Making Training A Little Different

I have recently completed a project where we provided a training environment (application and database server) on the same physical network as the production environment. We put in place a scripted backup and restore for each Friday night such that the training environment has a sensible up-to-date set of training data.

The fear however, was that given that our users had shortcuts to both environments, there was a risk that someone might log into the wrong system and not realise. Consequently, we needed a way of differentiating between the two environments which we accomplished via cascading style sheets as shown below:

Production:

Training:

Achieving this is very simple:

Open default.htm from the C:Program FilesBMCService Desk ExpressApplication Serverhtml directory and replace the line:

<table style="height:99%;width:100%;background-color:0069A5;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" border=0 bordercolor=yellow ID="TableLogin">

with:

<table style="height:99%;width:100%;background-color:FF0000;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" border=0 bordercolor=yellow ID="TableLogin">

Save the file. That sorts out the Login page which isn’t a great deal of use if your organisation is using “Windows Authentication!”

Open Merlin Theme.css from the C:Program FilesBMCService Desk ExpressApplication Server directory in notepad. Scroll down until you find:

.navLEFT
{
BACKGROUND-COLOR: #2188c9;
BORDER-TOP: #ffffff 1px solid;
BORDER-BOTTOM: #196697 1px solid
}

and replace with:

.navLEFT
{
BACKGROUND-COLOR: #FF0000;
BORDER-TOP: #ffffff 1px solid;
BORDER-BOTTOM: #196697 1px solid
}

and similarly find:

.navBODY
{
BACKGROUND-COLOR: #2188c9;
}

and replace with:

.navBODY
{
BACKGROUND-COLOR: #FF0000;
}

Save the file and you have the desired effect.

• css
• Service Desk Express
• training