6.5 Renderer
You can continue to run your v6 styles on a site which had been upgraded to 6.5 or even 7. There is a simple config option in Easysite Manager, 'Use 6.5+ renderer.' *
If you leave this unchecked then although your site is running in 6.5 or 7, it will still render your v6 styles the same as it always did. If you tick this box then Easysite will render your styles in a slightly different way. These are the changes you need to make to accommodate that.
* This option may not be available to your user type. In which case, simply ask us to switch it on or off.
CSS
Probably the first thing Easysite style integrators will notice is that there is no longer one huge stylesheet, RenderEngine.css. This has been replaced by Style.css (in a default style), Master.css (in a master style), and Variant.css (in a variant style - rather than Custom.css)
Whether you're looking at Style.css or Master.css you will notice that it is a much shorter and less complex file than RenderEngine. Instead of containing hundreds of lines of code for all the main areas of the site as well as most modules and page elements, this stylesheet now contains just the main wrappers of the site and a few core pieces of styling.
But it also pulls in a range of library stylesheets which relate to specific modules or areas of the site, for instance, lib.promotion.css or lib.nav.css. This should make the css a little more manageable, with code blocks separated off into logical, self-contained sections.
Inheritance
One change which will not be immediately obvious is that where before you were advised never to touch the default style used by your site, you now can edit it, or even specify a different default style across your site. This change is due to the fact that in v6 Easysite upgrades could involve changes to the default style, and we wouldn't want to risk overwriting any changes you had made to your styles. In 6.5 this is no longer the case, so there is no need to keep it out of bounds.
So if there are high level changes you wish to make, or you want to remove some default directory or form styling, you can go directly to your 6.5 default style and make the change there rather than having to overwrite it in your master style, as you previously had to.
Page Template
There is a new admin bar for 6.5, called ControlBar. This can replace the v6 admin bar, which was called PageFooter. This new ControlBar has all the same functionality as the old admin bar, but is located at the very top of the page, whereas the old version appeared at the top of the content area of the page.
The control is called from PageTemplate/default.aspx, beneath the Start Content comment. It is simply a matter of switching out one placeholder for another. You do not have to be running the site in 6.5 mode in order to use the new admin bar.
Page Controls
Most of the page controls are unchanged. The exception is the new DocumentMasthead.ascx, which is intended to replace Pageheader.ascx (simply for consistency of naming convention). However, you can continue to use Page Header, if you prefer. It is simply a matter of telling default.aspx which page control to use.
