Complete Customization!!

[Placer14]

I've just about integrated CE completly into my site. If anyone is interested in what can be done, feel free to take a quick look.

http://www.higherhost.com/support/

http://www.higherhost.com/support/signup.php

The only thing that isn't skinned yet is the main part of the site. (And boy won't this be fun.) When it's finished, I'll give you guys a login so you can see the inside as well. If you have questions on how I did certain things, feel free to pick my brain. :)

Also, here's a skin i'm working on for the inside of CE.

http://www.higherhost.com/images/celayout.gif

[TXO Hosting]

I've done the same with mine, but just upgraded and had to re-do it all. Took me awhile and still not finished, but looks decent.

I just have to move all my template files to my /www directory. I hate testing things like that.. lol

[daveman]

Hooah

[TXO Hosting]

can you translate that daveman? lol..

[Placer14]

Originally posted by TXO Hosting@May 16 2003, 12:47 PM
I've done the same with mine, but just upgraded and had to re-do it all. Took me awhile and still not finished, but looks decent.

Login here: http://www.txohosting.com/order/index.php

Singup here: http://www.txohosting.com/order/signup.php

I also incorporated the login onto my homepage: http://www.txohosting.com/template

I just have to move all my template files to my /www directory. I hate testing things like that.. lol

Any ideas how to get the domain search to work that I have up top?
Heh..nicely done.

The domain script....i dunno anything about and from what you've told me. No I can't help you. :)

[daveman]

Originally posted by TXO Hosting@May 16 2003, 10:24 AM
can you translate that daveman? lol..
Is a phrase from the US Marines, it basically means anything. Generally it is a phrase used in a good way, as I used it here. I think in this case I would aquate it to the word "awesome".

[Placer14]

Gig 'em!

[indyjon]

I smell jarheads around here?

[TXO Hosting]

Originally posted by Placer14@May 16 2003, 03:55 PM
Gig 'em!
hehe, I hope you're not referring to Aggies.. I might be from Texas, but by far an Aggie's fan.. lol. I'm more of a University of Houston fan, considering I graduated from there. Go Cougars.. lol

I finally got my site finished, for now..

[hostu]

the green machine is still mean ;) pi 1966

[Placer14]

Update...added a pic of what i'm working on for the inside of CE. :) (In the first post.)

[Alberto]

Looking very nice, let me know how I can help

[Placer14]

Here's a little bump. I updated a screenshot of what i'm working on for the inside of CE.

(For those that are lazy http://www.higherhost.com/images/cepalyout.gif (http://www.higherhost.com/images/celayout.gif) )

It should be done before 1.1. :D Just in time, too.

If anyone has suggestions for layout, lay it on me. There's always room for improvement. (And I might even be included to release this skin for public use as well.) :P

[mrlarter]

I haven't had time to impliment the templates yet...but going to tackel the sign up tonight I hope.

any suggestions?

[Placer14]

It should be very simple (and hopefully you got it done without a hitch since tonight I assume already passed).

I created the header and footer as a template for my entire site. I just used that for my header and footer for the signup. A few things messed up from the style sheets. So I made a seperate style sheet for the signup pages. Signup pages only used the following styles from the original style sheet:

TD.primarycolor
TD.secondarycolor
signupdivider
PlanText
body
INPUT.required
signuptotal

And I even believe everyone's favorite style "body7red" :blink: is in there, too.

Basically what I did was put the header and footer in and loaded the page. And then just screwed around with the CSS settings until i found a color schema I liked. And yay...it was done in a few days. :)

[Placer14]

Guys....i've been working with this skin for a while and my eyes are gonna explode. I'm about to throw my monitor into the wall and format my hard drive.

The more I look at this layout, the more it sucks. I need advise, suggestions before I work any further on this...

Please tell me what you think...

http://www.higherhost.com/images/celayout.gif

I'm gonna take a nap.. *mutters*

[beley]

Very nice... I've got the signup page and login page done... and am going to start working on the template this week. Is it hard?? How much time have you worked on it and are you near completion? :D

[Placer14]

Well...the main site is a little bit of work. There are two ways to do it and the easiest might depends on what you're used to.

If you look through the templates section, you'll noticed blocks of dynamic info where the templates seem to be placed INTO each other to build the main page.

If you build a mock HTML site fully skinned and completed and them modify that with the dynamic portions and fill in the templates as you move down the page, that would be one way, however the only drawback is contect is dynamic and the layout will be hard to control and verify that the skin doesn't breakup in various situations.

Second option is to edit the existing template and build your skin around what's already there. Probably easier in the long run but more time consuming. (Plus give you a change to go through the code line by line and make sure it is XTML/or otherwise compliant.)

To make things easier, you might want to use the same file names where possible so you can see where they are replaced in the skin and make margin/size changes as necessary.

Eitherway, you'll have about 2-4 of work if this is your first CE skin. You'll learn how the page is put together and from then on out, it'll be easy to skins others.

If you have problems, or get stuck, someone is always around. As far as how long it took mine to skin...well, the signup and login was easy. I'd say an hour each. The main page, took considerably longer as I'm a perfectionist I scrapped the design 2 or 3 times. In fact, i'm still working on it and have racked up at least 24 hours of time into it so far. :-? I'll finish it eventually.

Good luck. :)

*Edit: I hope this made sense, I just got back from sailing for 4 days and i'm all disoriented and not thinking clearly yet. I'll read this again in a day or so and clean it up if necessary.