Where to begin?!

[Steve W.]

I bought the vBulletin software on Friday, finally managed to get it all up and running, and am now ready to make some templates. I've been customsing forums for a few years now, but usually I just jump in without reading the manual and they always turn out really cheap and messy. This time however, since vBulletin IS the finest of the lot, I want to do it properly, and read the full documentation. However, I don't know where to begin. Is there something in the members area or somewhere that acts as a tutorial on customizing the templates? I read the one in the manual, but it didn't mention html or anything that side of the customisation, and either way there's alot of settings.

I want to start off by simply making a new forum look. Which template should I start customising first?

[Dan]

I'd suggest the headers and forumhome maybe....

[Link14716]

The first thing you'd want to customize is the headinclude, the header, and the footer. The next important thing to customize would be the postbit. After that, move to forumhome, and just continue from there.

[Tony G]

You don't really need to edit the footer or headinclude. Header either. You can change the image via the Style settings and I think you can remove the navbar background image via there too. Headinclude is good to change the CSS and all and footer if you need to make it an image or something. Or add your copyright.

[Brad]

This will help you find out which template(s) are begin outputted on a page and where their output starts and ends: http://www.vbulletintemplates.com/mods/showthread.php?threadid=1687

Editing the templates of vBulletin is quiet easy, they are listed in alphabetical order in the admin cp and common templates are gourped.

Inside of the templates you can use replacements, these are very helpful as they allow you to keep colors and other things from begin hard coded in the html.

[Tony G]

Some Info on replacements:

-Color replacements are set in the Style settings, you learn most of the names as you look through the templates but to see a complete list go into Replacements - Modify near the bottom of the CP scroll.
-It's easy to add replacements too for any future thing you may use that appears frequently in the templates. :)