[SOLVED] Can I change the way my vanilla page looks or not?

jenifer

Hello there, I am very new to all of this... I downloaded and installed Vanilla 2 and have it up and running on my site... very excited... I was able to put a banner of my choosing up but I would really like to change the colors. My site is mainly black and white and I would like the forum to be as well but I do not know how to change it or if I can. I have tried to download a theme and put it in the theme folder on my server but don't know what to do beyond that.
Also can I put a link back to the home page of my site on the vanilla forum? Thanks so much for your help.
Jen....

Raize

To activate a theme, just go to the theme menu in your dashboard and click on "apply" once you've put the theme in the appropriate directory.

The easiest way to edit the color of the theme is by learning CSS and modifying the stylesheet file.

You can create a link to your home page by learning HTML and inserting it into the theme file.

jenifer

I don't have an apply in my dashboard! Did I put the them in the wrong directory? It is currently in www/mywebsite/vanillaforums/vanilla/themes/joie-1.2/joie and inside that folder is a design folder, a view folder, and, a screenshot.png, and, about.php. Thanks for your help.

Mark

Try moving it to:

www/mywebsite/vanillaforums/vanilla/themes/joie

jenifer

I moved it and nothing different. In my dashboard it says: "/mnt/w0302/d09/s12/b032bff6/www/whathedid4me.com/vanillaforums/vanilla/themes folder, you can enable it here." just under the heading manage themes... again thanks for helping me out

Mark

How about this. Your theme folder should contain an "about.php" file. The about.php file should be located here:

/mnt/w0302/d09/s12/b032bff6/www/whathedid4me.com/vanillaforums/vanilla/themes/joie/about.php

This assumes that the root of your Vanilla folder (the folder that contains index.php and readme.html) is located here:

/mnt/w0302/d09/s12/b032bff6/www/whathedid4me.com/vanillaforums/vanilla

Mark

Here's a screenshot of where I put it in my local installation:

jenifer

/mnt/w0302/d09/s12/b032bff6/www/whathedid4me.com/vanillaforums/vanilla/themes/joie/about.php doesn't exist. I can't find that path anywhere. I have the joie theme located as you describe above both on the server and on my hard drive. I use dreamweaver mx to build sites. don't know if that helps? I'm sure this is something simple and due to my ignorance of .css and other coding I am missing something. So again thanks for the help and the patience... Jen... I would be content to just make changes to the default theme. i really just want it to match my main site in color scheme which is simply blacks and whites...

Mark

Download the theme again and verify that it contains an about.php file. I just did and it was there.

jenifer

The about.php is there it is the mnt/w0302/d09/s12 that doesn't exist. There is no about.php in the themes folder but when you open the joie folder there is one there.

Mark

I don't understand how your folder structure is set up. All that matters is that you put your theme folder in the correct place in your vanilla structure.

Your vanilla folder contains a "themes" folder. You need to make sure that your joie theme folder sits directly within this "themes" folder. Your joie theme folder should contain the about.php file. If it only contains another joie folder, you have buried it too deep. Take the contents of the inner joie folder and place them in their parent, just like you can see in the screenshot I posted above.

jenifer

that is exactly how it is, just as you show above...

jenifer

don't know what or why but it is there and I have the theme I want... thanks...