Suggestion

[IchBin]

I don't know if it's too much trouble, but I was wondering if it would be possible to make tinyportal use the native theme in SMF? The last portal I used before switching from phpbb was called Ezportal. It would use whatever theme you had installed into phpbb. You didn't have to write a seperate theme for the portal. Get what I'm saying? This would save you the work (and others) from having to write themes specifically for Tinyportal.

[Bjørn]

But Tinyportal do use the native theme - the default one. That'is the one that gets "modded" when you install the mod....

As for making ALL themes automatically work, it can't be done..because the clever theme system of SMF ( that allows it to look like anything) first search for your chosen theme's files, (index.template.php MUST be there), then if they are missing, look for the same files in default folder.

So, if you just change a few things (from the default), you may only have to include 2-3 template files. The rest is fetched from default folder.

The reason its difficult to change whatever theme you have in its because no theme is alike, codewise. And the mod searches for blocks of code that may or not exist in this new theme.

So, the only way is to modify by hand , these new themes. But on the other hand, its just ONE file that needs tweaking. I don't want to exchange the freedom of writing such different themes as Helios and Simplicity for a more universal system that don't allow more than some graphics and color change. The developers certianly don't want it either, its one of the things that set SMF apart from others.

There is also a lot discussions around this on the SMF site.

[IchBin]

Well I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying exactly. On my phpbb site you can have as many different themes as you want. Doesn't matter how or who they were created by. Somehow it calls the theme and makes the portal output it from the theme without having to modify the theme to work with the portal. I guess what makes this possible is that he makes some changes to where the index is pointing. Not exactly sure...
Maybe you should take a quick look at it and see if you get any ideas. Anyway, it's just a thought to make things easier on us template impaired people.

Here's the file if you want to look at it.

http://smartor.is-root.com/downloads/ezportal_v218b.zip

[Bjørn]

I think I understand , MKPortal use a similar system where the forums output is halted and merged with the portal. But this has the disadvantage that these two are separate and use more resource than just call an extra file, which this mod does.MKPortal - to use that comparison - also is somewhat limited when you want to use something from the forum, it has to fetched specifically, where as TP sometimes just use the variables already there.

Sure, its a hassle for theme developers, but this was always intended as a expansion of themeing for SMf, not making a new one in addition. So if you can theme for SMf, you can theme for TP. Its just including some lines - as you know - that is different.

[IchBin]

I am sure once I understand the theme system in SMF I will come back to this post and laugh at myself. Thanks for listening.