Sandvox Help
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# Design

The design of a site defines its "theme" or "look." Some people may also call this a "skin" or a "template."

The design affects things like the overall decoration and layout of the website's pages, the position of the sidebar, the fonts used, and the color of page elements.

To set the design of a site:

1. Show the Design Chooser by clicking the "Designs" item in the toolbar.
2. Click a design to select it. Scroll down the design chooser to see more designs.
3. Once you have chosen a design click the "Choose" button at the bottom of the design chooser.

Sandvox 2 ships with several dozen pre-installed designs, ranging from simple to complex, serious to fun. Each design is not only a unique look for a page, but a unique way of laying out the elements of pages as well. Such differences include:

- Placement of the sidebar to the left or right.
- Layout and position of the site menu: vertical or horizontal, wrapping to a second line or constrained to just a few items, etc.
- Size of the top area of a page might be large or small.
- Position of the footer might be at the bottom of the page or at the bottom of the sidebar.
- In some designs, the Home Page has a layout that differs from all other pages of the site.
- Pages with a sidebar might be similar to pages without a sidebar, or quite different.
- Some designs allow you to place a border around an object using the Inspector; others don't.
- Each design has its own set of fonts and colors; some designs even adjust the case of title text.
- Some designs have a fixed page width, while others stretch to fit the size of your web browser.
- Callouts are placed to the left of the text on some designs; to the right on others.

A website that was originally built using one design might not work well in another design. For example, a site with a large number of items in the site menu will not work on a design that only fits 6 or 7 items on the menu. If you change the design of a site, you may need to adjust some of the content to make it work.

## Additional Designs

Sandvox allows you to install additional designs. For more information, please see "Discover Plug-ins Window" and "Installing Sandvox Plug-ins and Designs."

Visit Sandvox Designs for an up-to-date directory of additional designs available from Karelia and from third parties, both free or for pay.

Users with CSS experience might be able to create new designs. This does require quite a high level of skill though, so we do not recommend it for the majority of users. If you do have a high level CSS knowledge, you can read the "Sandvox Designers Guide."

## Modifying Designs

It is also possible to modify an existing design, or use Site Code Injection to add additional CSS to override the current design's built-in settings. Again, this does require a reasonable degree of CSS knowledge, so we do not recommend it for the majority of our users.

## CSS Validation

Sandvox makes heavy use of CSS to create the program's designs. Where possible, we adhere strictly to the CSS specifications. However, like many other companies and websites, we sometimes need to use browser-specific CSS extensions to retain compatibility across all major browsers. This is kept to a minimum, but does mean that your Sandvox site's CSS may not technically be entirely valid according to the W3C's specifications.

## Related Articles

- Design Chooser
- Installing Sandvox Plug-ins and Designs
- Discover Plug-ins Window
- Page width
- Banner

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