Wanted, summary of: Replacements, Templates, Styles, Themes

[Pete Kottmann]

Where's the best place I can go to get an understanding of the differences between (or basic summary description):

- Replacements
- Templates
- Styles
- Themes

And to be more helpful, I would like have a different "TitleImage" for each forum. That is, in developlemt of site for my "Home Owners Association", I want to create a forum for each sub-division and have each display a separate image for each individual community.

Here's an example "How'd they do that"? (i.e. title image changes for individual teams).

http://atozconcepts.com/vBulletin/index.php


Thanks, Pete

[Wayne Luke]

Replacements = Variables that you can use to specify color, style and custom tags within your templates.

Templates - A series of database records that determine the code that draws the HTML for each and every page in vBulletin. Can contain HTML, Replacement variables and vBulletin generated content variables. One or more templates are used to make a page.

Styles - A combination of replacement variables and templates that determine the look and feel of the forums to the end user. By combining these you can create a large variety of looks for your users very easily.

Themes - Have no relevance to vBulletin. We don't use that term anywhere in the documentation nor in the application.

For your title image problem, you can either create a new template and style set for each form (wasteful and time consuming). Or you can name your title image files after the forumid. So you would have title1.gif, title2.gif and so forth. Then when you want to call it in the template you would have:
<img src="{ imagesfolder}/title$foruminfo[forumid].gif" ...>

The route you choose depends on how much customization you want for each forum and how much ultimate control you want over each forum. The first option gives you the most control. The second is the fastest to implement but gives less control.