The Best Way 2 create a Theme

[Pascal YAP]

The Best Way 2 create a Theme
Hi,
Everybody want to create own Coppermine Theme for personnal Gallery or other.
Yes, but just the only first idea is a big nightmare....
.....I open config.php, delette this line modif an other, open style.css, close theme.php, open init.inc, close anycontent, reopen config.inc.php..... and test some billion solutions.... and and some couple of hours just for a result who is not my first view, of course.

I 'm a beginer with Coppermine (look at http://expo.pays-dignois.com created last december 2003) i start my learning by a Copy/Paste from an existing Theme. But it's very hard, very long, very all...
  But Coppermine is really FANTASTIX.
  Very hard to fully customize but really powerfull. I love it.
But if i want to create my very own Theme, it's an other history, an other Double-Nightmare. It's completly impossible from a 3/4novice like me.

My point of view is :
   Coppermine is too hard to customize by hand, files after files.

Is someone knowing a couple of softwares or methodology to help drasticly and definitively all of us, pure afficionados  :-J

Pascal (fr)

[kiig]

Just my 2 cents, - find a theme you 'sort-of like'.. :-) with menu's in the right place and so on, - and then customize it.
Dramatic changes can be achieved by simply modifying the colours in the style.css file, - and it's simple to add tables, - move things around a bit, - add you own images in the header and so on.

I agree, - it's not a 'new' theme ,- but it's do'able.... creating a new theme from scratch is probably not an easy task.

http://foto.igel.it is a site Im setting up right now, - I haven't touched the colours so it's look like the original "Rainyday" theme, - but it still has added images, - the gallery description, 2 anycontent sections and the thumbnails are way bigger than the original..

Don't know if I'll change the colours, - but if one did that, - and change the wavy line, - it would 'allmost' be a new theme...

and you probably don't need to touch anything but the files in the 'themes' folder.....

And when you've done this a couple of times, - you're probably more ready for a theme from scratch :-)


Kim Igel.

[Casper]

To re-inforce what kiig said,

the only files you need to touch to make the site look as you want, are the 3 files within the theme folder.

You do not need to touch any of the core code files to acheive a look.

[Pascal YAP]

Casper,

<<the only files you need to touch to make the site look as you want, are the 3 files within the theme folder.>>

Yes it's true, but only when you start your own Theme from an older that you rename.
3 files ? You're forgot some config, index, and so one... maybe.

My whish is to start a fully new Theme from a white page.
Because finally it's too simple to change only the graphic files in the theme/images folder.
There's no "honnor" to make that, it's a pure and poor copy from Theme created by yourself Casper, Sani, some others or by our guru Gau² :-)

I want to control all of the chain ... what is the best way to start my very own and new Theme, that's is the question :-)

Pascal (fr)

[Casper]

OK, I understand your wish to create a completely new theme, but you should still not be looking to change any of the core code.
If your theme relies on changes to files such as config.php and index.php, as you mention, then you will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to upgrade when future versions are released.  You will also find it next to impossible to switch themes to check where problems are coming from.

When Tarique created the reynolds and 2bornot2b themes, he started from scratch, as does DAmysterious with his many themes.
They NEVER touch the core code to achieve a theme.

I have never created a new theme from scratch myself, just modified others, and that can be a challenge.

Please understand, the best way to start, is not with a blank piece of paper, but with a theme.php stripped of everything not required.  You can then create your own template.html and style.css as you want.

[Joachim Müller]

I think there's a misconception of the term "purity". If you want to be genuinely "original", you should not use any pre-made script like Coppermine at all, but code your own gallery application; but then again, you're using a scripting language (php), a database (mySQL) a markup-language (html) someone else has come up with. If you don't want to use any pre-made thing at all, you mustn't use them as well. If you go back far enough, you will have to re-invent the wheel, while you sit in a tree.

Nobody (not Greg, Tarique, DaMysterious or whoever) does create a theme "from scratch", using a blank file. If you want to come up with a theme that is entirely based on your intelectual properties, use the theme.php from the classic folder and the following code for template.html and style.css - should be empty enough for what you're up to. As Casper suggested: do not touch the coppermine core files.

template.html:

Code Select Expand

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html dir="{LANG_DIR}">
<head>
<title>{TITLE}</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset={CHARSET}" />
<meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache" />
{META}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="themes/your_theme_name/style.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="scripts.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
{GAL_NAME}
{GAL_DESCRIPTION}
{MAIN_MENU}
{LANGUAGE_SELECT_FLAGS}
{LANGUAGE_SELECT_LIST}
{THEME_SELECT_LIST}
{ADMIN_MENU}
{GALLERY}
</body>
</html>

style.css

Code Select Expand

body {

}

table {

}

h1{
}

h2 {
}

h3 {
}

p {
}

ul {
}

li {
}

.textinput {
}

.listbox {
}

.button {
}

.comment_button {
}

.radio {
}

.checkbox {
}

a {
}

a:hover {
}

bblink a {
}

bblink a:hover {
}

.maintable {
}

.tableh1 {
}

.tableh1_compact {
}

.tableh2 {
}

.tableh2_compact {
}

.tableb {
}

.tableb_compact {
}

.tablef {
}

.album_stat {
}

.thumb_title {
}

.thumb_caption {
}

.thumb_caption a {
}

.thumb_num_comments {
}

.user_thumb_infobox {
}

.user_thumb_infobox th {
}

.user_thumb_infobox td {
}

.user_thumb_infobox a {
}

.user_thumb_infobox a:hover {
}

.sortorder_cell {
}

.sortorder_options {
}

.navmenu {
}

.navmenu img {
}

.navmenu a {
}

.navmenu a:hover {
}

.admin_menu_thumb {
}

.admin_menu_thumb a {
}


.admin_menu_thumb a:hover {
}

.admin_menu {
}

.admin_menu a {
}

.admin_menu a:hover {
}

td #admin_menu_anim {
}

.comment_date{
}

.image {
}

.imageborder {
}

.thumbnails {
}

.footer {
}

.footer a {
}

.footer a:hover {
}

.statlink {
}

.statlink a {
}

.statlink a:hover {
}

.alblink a {
}

.alblink a:hover {
}

.catlink {
}

.catlink a {
}

.catlink a:hover {
}

.topmenu {
}

.topmenu a {
}

.topmenu a:hover  {
}

.img_caption_table {
}

.img_caption_table th {
}

.img_caption_table td {
}

.debug_text {
}

.clickable_option {
}

.listbox_lang {
}

Joachim

[Pascal YAP]

Ok Thank's Gau²,

 Understand i'm not in my mother language.
Write my post nicely is hard. Read your post is very complex for me.
And understand that customize Coppermine's Theme like that in my own Gallery (http://expo.pays-dignois.com) it's for me a real exploit :-)
(your opinion is a great opinion for me)

Finally, thank's for the template.html and style.css who are fresh. I understand better the concept-design like that.

Then in a couple of weeks, i will post here a brand new Theme (c)PYAP  

Pascal (fr)