Styling the Autodesk Forums to your liking

From https://www.w3schools.com/css/ …..

CSS is a language that describes the style of an HTML document.
CSS describes how HTML elements should be displayed.

 

We’ve seen several complaints about various changes to the Autodesk forums, and we thought we share some data on how to make things appear like you want them to. Feel free to use any of this as you wish, but by copying or downloading any of this, you agree that this data could change at any time, there are no guarantees or warranties being offered here that any of this will work. Use at your own discretion.

First off, we have not seen any changes to the names of the styles in use there. The same overrides we’ve been using for years are still working after the massive update last weekend. If the style names were changed, then these overrides would not be working.

The first bit of CSS code controls the background color of UNREAD thread titles when viewing a listing of threads in a forum, or search result page. Feel free to adjust the color, padding, margin, etc.

#lia-body .lia-content table.lia-list-slim .message-subject .lia-message-unread, #lia-body .lia-content table.lia-list-wide .message-subject .lia-message-unread, #lia-body .lia-content div.lia-list-slim .message-subject .lia-message-unread {
 background-color: #e9ff66;
 border-style: none;
 margin-left: 10px;
 padding-bottom: 3px;
 padding-top: 3px;
}

The next one as an example, will alter the Quick Reply edit box by making it much larger, and changing the background color and font.

textarea.lia-form-body-input.lia-form-type-text.lia-form-input-vertical {
font-family: "Courier New";
font-size: 1.5em;
height: 400px;
background-color: #bbdddd;
}

This last example will separate the signature from the main body of the post.

div.UserSignature.lia-message-signature {
 border-color: #000000;
 border-left-width: 1px;
 border-right-width: 1px;
 border-style: dotted;
 border-top-width: 1px;
 border-bottom-width: 1px;
 padding: 10px 90px 10px 90px;
 background-color: #dddddd;
}

What do you do with this data? There are various CSS extensions for Chrome and Firefox out there, one being named StyleBot. Enter the code (or perhaps just the object name) into the app per the apps instructions, then tailor the style as you see fit.

The table below contains a general listing of objects and/or styles, with a description. You can block the object or style using an AdBlocker, or use a CSS styling extension to alter the appearance.

Object Description
#lia-body .lia-content table.lia-list-slim .message-subject .lia-message-unread, #lia-body .lia-content table.lia-list-wide .message-subject .lia-message-unread, #lia-body .lia-content div.lia-list-slim .message-subject .lia-message-unread When listing threads, this will indicate UNREAD thread titles.
textarea.lia-form-body-input.lia-form-type-text.lia-form-input-vertical The Quick Reply edit box.
autodesk.i.lithium.com/html/rank_icons/*.png Those colorful and numerical “ranking” icons that appear next to a forum username
lia-header-nav-component-widget.lia-component-notificationfeed-widget-indicator This bell icon: 
tr.lia-list-row.lia-list-row-float Those “pinned” threads at the top of many forum listings
forums.autodesk.com##.lia-panel.lia-panel-standard.StringDisplayTaplet.Chrome.lia-component-common-widget-announcement Those static announcements at the top of the forums in general.
div.UserSignature.lia-message-signature The user signature block

Please leave a comment to share your success story, or to submit a new object name, or anything on this topic. Thanks.

7 Comments

  1. steven-g

    What a brilliant idea, I dable in html,css and never considered the options of using it on existing sites. Thank you for this.

  2. GlennM.QCMS

    I really want to try this out, but I have no idea how to apply these css settings to an existing website. Could you get me started on this?

    Thanks!

    1. rkmcswain (Post author)

      GlennM.QCMS – as mentioned above you need a CSS styler for your browser, such as STYLEBOT for Chrome.

      Some browsers may let you inject your own .CSS file by some means.

      Essentially, you want to alter the style of the page in between the time the page loads and when it is rendered in the browser. So you want your styling to load last.

  3. Steve Johnson

    It’s pretty telling that people are resorting to hacks like this to try to make the Autodesk forums usable.

    1. steven-g

      It’s even more telling that they are resorting to censorship over this, I turned in my EE membership over this, it’s a shame when what is supposed to be a Forum to allow users to help other users won’t even let you mention ways to help users use the Forums.

      1. rkmcswain (Post author)

        Hard to believe they are pushing away the very people who keep those forums going with free help for their customers.

  4. fader

    Ꮢemarkɑble! I have got much clear iɗea on the topic of from this paragraph.

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