I'm trying to learn how to make proboards skins. I found this guide and it helped me learn how to do the absolute basics but I would like to learn how to progress beyond that. When I look at the templates in the template section I am honestly completely lost on what most of if means and I have no idea how I would go about modifying them or installing them into a forum. So how do you learn to make that jump? Do I just try to find codes one at a time for various elements and features I would like to add, then put these into the headers and footers? I've been reading the W3 schools site to try and get a better grasp on the basics, but when I look at skins or source code for various sites it is completely overwhelming. Any suggestions?
When I originally started learning HTML back in the '90s, I loved Webmonkey. The site now has a decidedly dev slant to it (probably incorporated around the time that Wired.com acquired it), but they still have tutorials, cheat sheets, and cut and post code that may help you get acclimated to coding. I relied heavily on viewing the sourcecode when I started. While the coding has grown infinitely more complex over the past, phew, twenty years or so, the tools that we can use help us a lot, too. For example, I typically utilize Firefox as my primary browser, even though I test sites across multiple browsers and versions. Firefox has an add-on called Firebug which is probably the best thing invented ever. It allows users to edit HTML, CSS, and inline styles on the fly. So when you make a change to how a site appears on your browser, the result is immediately displayed. This can allow you to make minute changes, immediately see the impact, and then apply that change to your finalized code. I would probably recommend taking a default, basic skin and then tweaking it. Learn what impact changes have on the design. Most of the skins packaged by the host are fairly simple and can be great learning tools. Once you recognize how certain things work, you can start looking backend at more complicated skins. Also, don't be afraid to ask how to accomplish certain things. I've found that the 'D is a great community and one that contains numerous individuals of varying talents and skills. So if you want to replicate a feature of another site, it's probably likely that someone here would know how to do it and could explain in an easily applied manner.
Thank you very much for posting all those links! I've actually done quite a few google searches looking for guides and tutorials and I had not came accross webmonkey yet. It looks like a great resource! I'm going to use those and start trying to modify some skins. XD
