Site Forums

[JustMike]

Hello All,

 

Kinda new to the site...OK OK...I'm new (site not even really set...just a coming soon page).

 

Anyway, in the planning stages of course, since I can't transfer a .ws domain (GRRR ARRRGHHH GRRRR) from my, no no...I refuse to say "my"...I'll stick with from the "other" host.

 

SO, I'm startin' from scratch (always good for me to do that anyway...when I base it on the old...it just ends up the same anyway....new name, I wanna have a new look).

 

SO, I already know I'm gonna have a forum on the site. I've used PHPBB and don't care for it. I see THIS forum is an Invision Board and I haven't used that one before. My previous one was XMBForums and I really kinda like that one however, with Invision being a "canned, single click install" here, figured I'd take a look. Just kinda wantin' to see the customizations some of you have used on yours and what not....Not looking to steal ideas, just lookin' to see the flexibility Invision has

 

SO, now's your chance to convince me.

If you have a forum on your site and wanna brag a little about it...whose are ya usin' and where is it?

[TCH-Dick]

I use both

 

PHPBB on my hardware site http://forum.x-trememodz.com/

 

IPB on my gaming site http://www.x-tremegamez.com/InvisionBoard/

 

I hated IPB at first but now that I have used I like it better than php

[TCH-Don]

If you look at Third Party Script Tutorials

you will see some ideas on modifying the invision board.

[TCH-Rob]

I am running PHBB on mine, have it skinned for a holidays theme. http://www.knifeandblade.com and click the Forum button at the top.

Edited December 18, 2003 by TCH-Rob

[JustMike]

WOW...Love the forum designs guys

 

I knew I'd find tips and tricks on mods for the boards and what not around here...but I do truly appreciate the link to it (won't have to search for it now...kewl).

 

Gotta admit too, I like seeing the different Avitars some of ya have here...bein' a fellow Herper (uhhh Reptile enthusiast before the remarks come lol). Must say Emerald Green Tree boas are among my fav of the snakes too Rob

[TCH-Rob]

Mike,

 

The Emeralds are great to look at but I think they are harder to keep than the python version. That and the Green Tree python has often a bit of blue that you don't find in the boa version. Still they both are great lookers.

[nuckle]

Post Removed - - in violation of Board policies to sell things. Please read the Board Guidelines before posting.

Edited December 19, 2003 by TCH-Rob

[TheWraith]

I just started a phpbb board, but am having trouble customising it. The colours don't seem to want to change, and the background image doesn't appear. I also don't see a place to add my logo to the top. Can anyone please help me out?

[JesseD]

I use phpBB for my site's forums. At the time I set it up I didn't really know about Invision at all, or I would have considered using it instead. Having used both now I still prefer the "feel" of phpBB, but that's probably because I frequent at least two other communities that use it, so I'm very accustomed to it.

 

From an administration standpoint, it's more difficult than it probably should be to customize some basic settings with phpBB (it looks like TheWraith has just found that out ). Just changing the logo or making a background image show up is not a trivial task at first, although once you know how it's done it isn't a problem. I don't know whether or not Inivision is better in this respect.

 

 

 

 

I just started a phpbb board, but am having trouble customising it. The colours don't seem to want to change, and the background image doesn't appear. I also don't see a place to add my logo to the top. Can anyone please help me out?

 

(I'll assume for this that you're using the standard subSilver theme that is installed with phpBB.)

 

The easiest way to change the board logo is to replace the default logo image with your own, but keep the same file name as before. The logo image is located in the /templates/subSilver/images/ subdirectory of the main phpBB directory, and is named logo_phpBB.gif.

 

But if you want to use a JPG image instead of a GIF, or if you just don't want your logo to have that file name, then it's not quite so easy. You have to edit one of phpBB's template files to supply your own image name. Templates files are located in the /templates/subSilver/ subdirectory.

 

The file called overall_header.tpl contains the HTML that is included at the beginning of every page. You need to find the <IMG> tag in the file that displays the logo, and change the filename to point to your own image. For the subSilver theme, the tag is located around Line 230 and looks like this:

 

><td><a href="{U_INDEX}"><img src="templates/subSilver/images/logo_phpBB.gif" border="0" alt="{L_INDEX}" vspace="1" /></a></td>

 

 

As for the background image problem: the subSilver theme, by default, will not show a background image on the page even if you specify one in the Styles Admin section of the control panel. This is really annoying considering that it is in no way obvious.

 

In overall_header.tpl (the same file as above), find the BODY tag around Line 220. It looks like this:

 

><body bgcolor="{T_BODY_BGCOLOR}" text="{T_BODY_TEXT}" link="{T_BODY_LINK}" vlink="{T_BODY_VLINK}">

 

(The text surrounded in { curly brackets } are special phpBB tokens. When phpBB reads the template file, it replaces the tokens with the appropriate values for the theme.)

 

Note the absence of the "background" property, which specifies the background image for the page. Add the background property to the BODY tag so that it looks like this:

 

><body background="{T_BODY_BACKGROUND}" bgcolor="{T_BODY_BGCOLOR}" text="{T_BODY_TEXT}" link="{T_BODY_LINK}" vlink="{T_BODY_VLINK}">

 

The {T_BODY_BACKGROUND} token is automatically replaced by phpBB with the background image you specify in the Styles Admin section of the control panel.

 

 

I don't have any ideas offhand as to why your color changes are not taking effect. From what I can tell the subSilver theme should automatically use the settings you specify in the control panel.

 

(It's been a long time since I've used a "fresh" phpBB installation, so I took a quick glance at the template files to refresh my memory, but I'm in no way an expert when it comes to the default subSilver theme. Still, I hope this helps.)

[Lianna]

JesseD,

 

Very nice, clear contribution...Thanks from all of us!

[TheWraith]

Thanks very much Jesse, I was able to fix the background and logo problem. However, a new problem has emerged, and a previous one still exists.

 

Firstly, the message board loos like gibberish for some reason when I'm logged out (and for people who haven't registered yet). You'll see what I mean here - http://www.the-wraith.com/forum It looks fine when I log in, but all wrong when I'm logged out.

 

Secondly, the colours still won't change for me. What can I do now?

[T-4-L]

Hi

 

I use an Invision board downloaded from the cpanel then added a few mods to it.

Click the little button banner in my sig to go there. Thumbs Up

[TheWraith]

Thanks, but that doesn't help my current problem

[TCH-Don]

In looking at the html

you have a lot of fonts defined as 0px;

I see at least nine places.

>/* Header cells - the blue and silver gradient backgrounds */
th	{
color: #; font-size: 0px; font-weight : bold;
background-color: #003399; height: 25px;
background-image: url(templates/subSilver/images/);
}

th.thHead,td.catHead { font-size: 0px; border-width: 1px 1px 0px 1px; }

/* Forum title: Text and link to the forums used in: index.php */
.forumlink		{ font-weight: bold; font-size: 0px; color : #003399; }

/* Used for the navigation text, (Page 1,2,3 etc) and the navigation bar when in a forum */
.nav			{ font-weight: bold; font-size: 0px; color : #000000;}