Customizing diff page views (html)

Hey all,

I've been trying to customize my installation of Dolphin to match the design that I created, and it's definitely a learning process but I'm having fun.

I was able to get the home page view to look how I wanted to (about 90% there) - www.thelbbucsd.com

I just need to get the rest of the pages the same... I've already searched through the guides available but I wasn't able to find documentation on which html file goes with what page view. For example, when you signup you are transferred to join.html but I dont see this file to edit the design the way I'd like... also the profile page once you login.

Thanks,

Danny

Each page of your site references a couple of things.  The corresponding html and css files for the particular php page your link connects to.  So, join.php has in the first few lines some code which looks like this:

$_page['name_index'] = 3;

$_page['css_name'] = 'join.css';

this tells you that the html page it is referring to will be page_3.html in your /templates/tmpl_uni folder

the css file will be join.css in the /templates/tmpl_uni/css folder.

Now here's the rub.  IF the php file is referencing an html page which DOES NOT EXIST in the templates folder, it is creating that html page on the fly from a default page.  What you CAN do here is just take an html page which already has the basic appearance of the page you want to display, rename it to page_3.html or for the corresponding page it is referencing, and then tweak it to display how you would like it to.  You can also do this with the css files.  just change the code in the php file to join1.css and then copy the original css file and rename it join1.css and make the changes in it.

A lot of work, I know, but in the end you can customize your site just the way you want it to look by doing this.

Another tweak is you can change the headers for individual pages by copying and renaming the header file and adding or removing code in it, then reference the new header file.  On my site, on the join page, I didn't want a member login or join now link showing up since they obviously were not a member and they were ALREADY on the join page, so I copied the original header file, removed the code for displaying this info, and then reneamed it header_join.html and from my new page_3.html, I referenced this new header.  Now no join or member login shows up on just my join page.

Hope this helps!

bigal is got you on the right track here.  You also need to hop into anchor.css & general.css and you will find in them the call boxes/functions for just about all items.  You can copy these specific strings of code from the general and/or anchor into the join.css file and this will force the system to accept that as the final answer as to the page layout.

In additon, by adding/deleting <table> tags in the php files you can add additional columns to your pages, create multiple tables 3 columns in one, 5 columns in another with 1 column in the middle of it all. 

By utilizing the html file you can control the order these tables appear in.  For example, on the home page you have page_1.html with

__header__

__menu__

_promo__

_body_

and so on.  Let's say we want the menu at the bottom, then just move menu from 2nd position and place it at the bottom of the list and your menu will appear at the bottom of the page. 

You can have a ton of fun with this if you just experiment around, make back-ups of your originals and say... Who cares if it messes up... I can always put it back how it was...

Enjoy your experiments on this.