Were is the beginners guide

[Hasimir]

Hi there

I just registered my forum and well, I like it. But my forum is blue, white and got this vBulleting log top left :rolleyes:

So, now I thougt about coming in here, ranting about knowing everything with php, photoshop and telling you that I'm the ultimate guy who just knows about everything. Well, I supose you know a lie if you read one :D .

So, how the heck do I start. My forum is online. Users are posting but it just looks, well not boring, but not special either. How do I make some really cool modifications? Where to start. Well I suppose you could tell me to read the readme but there just HAS to be another way... is there a beginners guide (and sorry for missing it if it exists, I DID search the forum)...

Thanks in advance

[Martz]

I'd recommened:

Start by finding a colour scheme. Create a new style, and make it selectable in the User CP. This way, if you fudge anything up you can scrap it all and start again. Mess around with the colours, you'll need to know the colour codes which you input in #XXXXXX format. Theres a few cool colour pickers around and the such, more probably on the 'net to help you along the way if this is all new to you.

Once you've got the styles, maybe try and create a logo to fit in. Find a button set of your liking, or use the Photoshop actions script to generate your own.

Start tweaking with the templates. This needs a bit of HTML knowledge and a lot of searching around. Turn on template commends in the vB options so you can see which templates represent certain parts of the HTML source. Makes it a bit easier.

From there, the sky is the limit. A lot of people install hacks and such found over at vbulletin.org and customise their board to get a slightly different look and add more functionality. Read the Tips forum here as well for easy ways to do things like use a gradient background in the category headers and such - makes a really big improvement with minimum effort.

HTH.

[SaintDog]

If you want to make basic modifications (ie: to the templates), you can visit vBulletinTemplates.com. There are plenty of modifications there that may prove useful in your case (until you learn the system better) :).

- SaintDog

[Hasimir]

thanks to all - I will keep that in mind and I'm right now fiddeling with my forum ;-)