hey guys, i am the creator of the maxconsole skin. decided to search my url on here, and this thread is not too old.
both your questions are about 'vbcms_content_article_preview' template
first is how I have the article preview thumbnails. i used the thumbnail setting in vbulletin options, and set it to 150px. if you change this option now, you must rebuild your attachments. here is my code snippet and how it works:
<vb:if condition="$previewimage">
<div>
<a href="{vb:raw page_url}"><img class="cms_article_preview_image" src="{vb:raw previewimage}&thumb=1" alt="{vb:rawphrase article_preview}" /></a>
</div>
</vb:if>
you can see how i used &thumb=1 to request the thumbnail. i only discovered that little hack about a month ago, saving lots of bandwidth. previously was just using css to set the image width smaller (eww)
css edit to .cms_article_preview_image
max-height: 150px;
max-width: 150px !important;
custom image titles for article category -- you can see how i used vb code to find the parent id; you just have to create each image and name them with the numeric id of each category. the layout of the user name and date are just template editing. firebug is a great tool
<img src="maxcon_assets/box_hdr_{vb:var parentid}.gif" width="90" height="26" class="article_hdr_icon" />