Making a brand new theme, where to start?

[donnoman]

Read the docs first
http://coppermine-gallery.net/demo/cpg14x/docs/index.htm#creating

Then read the theme upgrade documentation
http://coppermine-gallery.net/demo/cpg14x/docs/theme/index.html

Take a look at the sample theme which includes everything you COULD override.

make a new directory in your themes directory with your new theme name.

Copy everything from the sample theme to your new theme directory.

Delete the theme.php from your new theme directory.

Build the theme.php from scratch only overriding what you need for your theme, using the theme upgrade documentation.

Modify the rest of the theme to suit.

The worst thing you could do in creating your new theme, is to copy and use sample's theme.php, so don't.

[artistsinhawaii]

Hope you don't mind, Donnoman, but I thought I'd add a little to this.

As many of you have already discovered, with 1.4.x you can now add a custom header and a custom footer file to your templates by adding the name of the file in the CONFIG panel.

What you might NOT know is that these don't really have to be headers or footers.

If your footer and header are pretty static (unchanging) you can leave them coded directly in your template and use the {CUSTOM_HEADER} and {CUSTOM_FOOTER} to display other content in different parts of your template.   

For example, say you wanted a column on the right side of your template that would contain information that needed to update regularly.  You could create that column in your template and simply put either of the above into it.

Or you placed your menus to the left side in your template and want to add a special block of content below it.  Create the necessary row and column and place either of the two options into it.

Then, create the files you named in the Custom Header and Custom Footer options in the CONFIG panel.   

Dennis
 
 

[Joachim Müller]

To find out what part of coppermine is being controlled by which css class, the coppermine dev team recommends using these tools:

• Internet Explorer: Web Accessibility Toolbar (Creative Commons License)
• Mozilla Firefox: Web Developer Extension (GPL)

Both tools allow you (among many other usefull things) to display the css class applied (see attached screenshots)