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Tutorials

• How to create a new skin the easy way

  In this first tutorial we'll explain what a skin is and how to create a new skin for your site.
  
  Once you purchased and installed Etano community builder on your server, the next step should be changing the default look&feel so your site would look differently than the rest. You could make changes to the default skin directly but it is preferable to create a new skin and make changes there so you could later compare the two or even switch between them if needed.
  Also, you will need a new skin if you want to have your site in 2 languages: a skin would be for the first language, the second skin for the second language. Of course, you could have any number of languages on your site, not only 2.
  
  A skin is made up from 2 parts:
   1. The html files (and graphics and styles).
   2. The language files with translations of every message of the application.
  
  To help you create a new skin we made a helper plugin that will take one of your existing skins and clone it.
  Not only that but will also take the language files from another skin (or the same if you wish) and use it for the new skin.
  Once the helper is finished you will have a new skin which you can play with, change its design, try out new ideas on.
  And you can repeat this process as many times as you want.
  
  To download and run the skin clone plugin you have to go to your admin panel - Package Manager and click on the "Check Now" button to check for updates on the Datemill server.
  In the list of updates you should see the "Clone a Skin" plugin. Simply click on the 'Install' link and the plugin will be downloaded to your server and started.
  You will be asked to select the skin(s) to clone and the name and path of the new skin. After a short while, the plugin will finish its job.
  
  Before you can use the skin you will have to regenerate it. Just go to "Skin Settings" in the left menu (under the "Site Setup" category) and click on the 'Regenerate' link next to the new skin. Your new skin is now ready to use.
  If you want to translate it click on the 'Translate' link next to the new skin and a page will load with all strings to be translated.
  
  To switch to the new skin go to http://www.my-etano-site.com?skin=<skin-folder-name>
  Obviously, you will have to replace "my-etano-site" with your actual site and <skin-folder-name> with the folder of the skin (you provided this during the clonning process). The site skins are in <site root>/skins_site path - you can take the folder names from there.
  For example, the default skin folder that comes with Etano community builder is 'def' so to switch to the default skin you would enter http://www.my-etano-site.com?skin=def ... read more
  Posted on 11/11/2007 11:44 PM by datemill in Tutorials