[Tutorial] Random CSS with PHP

[Greg]

Hey.

Ever wanted a random CSS? If so read on.

Using PHP it is very easy to have a random style sheet. Use the following code

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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php
$stylesarray = array("red","blue","black");
echo $stylesarray[rand(1,3)];
?>.css">


Where it says red, blue and black, change it to your style sheets. If you have more than 3 eg 5 change [rand(1,3)]; to [rand(1,5)];

So when a user loads up a page, it could load black.css or red.css etc.

Thanks,
Greg

[UseLess]

Greetings,

There is a problem with the code above, array indexes start at 0 and not 1 and the count of items in the array is 3, but the 3rd item has an index of 2 so when 3 is the random number selected nothing is output. And the item at index 0 would never be shown...

Therefore....

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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php 
$stylesarray = array("red","blue","black"); 
echo $stylesarray[rand(0,count($stylesarray)-1)]; 
?>.css">

Solves it...

[robbie]

array functions have an inbuilt randomizing function.

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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php stylesarray = array("red","blue","black"); echo $stylesarray [ array_rand($stylesarray) ]; ?>.css">

or use the better random number generator: mt_rand()

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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php 
$stylesarray = array("red","blue","black"); 
echo $stylesarray[mt_rand(0,count($stylesarray)-1)]; 
?>.css">

[Basilakis]

Does anyone have any idea whow can we do that in phpbb... A drop down menu? And if user is loged to store the template he choose!

[DoubleJ]

What you should do if you want to randomize this in you phpBB
Put the randomize code in your includes/page_header.php
And make sure that the

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'T_HEAD_STYLESHEET' => $theme['head_stylesheet'],

$theme['head_stylesheet'] is replaced with the variable you generated out of this script.

[Basilakis]

ANd how can i make links so users can choose what style they want to use? ANd store this at the cookies?

[DoubleJ]

[quote user="Basilakis" post="27000"]ANd how can i make links so users can choose what style they want to use? ANd store this at the cookies?[/quote]

Well I don't know about the cookies.
But the change style mod from ktauber is a good one.
Although you have to make your own script if you dont want to insert all styles manually into the header(for the choosebox)
you can get it from:
www.ktauber.com