« Dummies guide to custom phpBB forum styles »

Introduction

This page is going to get ugly, fast, as I want my forum to be as accessible as possible and the default layout is frankly disgraceful in this respect, I feel.

Anyway, warts and all (as I learn myself) I'm going to copy the default subSilver styles and rip the guts out of it. When I'm happy, it can go back into the community, yep.

Making a start

(Ripped out and re) Installed phpBB 2.0.18

• Copy subSilver locally for editing and rename as a new folder. I'm using 'subAckadia', obviously you will substitute your own folder/style names here.
  
  
• Rename subSilver.cfg subAckadia.cfg
  
  
• Rename subSilver.css subAckadia.css
  
  
• Open theme_info.cfg and all the .tpl files in that directory. and:
  replace all instances of 'subSilver' with 'subAckadia' (or of 'YourStyle') and upload the changes.
  I used TextPad which allows you to open all the files and globally make the changes.
  
  
• Upload the changed files back, login as administrator, go to admin control panel and under 'styles management' click 'add'. Actually it didn't work for me (though I have been messing around before hand). The article on 'How to start a new style' points out that, If you don't see your new style in that list then you did something incorrectly (probably forgot to edit theme_info.cfg or forgot to rename subSilver.cfg).
  This wasn't the case for myself, so I took the option to edit subSilver, saving it as subAckadia. The second time I used 'create' selected subAckadia from the from down list under template and saved it. Either seem to work fine.
  
  
• In [General Admin ] configuration, change the default style to your new one and enter your forum's 'site name' and 'site description', making any other changes you feel comfortable with.
  Setting 'Enable Visual Confirmation' is a good idea as it helps stop automated entries by Spammers bots.
  Setting 'Enable gallery avatars' is a good idea for popularity but, personally, I'd be really careful about allowing users to upload their own files because of the risk of embedded viruses - and inappropriate images.
  
  (

Next to add a your own header and footer.

• In overall_header.tpl scroll down to <a name="top"></a> and insert your own logo (etc).




See especially: phpBB Syles for the real meat and veg!