Hello! I have been the head admin on my RP site sice februarym though I myself have VERY limited Admin knowledge. I can create forums, delete things, edit members. But I know not how to add skins and banners (the admin of aniother site did this stuff for me), nor where to find different skins.

At the moment I feel it is in need of a makeover( and it would be cool if any of you could tell me how to make a slide show typr thing with the banners, but that is not necessary).

Thank you!

A slideshow ... Like an animated banner? It's kinda complicated, but doable. What were yo uthinking of? I may be able to whip something up for you, if you like.

The skin depends on the host you're using. I can help you if you're using InvisionFree or ZetaBoards (The upgrade to IF).

Making a 'slide-show' for a banner can be relatively easy if you just choose to do it as an animated gif type thing, though, of course, in that case the quality of the image is lessened. The other methods, that keep a higher quality, are a bit more complicated.

As far as skins, like Silver Wolf said, it depends on your host. For Invision Free and ZetaBoards, I strongly recommend the IFSZ, they have several options, all of which look very good. Red Carpet & Rebellion are also in the field and they provide a series of awesome looking skins - and there are a lot of talented artists there, so you could probably ask one of them for help with the banner. They're graphic skills are just to die for.

Is that red carpet one an IF board?

Er ... Does it have IF skins, I mean ...

Than you, I use invasion free forum and HOW exactly do you add a skin? What options would you need to click and whatnot, as I really have no idea.

Okay, I can help. :) lol. So.

All your skinning information is located near the bottom of the side bar in the ACP:


Click on the Board Wrappers. There'll be a bunch of boxes. The only things you need to worry about (until you're more comfortable with skinning) are the Header & Body and possibly the Footer, depending on what the skin entails. When yo ufind the skin you want, they will have what needs to go where outlined for you in the first post.

The other place you will be putting the code for the skin is the Manage Style Sheet section. This is where the CSS will go. This is that long ass code that gives the actual images for certain things. To get an idea for that, you can copy and paste all the http links yo ufind. That's what I do. ;)

The other part of the skins are the Images. These do not always come with the skin. If they do, they will either let you right click and save from the preview site or have a zipped file for yo uto download. You'll have to download it, unzip it and then upload it to your own image hoster. I use photoucket for everything because it allows me to separate things into folders and whatnot.

Now, if you're not sure what the title of the image is, click on the Sample link below the name. It should bring up a pop-up window that shows you the actual image. When you change an image, you have to make sure you select the check box next the where you input the tag code (the one with the arrows like this: <imgsrc=link></img>). If you don't, it won't change anything. I still forget to do that sometimes.


Now, there are a million other codes that yo ucan add to this to enhance your website. There's headers like this: Board Header

Or codes to move the Members, Search, Calendar from the usual bar like this: Example of Image Slice Code in Banner

A code that I use all the time is a .png correction for IE. FOr some reason, IE doesn't recognize transparencies in .png images. Here's the code if you would like to use it:

It goes under ACP >> Board Wrappers >> Javascript.


Hope I've help shine some light for you. :)

Thank you Silver wolf, I think I have found a skin I like, so i will give this a try.

You're welcome. Let me know how it goes. :) And if you have any issues, just let me know.