MyCSS

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MyCSS is a WordPress plugin that allows you to attach your personal CSS stylesheet to your blog, regardless of the theme you might be using. This is useful for users who want extra control over the presentation of individual blog entries by using self-defined CSS classes without worrying about compatibility issues when switching theme from one to another.

Another reason you might want to use this plugin is if your blog uses other plugins that require CSS styling. While some blog themes support certain plugins “out of the box”, you can style them yourself using MyCSS and make minimal changes as you switches themes since they are all in one place, i.e. my.css.

It is always a good idea to not heavily modify a blog theme’s original CSS whenever possible (to make future theme update easier). Any extra CSS classes you added yourself can be put into MyCSS editor, which will definitely save you time managing your blog’s presentation in the long run.

The closest plugin I found that implements a similar function is “Fixed Stylesheet – Quick n’ Dirty Hack”. However, what is lacking in this dirty hack is the convenience of editing the custom stylesheet. Using this hack, one has to edit the stylesheet using a text editor, upload it to your blog directory via FTP, then only will any changes take place.

MyCSS plugin takes an extra step towards better organizing your custom stylesheet by adding a new panel under “Presentation” menu that allows you to do instant changes to your stylesheet easily. ;)

For your information, this site is powered by MyCSS and you can take a look at the stylesheet to have a feel how would one utilize it.

See MyCSS in action

For advanced users…
If you make heavy use of “Edit CSS” feature found in Firefox’s Web Developer Toolbar while stying your WordPress blogs, then you’ll definitely increase your productivity by having an extra tab opened with MyCSS and copy desired CSS changes directly from Edit CSS panel into MyCSS textbox. Save, refresh, done! :D

Features

• imports user-defined stylesheet, independent of blog theme used
• provides convenient stylesheet editor in admin panel for fast editing
• does not write to your WordPress database

Usage

Once activated, you can either upload your self-defined stylesheet to “wp-content/plugins/MyCSS/my.css” or copy and paste your CSS codes into the editor under “Presentation” menu.

Make sure “my.css” is writable on your server, a “644″ permission should suffice. Below’s the message you’ll see if “my.css” is not writable:

my.css is not writable

Similarly, if “my.css” cannot be found, you will get the following #68 of mycss.php – the result looks like this on mine:

rows=”25″ cols=”120″ tabindex=”1″

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