Need info on coding themes

[SiGnatureâ„¢]

What programs do you use to code an SMF or TP theme? And how do u know what is essential to code? Like I've seen some themes and they have MANY pages like index.template... BoardIndex.template.... like woah there... a little confusing? lol. Also, how much PHP knowledge do you need and if there is any other programming language used, what is it? Some info would be nice because I'm planning to get started my first ever "coding a theme" as I'm new to all this... I know alot of HTML but need to learn PHP

[SiGnatureâ„¢]

*Nudge Nudge* Also, are there any PHP programs that you can go into design mode and edit stuff through the design and not coding it? I have dreamweaver but the PHP page is same as HTML one in code view :S

[JPDeni]

The first language you should probably look into is .css. I would suggest copying the index.template.php and the style.css files and the images directory into a new directory. Focus on the style.css file for the time being. Change some colors. Play around with it a bit. For this, you just need a text editor. I have a program called Style Master which is quite nice, but I haven't used it for a long time, so I don't remember that much about it.

As you start changing colors, you'll notice that part of the color scheme is based on images, so you'll need to make some images of your own, using whatever graphics program you like.

Personally, I've not really got much further than that. My site has just a modified default theme, with some tweaks here and there.

There is no such thing as a wysiwyg php editor. The only thing you might be able to do is to create some pieces of html code in Dreamweaver and then paste them into echo statements in the php files. I sort of did that with Style Master (now that I'm thinking about it, I remember more). I pulled up a page on my site and looked at the source code in the browser. I then saved the source code as an .html file. Then I used that as a basis for altering the style.css file. You could do something similar with Dreamweaver in order to come up with the style you like.

As for the other files in a theme -- you only need them if you're going to change something in them. For example, I decided that I didn't like the default BoardIndex.php file, so I copied that file into my own theme directory and did some tweaking there.

Okay. Now, back to your questions...

What programs do you use to code an SMF or TP theme?

A text editor. There are a lot of them out there.

And how do u know what is essential to code?

index.template.php
style.css
images directory

how much PHP knowledge do you need

Depends on what you want to do.

if there is any other programming language used, what is it?

css is probably more important than php in designing themes

Also, are there any PHP programs that you can go into design mode and edit stuff through the design and not coding it?

Not that I've ever seen or heard of.

[superQ]

Stylemaster is about ready to be updated to V5. It is in  late beta for Macs and windows will soon follow  or so the developer John says---it has many new features. If you have paid for V4.6  V5 will be a free upgrade 

I am not holding my breath for V5 for windows, but it looks like mac version is working good..


http://support.westciv.com/       

second topic 

[Crip]

What is stylemaster Q? .... I have a mac

[JPDeni]

It's a .css editor. Quite easy to use. You can get a 30-day free trial.

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/index.html

[superQ]

What is stylemaster Q? .... I have a mac

It is that thing I got for you and you deleted it

If you still have it you can reinstall it. I hope they gave you the Mac version. Anyway you can download the free trial version of V5 and then reinstall the one I gave you and upgrade for free when V4 is final.. :uglystupid2:I think there are some enhancements for working with cms's [similar to TP--maybe]

It takes a while to learn it, but it is worth it [I think] for  a tp theme master such as yourself

http://www.westciv.com/style_master/screenshots/screenshots_mac.html