<ul>
    <li><?php if (is_home()) echo " class=\"selected\""; ?>><a xhref="<?php bloginfo(’url’); ?>">Home</a></li>
    <?php $pages = BX_get_pages();
        if ($pages) {
            foreach ($pages as $page) {
            $page_id = $page->ID;
            $page_title = $page->post_title;
            $page_name = $page->post_name;
            if ($page_name == "archives") {
                (is_page($page_id) || is_archive() || is_search() || is_single())?$selected = ‘ class="selected"’:$selected=”;
                echo "<li".$selected."><a xhref=\"".get_page_link($page_id)."\">Archives</a></li>\n";
            }
            elseif($page_name == "about") {
                (is_page($page_id))?$selected = ‘ class="selected"’:$selected=”;
                echo "<li".$selected."><a xhref=\"".get_page_link($page_id)."\">About</a></li>\n";
            }
            elseif ($page_name == "contact") {
                (is_page($page_id))?$selected = ‘ class="selected"’:$selected=”;
                echo "<li".$selected."><a xhref=\"".get_page_link($page_id)."\">Contact</a></li>\n";
            }
            elseif ($page_name == "about_short") {/*ignore*/}
            else {
                (is_page($page_id))?$selected = ‘ class="selected"’:$selected=”;
                echo "<li".$selected."><a xhref=\"".get_page_link($page_id)."\">$page_title</a></li>\n";
            }
        }
    }
?>
</ul>

in this case you would modify the class ".selected" from the stylesheet, to modify the look.

I use a different theme and for some reason modifying the css doesn’t work.

It highlights them when I mouseover but not when it is the main page.

Any more ideas?