Step 8

Now we will move on to the "Colors" tab.  This is perhaps one of the most defining areas of your store since the colors you choose will determine the look of your store.  Unless you already have a color scheme for your business, it may be difficult to decide which colors will work best for you.  We suggest that you experiment with different color  combinations before making a final decision.   Default Merchant settings are shown.

• The "Body Link" will determine the color of all un-visited hyperlinks in your store including the "Product Name" link that appears next to the product image, and all category tree titles.  If you have a very dark category tree (side navigation bar) and a light background it may be a bit tricky to find a color that will work equally well on both, but there are ways to do it (for more on this topic click here). 

• The "Body Active Link" will be the color of a link that the customer is currently clicking on.  This one is usually viewed briefly, so it is not as critical as the first. 

• The "Body Viewed Link" will be set the color of all links that the customer has visited, and all issues that apply to the "Body Link" apply here as well.

• The "Category Tree" background will determine the color of the side navigation bar in your store.  If you do not want it to show up you can make it transparent by deleting ALL the text in the field and leaving it completely empty.

• The "Header Foreground" will be the color of all large titles (top left corner) on the category and product pages. 

• The "List Header Foreground" will be the color of the text that appears on the title bar on "Line Item" lists such as on the product list page.  If you are not sure what this means, click on the "Links" button in the top right hand corner of your screen and click on the hyperlink to your storefront.  Then click on the "Product List" button and you will notice that the Merchant default for the "List Header" is a dark blue bar with white text. 

• The "List Header Background" is obviously the background color for your list header.   This will replace the "dark blue" that is mentioned above.

• The "List Alternate Background" is one of the two colors that shows up on "Line Item" lists.  The Merchant default on item is light yellow.  You can see its exact location after you have added a few products and click on the "Product List" link. 

The other alternating color on the list should be the "Body Background" color, but in version 4 there is a bug and it does not show as such.  Unfortunately it displays as transparent, so if you wish to use a background image make sure to check your "Line Item" lists and make sure you are comfortable with the results.

• And last but not least by any means, is the "Navigation Bar Background".  This will determine the color of the top navigation bar on your site.  The top navigation bar is the narrow black line where the storefront, account, search, product list, basket contents, and checkout buttons are located.  It is a very narrow height in out of the box Merchant stores because the Miva Blades logo and all other buttons on the bar are less than 20 pixels high.  Once you upload your images (assuming that they are more than 20 pixels), the bar will become wider so keep this in mind when selecting the color.