, without using any formatting tags.

As the two major browsers - Netscape and Internet Explorer - continued to add new HTML tags and attributes (like the <font> tag and the color attribute) to the original HTML specification, it became more and more difficult to create Web sites where the content of HTML documents was clearly separated from the document's presentation layout.

To solve this problem, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - the non profit, standard setting consortium, responsible for standardizing HTML - created STYLES in addition to HTML 4.0.

All major browsers support Cascading Style Sheets.

In essence, stylesheets make it easy to make webpages pretty. Take a look at my profile or Ikki's. It's a fairly drastic departure from the default profile, but I basically just slapped on a new coat of paint.

The simplest way to do it is to just stick the CSS directly into your profile. Here's a condensed version of the stylesheet I used:

<style type="text/css">.ba, #what_do_you_think, #whats_hot, #your_world, #be_a_part, .header_block, .blog_end {border-style: none; outline-style: none;} A.content_regular:link, A.content_regular:visited {text-decoration: underline; color: #003399;} body {background-color: #FF6600;} .ynn_ctit, .box_title, .header_block, .odd_line {background-color: #FFCC66;} .ba, #profile_content, #causes_content, #subscribe_content, #block_c, #block_avatar, #your_world, #be_a_part, #what_do_you_think, #whats_hot {background-color: #FFFFCC;}</style>

Let's break it down. <style type="text/css"> is a tag that lets the browser know that you're putting in a stylesheet. The next part looks a bit convoluted, but it's really not.

The first major component consists of this: .ba, #what_do_you_think, #whats_hot, #your_world, #be_a_part, .header_block, .blog_end {border-style: none; outline-style: none;}. All that does is remove the border from anything surrounded by those div tags in your profile.

Here's the next part: A.content_regular:link, A.content_regular:visited {text-decoration: underline; color: #003399;}. All that does is change the color of some of the links and underline them.

Next we have the good part: the orange.

body {background-color: #FF6600;} changes the body's, or in this case the entire profile's, background to the classic orange.

.ynn_ctit, .box_title, .header_block, .odd_line {background-color: #FFCC66;} gives the listed elements a medium orange background.

.ba, #profile_content, #causes_content, #subscribe_content, #block_c, #block_avatar, #your_world, #be_a_part, #what_do_you_think, #whats_hot {background-color: #FFFFCC;} does the same thing, but the background's light orange this time.

</style> lets the browser know that that's the end of the stylesheet. Just like BBCode, you always have to close your tags.

If you want to write your own CSS, you'll want to start by learning CSS syntax. That explains everything better than I probably could. From there, just move through the other CSS lessons and you should be able to figure out everything you need to know.

Here's a little diagram that breaks down what does what in your profile: http://yn.itinvolveswords.com/diagram.gif

Also, if you're a lazyass but you'd nonetheless like a swanky old school orange profile, just copy and paste this into your profile:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://yn.itinvolveswords.com/yn.css" />

That links to the stylesheet that I use in my profile. It's essentially the same as what's posted above, but it's easier for me to update.

So yeah. Customize your profile--all the cool kids are doing it.

Nice use of my profile there, Khary.