Could someone explain STYLES

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  • JoshFink
    Senior Member
    • Feb 2001
    • 292

    Could someone explain STYLES

    In particular can you explain :

    When I create a new style when would I Replacement set of "NEW" vs "Default" and when would I use Template set "NEW" vs "Default"

    Also, is the significance of user selectable to let them change their Style to suit their taste?

    Thanks for the help,

    Josh
  • JoshFink
    Senior Member
    • Feb 2001
    • 292

    #2
    Anyone?



    Josh

    Comment

    • JoshFink
      Senior Member
      • Feb 2001
      • 292

      #3
      Come on.. Someone has to have a great explanation of this. It's not in the documentation or I definately wouldn't have asked. (well, I might of, but not knowingly )

      Thanks,

      Josh

      Comment

      • Jose
        Member
        • Feb 2001
        • 58

        #4
        Need Documentation

        I agree. I expected more documentation.
        I hope that it is forthcoming. Everything I have
        ever learned about computing is from books.
        I definitely would not go to forums for everything.

        So guys, get that book written!

        Comment

        • Jeffrey
          New Member
          • Jan 2001
          • 29

          #5
          Really, you answered your own question. you can use a new style any time you darn well feel like it. You can set the new style for a board or two, or you can let members choose what style they like to use best through their profile, or you can not use styles at all.

          Full documentation will be provided when vB 2 is out of beta and in a final version. Notice, final version 1.1.5 has documentation, and as noted previously on the board, so will version 2.

          Comment

          • Wayne Luke
            vBulletin Technical Support Lead
            • Aug 2000
            • 73981

            #6
            Styles
            Styles are made of of Replacement Sets and Template Sets. By combining these two different customization tools you can completely customize the look of your forum as a whole or individually. The main use for having differing styles is to provide co-branded forums to your partners or to give your members several different looks to choose from.

            Creating Styles
            -------------------
            When you create a new style you are presented with 4 options.
            1. Style Name. If you wanted a Urban looking style you could call it "Urban"
            2. Replacement Set. You can set this to one of your existing replacement set or create a new one. The new set will be named the same as your style set. You only need to create a new Replacement set if your color or fonts will be different from the default colors you set up on your board originally.
            3. Template Set. You can set this to one your existing template sets or create a new template. Creating a new template set allows you to create and entirely new look and feel.
            4. User selectable. This comes into effect if you allow users to select the look and feel they want in their User Options Control Panel. If set to 'YES' users will be able to change the look and feel of your forums to this style.

            Replacement Variables
            These are variables that you can put into your templates. As vBulletin is drawing your pages it will replace these variables with the actual value you enter. Common Replacement variables will inherit their properties from the original global set. There is no limit to the number of replacement variables you can create. These are organized in Replacement Sets.

            Templates
            Templates control the look and feel of your entire site. This are a combination of HTML, replacement variables and PHP variables. The PHP variables contain the actual content of your code and the information pulled out of the database. You can control everything about the look and feel of your forums through the templates. This gives you a high degree of control over your customizations without ever touching the code. These are organized in Template Sets.

            Using Style Sets
            By mixing and matching templates and replacements in styles you can come up with create and unique looks without touching the code.

            An example
            Let's say you want to make your forums available in red, blue, green and yellow but all have the same overall look.

            You can do this by simply creating four different replacements sets (one for each color) and assigning the proper values to the variables in that set. Using the { imagesfolder } replacement variable you can point the style to a new folder with images of the proper color.

            Once that is done you simply create a style set with the new color replacement set using your default templates. Repeat this for each color and you can have four different looks for your members to choose from.

            Custom Forums
            You can also create custom looks for individual forums or groups of forums. To do this you would create your look and feel and then assign the Style Set to the forum in question.

            To do this edit the forum and set the appropriate style in the drop down.

            Notes:
            You only need to edit the templates necessary to achieve your desired effect. Each template set contains approximately 400 templates yet you can achieve a a unique look and feel editing as few as two of these (header and footer).

            Do not edit the vbulletin.style file that ships with the product.
            Last edited by Wayne Luke; Wed 28 Mar '01, 7:56am.
            Translations provided by Google.

            Wayne Luke
            The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
            vBulletin 5 API

            Comment

            • Me2Be
              Lady Moderator
              • Jun 2000
              • 2504

              #7
              Wayne, you are awesome!

              Comment

              • JoshFink
                Senior Member
                • Feb 2001
                • 292

                #8
                Wayne, That was great.. Thanks for all your help...

                Josh

                Comment

                • Jose
                  Member
                  • Feb 2001
                  • 58

                  #9
                  Thanks Wayne

                  Thanks Wayne,

                  Still I can't wait for a book, or more robust manual.
                  Don't get frustrated with newbies. Remember,
                  we don't have your frame of reference (experience).
                  I'll be patient if you all bang that manual out.

                  Great program though. Will buy another next month.
                  Jose

                  Comment

                  • Craig A
                    Senior Member
                    • Apr 2000
                    • 620

                    #10
                    Originally posted by wluke
                    When editing your templates you need to not touch the global templates installed by vBulletin as originals. These will get overwritten when you upgrade. These templates are protected in the control panel but accessible by direct database access. Deleting these templates or their style set could cause your forum to stop working. [/B]
                    ????

                    So i've wasted my time by editing the 'Default' set of templates ? Surely this isn't correct that they are overwritten ? You can't be expected to redo all the templates every time you upgrade ?

                    Comment

                    • Freddie Bingham
                      Former vBulletin Developer
                      • May 2000
                      • 14057
                      • 1.1.x

                      #11
                      Craig you don't have access to the Global templates to edit them. The templates listed as "default" are the templates you are supposed to edit.

                      Comment

                      • Craig A
                        Senior Member
                        • Apr 2000
                        • 620

                        #12
                        Thanks freddie - that's a relief!! I actually hoped that'd be the case after reading another post elsewhere after I made the above reply...

                        I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this question:

                        Once i've customised my forum's templates, i'll want to add a number of co-branded versions of our entire forum. Whilst the only changes to the layout will be colours, fonts and the header/footer fields, it appears i'll need to export my 'Default' styles and templates and reimport them with a different name - is this correct ?

                        Craig.

                        Comment

                        • Wayne Luke
                          vBulletin Technical Support Lead
                          • Aug 2000
                          • 73981

                          #13
                          Some people have been complaining about editing the global templates through PHPMyADmin then having their changes overwritten in the Beta 2 upgrade. AS it said, you can't access these templates through the control panel and need to access them directly in the database through MySQL or PHPMyAdmin.
                          Translations provided by Google.

                          Wayne Luke
                          The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
                          vBulletin 5 API

                          Comment

                          • chrispadfield
                            Senior Member
                            • Aug 2000
                            • 5366

                            #14
                            I have a question about using templates with co-branding.

                            Basically the problems are two fold:

                            1) The standard set of templates are not your boards standard one. Say i set up 10 co-branders and then decide to change slightly postbit (which i would want to change in each co-branding template set) then i need to change it 10 times, once for each co-brander.#
                            2) Co-branding + custom styles for a specific forum conflict

                            Basically, i would think, for almost all co-branders, the only things you are going to change are:

                            1) The current replacement set
                            2) The footer and header

                            so the question is, is it feasible to make the header and footer part of the replacemenet set so that you only need to create a new replacement set for each co-brander? This would also have the advantange of being able to have a custom style for a forum but still have that under the influence of co-branding.

                            Does anyone see any problems with moving the header into a replacement set, is it even feasible?
                            Christopher Padfield
                            Web Based Helpdesk
                            DeskPRO v3.0.3 Released - Download Demo Now!

                            Comment

                            • Craig A
                              Senior Member
                              • Apr 2000
                              • 620

                              #15
                              That's my thoughts exactly, having the header/footer as a template was fine the way it was, but it really doesn't seem the best idea now that we have co-branding. Can this be addressed for the next beta ? It really seems to be extremely cumbersome the way it is right now, having to import a full set of templates, simply so you can allow a co-branded site to run with a different header/footer...

                              Comment

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