Sermon Views - Styling and Controlling

Controlling the Width and Height

If you are using the SCRIPT method to embed your sermons, you can control the size of the sermon display by pasting the script into a table cell, and setting the table's WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes. The following example limits the width of the sermon display to 500 pixels, and guarantees that it will be at least 1,025 pixels high:

<table width="500px" height="1024px">
   <tr>
       <td>-- Paste Your Sermon Archive SCRIPT Here --</td>
   </tr>
</table>

If you are using the IFRAME method to embed your sermons, you can control the dimensions by setting the iframe's WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes. The following example limits the width of the sermon display to 500 pixels, and guarantees that it will be at least 1,025 pixels high:

<iframe width="500px" height="1024px"
src="https://www.sermonsonline.com/wrapper.htm..." />

Controlling Styling

The visual appearance of the sermons is controlled via a Sermon Style Sheet, which is part of your Sermon Site Settings page. You can learn about style sheets at the W3Schools' CSS Home Page.

By far the most important Sermon Style is "Default Sermon Text". This is the starting-point from which all other styles are defined. The default Sermon Category style, for example, is to enbolden whatever font is specified as the Default Sermon Text.

If you are using the SCRIPT method to embed your sermons, then the sermon view will inherit any CSS styles selected by HTML tags that you have defined elsewhere on the web page. For example, if you have defined styles for anchor text, they will be applied to the anchors generated in the sermon view.

If you are using the IFRAME method, however, then the sermon view will not inherit any CSS styles from the containing page. You can completely override the default styling for sermons by including a selector for the "sermon" class within the default style field. For example, the following value would set all sermon text to 11px by default, and disable underlining for all sermon link text:

#sermons {font-size:11px !important;} #sermons a {text-decoration:none !important;}

Controlling Content

By default, Sermons Online displays the "By Date" view, and shows 26 sermons per page. You can change this behavior by customizing the following URL parmeters:

• sermonsite_action selects how to display the list of sermons (by date, by author, etc.)
• sermonsite_selection filters which sermons to show in the view, based on a search key
• sermonsite_pagesize specifies how many sermons to display per page

Parameters are often used together. For example, sermonsite_action might be used to select a view, followed by sermonsite_selection to filter which sermons are to appear in that view.

Each parameter can be assigned a value using the equals sign, like this: sermonsite_pagesize=50. See the sections below for a detailed description of all the possible values that can be assigned.

Parameters can be used both in links to your web site sermon page, and in the code that you embed on your site's sermon page.

Here's an example of customizing a link to your sermon page. It sets the sermon page size to 50:

And here is the same example, but used in an embedded SCRIPT:

And now used in an embedded IFRAME:

Note: A word about the question mark (?) and ampersand (&) prefixes. When making a URL, the rule is that the very first parameter after the path to the web page is prefixed with a question mark, and any additional parameters with an ampersand.

Selecting Which Sermon View To Display

The following sermonsite_action values select how to view the list of sermons:

• sermonsite_action=view_index - view by Date (default)
• sermonsite_action=view_authors - view by Speaker Name
• sermonsite_action=view_topics - view by Series Name
• sermonsite_action=view_scriptures - view by Scripture Reference
• sermonsite_action=view_titles - view by Sermons Title

The sermonsite_selection parameter is used with sermonsite_action to limit the display of a sermon view to a matching search key. The search keys are any sort key that would normally appear in the view. All spaces in the key value must be replaced with plus ('+') signs. For example, if a series were named "An Important Series", you would express that as the search key "an+important+series". Search keys are case-insensitive.

Here are samples of using both of these parameters together:

• sermonsite_action=view_authors&sermonsite_selection=speaker+name filter to those preached by "Speaker Name"
• sermonsite_action=view_topics&sermonsite_selection=series+name filter to those in the "Series Name" series
• sermonsite_action=view_topics&sermonsite_selection=book+name filter to those tagged with the "Book Name" book of the Bible
• sermonsite_action=view_titles&sermonsite_selection=sermon+title filter to the sermon titled, "Sermon Title"

Displaying Just The Most Recent Sermons

A special sermonsite_action parameter can be used to display a short snippet of HTML that contains only the most recent sermon:

• sermonsite_action=get_current_sermon

This parameter finds the date of the most recently-delivered sermon, then lists just the sermons that were delivered on that date. Unlike the normal view, this parameter returns just a "snippet" of HTML text, suitable for embedding into a paragraph or table cell.

Displaying the RSS Feed of your Sermons

A special sermonsite_action can be used to display all the methods that a visitor can use to listen to your RSS feed:

• sermonsite_action=view_feeds

Displaying A Specific Sermon

The sermonsite_sermonid parameter is used in conjunction with sermonsite_action=view_sermon to display the cover sheet of a specific sermon.

• sermonsite_action=view_sermon&sermonsite_sermonid=nnnn shows the sermon cover page for sermon identifier 'nnnn'

Sermon identifiers are automatically assigned by the Sermon Publisher. You can read a sermon's identifier by inspecting any sermon link in any view and using the sermonsite_sermonid parameter value.

Setting the View Page Size

The sermonsite_pagesize parameter sets the number of sermons per page. Valid values are any number from 1-1000. Defaults are 26 for the Date view and 52 for all others.

If you need help with any of these steps, just sign in to the Site Manager and open a Support Ticket