Need help with customization

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

I'm new to JForum, please bare with me. I would like to customize the jforum's look and feel, How would I customized it? In addition, I would like to use JForum in my site, by putting forum contents on the right panel, like JForum's site?

Any help or documentation is appreciated!
[originally posted on jforum.net by crazyGuy]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

You can find the jForum templates (skins) for 2.1.x under the templates/default directory.

The first place to start is the styles (css info) and images directories.

The next place is to look at the htm files. A good place to start here is with the "header.htm" and "footer.htm" files. These define the html stuff that "wraps" all the standard jForum.

To dig even deeper into how the templates work, I'd suggest looking at the http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/ site to learn the template syntax and going from there.

FYI - The template names more or less match the jForum functions being requested. You can find out more by digging in the code, but generally just veiwing the source of the page you want and then finding the matching HTML in the page names that seem to look right works too.

Greg
[originally posted on jforum.net by monroe]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

That helps with changing the look and feel of the forums, but how do you embed the forum, just like this site does. How does this site make the forum appear on the right of a menu?
[originally posted on jforum.net by sbargon]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

The header.htm has the stuff at the top, the start of a table with the left hand cell being the left nav/images. The footer.htm has the end of the table and the right hand cell images. E.g.

header.htm

<table>.. banner stuff</table> <table><tr><td>.. left hand nav stuff</td><td> footer.htm </td><td>...right hand stuff...</td></tr></table> <table>footer stuff</table>

All Jforum stuff will end up in the middle of the wrapping table.

FWIW, you can use absolute div layers if you prefer a more modern HTML design...
[originally posted on jforum.net by monroe]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

I've a problem with implementing this too.
If you look at the default header.htm, it end with an opening <td>

As a test I tried to add a simple table to go on the left hand side of each forum, so the end of that file now reads

<td>

<table> <tr> <td> Hello </td> </tr> </table>
</td>

<td>

But the spacing is then thrown totally, you do see the new text but the cell for it and the forum proper each take up 50% of the screen! Whats the obvious I've missed please?


[originally posted on jforum.net by john.steel]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

Use a css class or width attribute on the left hand <td> to control the size of the column. Standard HTML stuff... no magic needed.

FWIW, a trick so that you can use a nice GUI tool like Dream Weaver is to do the following:

Add some comments to the header and footer templates at the end and beginning. E.g.

<!-- Header.html ends -->

<!-- Footer.html starts -->

Then display a page you want to format. Then save it and open the saved copy in DW. Use this to make your page look good, but make sure only to editing above and below the comments. Once you have it looking good with the static saved page, copy the info to the header or footer file as needed.
[originally posted on jforum.net by monroe]

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

I've tried following this suggestion. Except that using the Width attribute doesn't work.
[originally posted on jforum.net by jasonjarvis]