Skins are a new feature at DMusic - this can be technical, so grab a coffee or something.


Before you get started you will need be familiar with HTML and CSS, and have access to somewhere where you can test your layouts. Ideally this will be a Smarty installation (which is the templating system we will be using), else an ordinary webserver will do (this can even be your own machine).

Skins consist of three things:

A stylesheet file
A main template
Additional template files for the pages in a site.

The very basic skins will consist of just a stylesheet file and a main template file.

We will be uploading a template skin for you to download shortly, you can take a look inside and you should see most of the information you will require. Feel free to ask on the forums if you need help about other aspects.


Naming conventions:

Your style sheet file must be named after the name of your skin. So let's say I am creating a skin called 'Minimal' (the example skin) - the stylesheet will be named minimal.css.

Your main template will be called 'base.tpl' - if you decide to add wide-mode support for your skin (a good idea for fixed-width layouts, like the default DMusic skin) then you can also submit a file called 'base-wide.tpl'

If you have included any images with your layout, submit them in a directory named 'img'

Smarty variables:

Here are some variables you might need to use in your template:

{$user.is_logged_in} - true if we are logged in
{$user_icon} - users' avatar (comes preformatted)
{$profile_pic} - users' profile picture (comes preformatted)
{$skin_name} - the name of your skin
{$skin_author} - your name + dmusic address (will come preformatted)

[TODO: Add a better list]

There are others, as well as the capacity to add additional ones. Look in the example template for clues, and note Jack if you require additional values passing.


Note: I WILL be reviewing all the templates submitted when there is a procedure to do so, to check for nasty code before they made live on the site.



Last editted by: jack on 2007-12-12 23:55:41.

Add an entry: Add