[Theme Twenty-Twelve] Lost my blue hyperlinks in 2012 theme

You could install one of these Custom CSS plugins and keep your CSS there.
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search.php?q=custom+css

This will keep your modificaitons separated from theme file and won’t be lost in the next theme update.

This bits of CSS control link color in sidebar area of Twentytwelve.

.widget-area .widget a:link { color: blue; } /* content area uses  #21759b */
.widget-area .widget a:visited { color: gray; }
.widget-area .widget a:hover { color: darkblue; }
.widget-area .widget a:active { color: red; }

Thanks so much, Paul. I’ll give these suggestions a try!

Paul – I did what you suggested – and thanks so much for helping me do this scary new thing (for me!) – and it appears to be, strangely, only partly successful. Take a look: https://www.theclassicalgirl.com. Some of the links are the blue I longed for, and some aren’t. No clue why some remain grey.

One last question for you: this was successful, at least in part, for the sidebar. Any suggestions on custom CSS code to write for the static home page, to make them show up blue as well?

Thanks for your help!

Use this code (instead of that).

a:link { color: blue; }
a:visited { color: orange; }
a:hover { color: red; }
a:active { color: red; }

.widget-area .widget a { color: blue; }
.widget-area .widget a:hover { color: red ; }

a.comment-reply-link, a.comment-edit-link { color: blue ; }
a.comment-reply-link:hover, a.comment-edit-link:hover { color: red; }

.comments-link a, .entry-meta a { color: blue ; }
.comments-link a:hover, .entry-meta a:hover { color: red; }

.comments-area article header a { color: blue; }
.comments-area article header a:hover { color: red; }

.comments-area article header cite a { color: blue; }
.comments-area article header cite a:hover { color: red; }

Change color if you like, but it should follow the same pattern.
https://www.workwithcolor.com/color-chart-full-01.htm

On another subject, it seems you haven’t setup permalink yet.
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Using_Permalinks

If nothing come to mind, just go with “Month and name”. Whatever permalink structure you choose, stick with it forever, do not change back and forth.

also, custom nav menu is configurable too.
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/WordPress_Menu_User_Guide

Paul – thanks so much for the comment about the permalink. I’m using the default right now. I tried doing something customized once, to solve a different problem, and it broke down a link to an important article, which horrified me, so I returned it to default, and I’ve been afraid to touch it since then. Do you think it will mess things up now, with 60 posts? I suppose I could answer my own question and give it a try. But I’m always afraid of losing out on reader traffic. (The last time 25 readers were directed to “subscribe” instead of the timely article they’d come to read. Very depressing to discover, as those were great numbers for that morning, that article.)

Now back to custom CSS issue. On the down side, I tried your code revision and nothing changed. : ( Still a few links showing up blue, and most of them remaining grey.

Paul – I took the bold leap and clicked on a permalink option, and to my delight, along with nothing imploding or being redirected to the wrong place, the sidebar links all showed up as blue! But then, ironically, once I had clicked on them, they returned to their grey color. Yikes! Why won’t it stay permanently blue?

Am very grateful, though, for your suggestion on setting up a permalink besides the default. Now the URL shows the name of the article/blog, which will be quite helpful. Thank you for nudging me in that direction! Will check out the custom nav menu configuration options, as well.

Anyone else out there dealing with the intermittent blue-to-grey hyperlink issue? Any other solution thoughts?

Try this:

.widget-area .widget a:visited {
color: #orange;
}

Thanks, Stacy! Darn… it didn’t change anything. : (

Grrr. I wish I could figure out how to make a dent in all that grayness! But I’m soooo appreciating these suggestions!

I think stacy forgot to remove the hashtag.

Andrew, you were right, and it worked on the sidebar links when I did that! Actually, I decided to keep the links all blue, read and unread alike, so now all my sidebar links are in blue, which is a great thing. Thank you all so much, Andrew, Stacy and Paul.

But of course that leaves me with the next question: how to set up the custom CSS code to make blue each of the hyperlinks for the text (both on the static home page and throughout the 65 posts). Suggestions? The home page, in particular, seems to need the color.

And now, out of curiosity, is there a lighter blue available (much like the Word Press blue that I see here on this site) or is it just that bright hyperlink blue? I know, how rude of me, to have help with getting my problem solved, only to say, “yes, but now I want a BETTER blue,” but that seemed to be what it was before I clicked on today’s “upgrade.” When, just now, I typed in “light blue” I didn’t get that color. Am happy to stick with bright blue over grey, but I thought it was worth asking.

Time to learn about color codes! Go to this webpage and choose a blue color you like. Then you will see a six digit hex code below the circle to the right, for example 1240AB. Put this code with a hash tag in front of it like this: #1240AB in the code instead of the color name.

Then play with your link colors to your hearts delight!

WordPress blue is #21759b.

OMIGOD I’M SO HAPPY!!!

Er, sorry about the caps, there. Stacy, thank you!!! It worked and now my sidebar looks like it did pre-upgrade! Exactly what I wanted to see. Thank you sooo much.

All right. Still need to figure out how to add the same color to the hyperlinks within the posts. If anyone has ideas, I’d love to hear them.

And now I have this question. When you want to further customize something via CSS, do you just write the message below the stuff I’ve created today? Does there need to be a break between subjects? Does one customization ever override another?

Apologizes for the stupid questions; I am such a beginner at this!

Thank you so much for the help!

Try this:

/* Change the color of visited links in a post and comments to WordPress blue */
.entry-content a:visited, .comment-content a:visited {
color: #21759b;
}

Yes, just add the code below what you have added today. One thing that is good is to comment your code, so you can remember what you did.

To make a comment just add /* in front of the line of text and */ to at the end of the line of text.

This following is a comment:

/* I am adding some code to change the links to WordPress blue after the link has been visited */

I added a comment to the code above. Try commenting your code next!

There are a lot of free CSS and HTML tutorials online. I suggest you do that as well.