Tip for: 04.02.18

A special, wacky edition for April Fools. (But it really does work.)

Sometimes you are working with Circulation windows open for multiple sites, and you are having trouble keeping track of which is which. There are several ways to keep track, such as using different browsers for different sites, keeping them in different-sized windows or on different monitors, or even putting sticky notes on your screen. The one we’ll look at today, though, dives into the fascinating world of programming tools supplied by modern browsers.


Look what I did for Christmas, in Chrome on my laptop, and it took me about 2 minutes:

Color Alexandria


Now, this isn’t permanent. This is a ‘change’ in the browser only, so when you refresh the page, it goes back to good old Alexandria. But it does stay in place while you move through Circulation, Items, Patrons, and Tools.

In Chrome, there is this cool little thing called Inspect. (There are ways to do this in other browsers, but this example will be for Chrome.)

Right-click anywhere on the background color (I go at the top near the Actions menu) and select Inspect.

Chrome Inspect


This opens up a wild panel on your right. Don’t worry, you don’t have to actually do any programming to get this to work.

Web Tools


The Inspect finds the area of code you selected, and in the Style of that code, you will see the light blue of Alexandria Circulation.

Hex code


Click inside that code, called a Hex code. You can Google ‘hex colors’ to get some different codes that will work. For this demonstration, I’ve found a lovely pink-red, #DF5C6A.

Change that code, and be sure to have the number/pound sign # before it. You will see the Circulation window magically change color!

Hex code


That may be good enough. But if you want to play more, right-click on the Current Patron or Current Item pane blue and Inspect. You can change the dark blue color to, say, #339366.

Hex code


It will take some more playing around, changing elements, before this looked totally good, but even just this much lets you easily tell this Circulation window apart from the others.

If you are doing this, you’ll want to know the Inspect Element icon at the top of the pane. This lets you click on a particular area and jump to that code. A must!


Did you try it? 

I’m impressed if you did—and I want to see what you came up with! Share with us at tipoftheweek@goalexandria.com and I’ll post results here!