Vbulletin Skinners...

[ferrarislave]

I have a question for you. I've skinned a few boards now. Most notibly my own www.exotixboard.com]Exotic Cars[/url]. Each time I get stuck on the forumhome_forumbit_level1_nopost and forumhome_forumbit_level1_post templates. I just don't get how they are laid out and how they are both connected to each other. For example on my forum now the catagory header over each catagory/forum. It took forever to do that and it still looks bad in Safari. What is the typical process? Is there a set of tables in those two templates that you need to re-arrange to add your own tables with the pieces you want to appear, or? I am pretty decent in HTML, so you may elaborate.



Picture of what im talking about:

[CyberAlien]

Its quite simple: every forum has a level. First is level 1, then level 2, etc... On index you see forums with level 1 and level 2. All forums on level 2 have parent lvl 1 forum. That lvl 1 forum might be a forum, or category.

Here is how templates for it are done: all forums are include in template "forumhome" via variable $forumbits. Variable $forumbits is list of compiled templates for lvl 1 forums. Every lvl 1 template has variable $childforumbits that includes lvl 2 subforums.

So for your screenshot it would be like this:
- forumhome template
- $forumbits:
- - forumhome_forumbit_level1_nopost template for "General Forums"
- - variable $childforumbits in that template includes:
- - - forumhome_forumbit_level2_post template for "Asian Exotics"
- - - forumhome_forumbit_level2_post template for "American Exotics"
... etc. All those templates are added one after another
- - the rest of forumhome_forumbit_level1_nopost template for "General Forums" after $childforumbits
- - forumhome_forumbit_level1_nopost template for "Other" category
- - variable $childforumbits in that template includes:
- - - forumhome_forumbit_level2_post template for "Off Topic"
... etc...

and so on.

Every template for one level is shown right after another template. All nested templates are in one variable that is shown in parent template.

[ferrarislave]

I see, my forum has changed a bit since, if you load it up now exotic cars you will see that it has subforums in some of the forums. Does that make any difference? Is it still level2_post?

[CyberAlien]

Those subforums are merged in variable $forum[subforums] inside forumhome_forumbit_level2_post template, and code for it is generated from forumhome_subforum* templates.