Opp's That's done it..

Tam the man · Post by **Tam the man** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:55 pm

Hi Guys..

I am a Newbie to PHP and PHPBB2 although I have many years experience working with HTML and building and maintaining a very large website.

I have just today successfully installed phpBB2 and have been getting a feel for changing templates and colours.

I want to blend my new forum into a colour scheme similar to my website with a banner image across the top about the same size as the one on this page. The header image I currently have on my webpage is made up of three parts and is set in an HTML table to increase it's download speed..

Messing about with the subSilver template I created a new template just by changing the background colour to 800000 and appeared to loose everything. The page turned completely red and the text shrunk in size to almost a pixel. Luckly I managed to change the profile back to subSilver. Wow someone must be really upset that users want to make a few simple changes..

Is there a simple template I can use to experiment with safely without fear of loosing my forum. ?

Cheers Tam

Jleagle · Post by **Jleagle** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:28 pm

You can use any template for this, or even better, install a second board and play around as much as you like with no fear of messing up your real board.

Tam the man · Post by **Tam the man** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:09 pm

Hi Jleagle

Jleagle wrote:You can use any template for this, or even better, install a second board and play around as much as you like with no fear of messing up your real board.

Thanks I had thought of that but if just by making a simple background colour change I loose the forum completely surely something is really amiss with the template don't you think?

Regards Tam

Greenweaver · Post by **Greenweaver** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 12:07 pm

How did you create this new template and how did you change the background colour?

Tam the man · Post by **Tam the man** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 5:12 pm

Hi GreenWeaver

GreenWeaver wrote:How did you create this new template and how did you change the background colour?

Thanks for your message.

From the Admin Page I selected Styles Management subSilver Edit which opened the Edit Theme page and entered a new name. I entered the value 800000 (dark red) in the background color field clicked on Create then Preview Forum and selected my newly created template. See the description of what happened above. Just making that simple colour change rendered the template useless. I was really lucky to recover from it.

Regards Tam

Greenweaver · Post by **Greenweaver** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 5:52 pm

You just need to change your background colour and hit submit to apply the changes. Do not change the template description itself.

If you want to create a new style, follow this guide:
How to start a new phpBB2 style

rantbot · Post by **rantbot** » Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:21 pm

Tam the man wrote:I want to blend my new forum into a colour scheme similar to my website with a banner image across the top about the same size as the one on this page. The header image I currently have on my webpage is made up of three parts and is set in an HTML table to increase it's download speed.

I modified the file /templates/(template name)/overall_header.tpl by commenting out some stuff I don't use toward the top and putting in my own images and HTML. All of my site pages have a linked index to the entire site flanked by a pair of images, so now with the same images and index at the top, the forum looks very much like my other pages. The fonts don't match, though - the site is Times New Roman and the index on the forum page looks like Arial. I suppose that's on a CSS page somewhere; I haven't found it yet. But it's not too important, the visual integration with the rest of the site is good.

I managed to get a better visual match with the rest of the site using a template other than SubSilver. I found Aqua to be good. The letters don't show up too well in Aqua's "post reply" icons, but I modified those images slightly. You can see other styles at

http://www.phpbb-design.com/phpBB2_styles_demo/

Tam the man · Post by **Tam the man** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:59 am

Hi rantbot

rantbot wrote:
Tam the man wrote:I want to blend my new forum into a colour scheme similar to my website with a banner image across the top about the same size as the one on this page. The header image I currently have on my webpage is made up of three parts and is set in an HTML table to increase it's download speed.
I modified the file /templates/(template name)/overall_header.tpl by commenting out some stuff I don't use toward the top and putting in my own images and HTML. All of my site pages have a linked index to the entire site flanked by a pair of images, so now with the same images and index at the top, the forum looks very much like my other pages. The fonts don't match, though - the site is Times New Roman and the index on the forum page looks like Arial. I suppose that's on a CSS page somewhere; I haven't found it yet. But it's not too important, the visual integration with the rest of the site is good.

I managed to get a better visual match with the rest of the site using a template other than SubSilver. I found Aqua to be good. The letters don't show up too well in Aqua's "post reply" icons, but I modified those images slightly. You can see other styles at

http://www.phpbb-design.com/phpBB2_styles_demo/

Thanks for the advice I will certainly have a look at these demos..

All I really want to do is change the colours of the subSilver from blue to a deep red, add a bannerhead logo the full width of the page and a link to my website that would at least get my Forum active online. I can then go back and change a few other bits as the mood takes me.

Regards Tam

advertisements