Theme editing clarification CSS Edits

[opentype]

The placing all edits in custom, will now double my work …

No it would double or triple your work to deal with the conflicts you create when editing the core files and update to the files come from IPS.  

as I us firebug in ff to find the bit needing editing, searching the CSS files for it them making change.

I also use Firebug. But by using the custom.css you can even skip a step, which is searching for the original use in the core files. You just copy the declaration out of Firebug and paste it in the custom.css. It’s faster and you also have all your edits together in one place, instead of scattered all over the core files. Another point for custom.css. 

… but there is the possible conflict of the two bits, original and custom.

The custom.css is loaded last, so if you custom declaration is not “weaker” than the default ​declaration, there shouldn’t be any problems. This kind of overriding is pretty standard procedure when working with themes of any web software. 

[Woodsman]

Yikes! I thought you meant the style blew up. That's weird.

​Like I said I I have no clue to this day on what I did wrong... But now with over 40 themes back in the works I have gone a little Poultry "Chicken" on doing the same mistakes again.

[Woodsman]

No it would double or triple your work to deal with the conflicts you create when editing the core files and update to the files come from IPS. 

I also use Firebug. But by using the custom.css you can even skip a step, which is searching for the original use in the core files. You just copy the declaration out of Firebug and paste it in the custom.css. It’s faster and you also have all your edits together in one place, instead of scattered all over the core files. Another point for custom.css.

The custom.css is loaded last, so if you custom declaration is not “weaker” than the default ​declaration, there shouldn’t be any problems. This kind of overriding is pretty standard procedure when working with themes of any web software.

​Looks as this should work perfectly....

But still have no clue on how it was I was destroying a whole test install doing this manually

Instead of the standard Fire Fox I use the  FF developers edition. (the dark backgroud is easier for me to read)

1st in FFDE I would bring up the test site and start my search for what I need to edit..

2 In my editor software "Edit Pad Pro" I created a new custom.css and a new .phtml as or when needed.

Went to the files and templates in the uploads folder and did a copy and past of the needed elements to the new custom.css and templates.phtml

saved them when I was done..... Totally destroyed the test board...

From here I still have no clue what caused this....