Theme Changing For A Newby

[micmouse]

Hi Everyone. I hope I do not upset anyone by my truly "blonde" question, but I will never know if I don't ask. I know I am probably wrong because I can't find anything about it on this board.

Can somebody tell me why I can't just download the source code onto my HTML program (FrontPage) and then change the colour and pictures I need to change and just upload it again? Do I really have to go through all the PHP Code?  I am asking only for the colours and the logo...not to recreate the whole page.

What made me think it might be possible is because when I tried to copy and paste the login box into my own HTML document. When I previewed in the browser and tried to log in, it allowed me to and took me to the gallery.  I am wondering, can I just download the pages to my computer and change just the colours, etc on the pages that users will be seeing?

Ya go ahead and tease me while you answer, I know I deserve it for asking that LOL!  On one hand it seems to work but on the other hand, something is telling me that it's impossible.  I wanted to ask before actually trying it to avoid wasting my time, because I just can't get the hang of this PHP stuff in the amount of time that I have.

I do not have my gallery set up yet; it's only the fresh installation. Thanks so much to anyone who can answer this for me.

[Joachim Müller]

Can somebody tell me why I can't just download the source code onto my HTML program (FrontPage) and then change the colour and pictures I need to change and just upload it again?

The question "why" doesn't apply except if you want to hear answers like "because it doesn't work that way". Your question sounds like "I want my Volkswagen Beetle to run 200 miles per hour, so I used a felt pen to doodle a Porsche logo on the trunk. Why doesn't it go any faster?". In fact I could tell you why, but you wouldn't like the answer, as it will not help you. Anyway, just for the sake of completeness, here's the answer: Coppermine is a server-driven PHP application that generates individual HTML pages server-sided. Taking the generated HTML output and changing that won't allow you to come up with the changes that would have to be applied to the PHP code that composes the pages in the first place. You can't restore the wood out of the smoke and heat of a fire. The HTML output is just the heat (the output) - that's all.

Do I really have to go through all the PHP Code?

No, PHP is not involved at all. The colors are being determined by a technology called "Cascading Style Sheets" (aka CSS). The main advantage is: information about color does not interfer with the code or content. Instead, it is being kept within one separate file. You just edit that one single file to edit all colors and layout options in your entire gallery. You can find that CSS file in your custom theme folder - it's named style.css.
Don't use MS Frontpage though to edit that file.
The bottom line is: you asked the wrong question in the first place. You shouldn't have asked "why do things have to be that complicated, assuming they were. They are not - just ask a real question like "I don't like the blue category table headers - how can I make them turn green?"

This is not a genuine Coppermine'ish question: CSS is being used in all modern applications. So you should get familiar with that technology pretty soon instead of relying on those old, silly HTML coloring tricks from the early days of the www.
CSS was invented to make your life easier, not harder: once you have learned about it, you'll be surprised how easy it gets to change the overall design of a site extremely easily.