How to create/customize a phpbb skin

February 22nd, 2005, 6:34 pm

For the purpose of this post, let's assume that your existing template is subSilver and that you want to create a template called yourname.

(Replace yourname with the name of your template - one word).

Start by making a copy of the directory called subSilver, which is located inside the "templates" directory of phpBB 2. Call the new directory "yourname".

Inside "yourtemplate," there will be two files that you need to rename:

subSilver.cfg - rename to yourname.cfg
subSilver.css - rename to yourname.css

DO NOT rename theme_info.cfg.

After that, you need to replace all instances of the words subSilver with the word yourname, inside the "yourname" directory. Use your HTML editor or other software to do a "search and replace" because there are at least a couple of hundred!

HERE ARE THE FILES YOU NEED TO OPEN AND EDIT!
theme_info.cfg
viewonline_body.tpl
viewtopic_poll_result.tpl
viewtopic_body.tpl
faq_body.tpl
index_body.tpl
install.tpl (if it exists, most likely it isn't there so don't worry.)
posting_preview.tpl
modcp_split.tpl
overall_header.tpl
posting_topic_review.tpl
privmsgs_body.tpl
search_results_posts.tpl
simple_header.tpl
simple_footer.tpl
NEW_TEMPLATE_NAME_HERE.css (subSilver.css)
NEW_TEMPLATE_NAME_HERE.cfg (subSilver.cfg)
admin/index_navigate.tpl
admin/page_footer.tpl
admin/index_body.tpl
admin/page_header.tpl
admin/forum_admin_body.tpl

Now you have to change the images. Open each one in your graphics editor and make whatever changes you want to - don't forget to make sure you're editing the images inside the yourname directory - NOT the subSilver directory!

When you're done with the images, upload the entire "yourname" directory to the templates directory on your server and chmod yourname/theme_info.cfg to 666.

Go into your Administration Panel on phpBB 2 and click on "Create" under Styles Admin. Select yourname from the drop-down list and complete the form using the values that you want - don't worry - you can tweak and make changes later on if it doesn't look the way you want it to at first.

When you've done that, click "Save Settings" at the bottom. phpBB 2 will tell you that you now need to export the theme.

To do that, click 'Export' under Styles Admin and select yourname from the drop-down menu. phpBB 2 should be able to install the theme automatically and report back to you that the export was successful.

Now you should be able to go into the "Configuration" panel under General Admin and select yourname from the drop-down list of available templates.

It's important to remember before you start that this isn't a quick job. It's going to take a fair bit of time and patience and trial and error to get your board looking just right - but it's worth it!

Quote:

-Originally written by admin on HostOnNet.com he deserves the credit for this tutorial

February 23rd, 2005, 9:53 am

this is better under the programing(i can't spell) section.

April 27th, 2007, 12:49 pm

Can you name any software I can do a "search and Replace" with? I started ranaming them manually but as you say there is a few of them to raname

[grinch2171]

April 28th, 2007, 11:20 am

Dreamweaver has the ability.

April 28th, 2007, 12:28 pm

grinch2171 wrote:

Dreamweaver has the ability.

Dreamweaver. I have that. How do I do a search and replace?

Thanks mate! =]

May 1st, 2007, 5:14 pm

Braggy wrote:

Dreamweaver. I have that. How do I do a search and replace?

Thanks mate! =]

Ctrl + F

May 4th, 2007, 2:03 am

best thing to do really is find a redesigned template and just make changes to the css file and graphics, change colors of the template by editing the css file and also make changes to the header graphic buttons, footer, etc.
i think thats the best thing you can do really, not worth spending time to do it from scratch