Skin Mod

[miskie]

Oh, I forgot to add, if you repoint your $imagesdir you can have distinctive buttons for each Theme as well  

[Jeff Lewis]

Hmm, I don't remember ever saying this:

http://chaos.miskie.net/chaos2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=98

 

[miskie]

I dont think it was specifically you who said that.. If I remember, somewhere in the massive SE Future thread it was said that user selectable themes/skins would change too much of the existing code, and that it would be best to wait for a complete rewrite - YaBBSE2...

I remembered that after seeing the resurgance of the them/skin mod idea again, and I knew there had to be an easy way to do it..  

The post is several months old..

p-p-p-p-pppuh-leeze dont beat me senseless  

[David]

So how close is this to being ready to download and use?

[Jeff Lewis]

Where is my trout when I need it?

It's actually quite easy so it's nice to see the users coming up with some code changes, it's what will make YaBB SE a better system...

Users always seem to have a knack for some cool ideas

[David]

Where is my trout when I need it?

Am I getting beaten again?

[miskie]

Where is my trout when I need it?

Ahh, Fish-slapping Dance... The Python is strong with this one...

[miskie]

So how close is this to being ready to download and use?

At this point, it isnt even close to being a downloadable/installable mod..  But it does work when implemented by hand..

BTW, I think the trout-threat was meant fer me  

[Jeff Lewis]

Hehe hey, whoever wants the trout, gets the trout  

[Chris Cromer]

Well, I am making the mod for installation. I am planning on letting each user pick a skin they wan't to view the board with and let the admin pick a skin for the default of the board in the installed 'mods' settings and options menu.

Of course right now I am just setting up the drop down menu in the mod settings page in the admin center. Then I am going to use dbmod.php to make the tables.

After I finish the skin thing in the admin center, I will begin adding a drop box to the edit profile page that will allow them to pick a skin. This is more effective than your because they would have to go to the directory they wan't the board to look like. Mine will show on the regular board whenever a skin is set and the user is logged in.

[miskie]

Right, But it would be fairly easy to add to the users profile the directory that the theme is housed in, and upon login, issue a quick redirect..

you could also add a jumpbox to the main directory that will allow a user to swich themes on the fly.. Select/redirect

The biggest negative I see to my approach is redundant .php files in each theme..  Your approach would avoid that, but, yer gonna have to modify a bucketload of code to do it...  So I guess its efficent code (you) versus lazy code (me)...   Isnt that always the way ??  

The best thing I see coming out of this IMHO, is the skin problem will be solved finally    

[Chris Cromer]

I am thinking about making it use the css's only for the looks but still use the regular template.php file. This way it will use the same template but just change the way the scheme and buttons look. For instace one of my boards has a .gif file at the top called chris.gif and I would have to define it in each template... but instead if I use css's only it would keep the image at the top and change the color and style a bit. I think this might be the best way for me to go about doing it.

[miskie]

So, it would be less of a themes mod, and more of a colors mod...

That would be pretty easy, its just a matter of defining a field of variables..

actually, It would also be relatively simple to allow users to tweak their own colors, and save the matrices to their profiles using an SQL field...

thats kinda how the colors part of the Colors/Themes mod for YaBB works, without the SQL backend..

I, myself am loking for total conversion. Ill work more on my concept when I have some free time, pro'lly this weekend.. I went about mine bass-ackwards, Ive made the effect I want, now I need to get the controls in place to make it user-friendly...  

[Mach8]

Yep,  using CSS files is much better, another benefit is that the browser caches them, so they only have to be downloaded once.

It would ensure a consistent design, but variable colour schemes. This is a much better idea than editing the template itself.

[Chris Cromer]

Well I have the admin center part out of the way, only one part left to do... the user profiles.

Here is a pick of what the skins in the admin center looks like:


I have tested the skins and they fully work. I have been able to flip between skins and watch my board changed in appearance.

I need to make it so that each user can define their own skin they will see when they are logged in. But other than that it is starting to come together.