I hope that no one takes this the wrong way, but why are all CMS's so boxy? I like the way the information is handled but I need to be able to have a look that's not like dozens upon dozens of other sites out there. I run a gaming website and want to use a CMS as we are adding staff and will have to have other people submitting stories, comments, etc.

Can someone please let me know how to build a theme or site that can have to look of http://www.mlgpro.com. Not a copy but being able to dispaly video on the front page and flash menus? I'm not looking to display just links to video, but to be able to load it on the front page when a user hits the site.

I want to somewhat keep the look of my current website but have the content managed by xoops. Here is my XOOPS install that I have been working on but need help http://www.agz.agzmarketing.com if people want to look and give suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

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Building a theme (at least for me) is not the easiest thing to do. What the mlgpro.com site does is use gradients for background images, which is nice but can add to load time depending on the image file size. Frankly, it appears as boxy to me as the next CMS. Just fancier.

I'm sure someone else here can help you more with tips on designing themes. I understand what you're asking but designing for any website, be it a CMS or non CMS, takes time to learn the craft (not to mention the tools to pull it off). I've been doing it for about 5 years (non CMS) and I'm still learning, still trying to improve.

Also, designing your theme/site with your logo in mind is a large part of making your site unique. Make use of the colors and design aspects of your logo throughout the site to make it unique.

Regarding video and Flash. I have only used Flash in a custom banner block but I don't see why you couldn't use a custom block for that.

I stay away from Flash menus myself for personal reasons. The mlgpro site is not using a Flash dropdown menu.

Just my two cents. Good luck on your project.

I know what you mean bladeex1 but there are reasons why there arent many "Free" themes that break out of the box look or use graphics laden layouts.

1. Drop down menus are a pain because of cross browser problems
2. European laws coming into place that require all public websites to be accessable by anyone. requiring text to be resized and images with text to have alt text atributes.
3. Images need to be created to specific sizes in order never to break the layout.

All of these things take up alot of time and considering most of the themes are done for free then theres not alot of chance of getting one that looks as good as the website you linked to unless you pay someone to do it.

You may find one, but its like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Working on it yerself over time may get the look that you are wanting. Get hints and tips on designing from the net and magazines. Thats how I developed the rounded edged bdwtheme2.

Eventually you will get something you are happy with.

Good luck.

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This all depends on the format.

The easiest way to do it is to upload the video to YouTube.com who actually supply you with the code to display the video on your website.

Go to my website bdwrekordings.com and click on "watch" in my "latest tracks & Vids" list. You will see that I have imbeded a video into one of my pages.

You tube is much better than hosting it yourself for 3 reasons.

1. There are no browser problems that i'm aware of that stop the vid from playing.
2. Save your own bandwidth.
3. You can advertise your website on your YouTube vids/descriptions.

Once you upload it, get the code to "Embed" and paste it into one of your blocks. Its that simple.

Hope that helps.

Wow! you guys are great and I didn't know they were using gradients...now I gotta google that because I've read about them but don't know a lot about them. I'm all over Web Designer Mag and anything else that I can learn from. I also have Joomla,Xoops ( so far my fav) Drupal(Wow that was a confusing install)Igaming CMS, Blog CMS and I attempetd Topic 3 a couple of times.

All this is in an effort to find something I can write a front end for or that has a default style that can be molded to the way I want it. I really hate to pay someone to do the work for me because I want to learn it my self, so I'm stuck until I learn more about the telempting thing. Heck I still need to figure out how to install a 3rd party fourm or just the one like this on my XOOPS site.

You tube is going to be a good option I think for the video unless I convert it over to flash and put it on a seperate page and have people link to it.

What's funny is I think I want fancy boxy instead of just boxy
More advise is welcome and if you can point me to whatever mods are good and stable for me to install.
Thanks

Have a look at https://xoops.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3380

That will change your mind.

Keep trying.. mess around with a theme, change it until you're satisfied with the result, that's what most people do.

Imago themes have some curves. I just built my first theme last week. Now I am about to modify another. Now that I've built one and realize how easy it is to build them, and ANY theme can be used easily with XOOPS with minor modifications, I will probably be releasing some in the themes section soon. I have about 10,000 professional templates that I have purchased in packages over the years, and I am going to port some of them to XOOPS.

That was interesting and I'm going to mess with doing my own template over the holiday's. I've also started playing around with e107 which I'm loving right now. I got a semi functional site up in about 3 hours of off and on downtime today. It was by far one of the easiest installs of a cms I have done.

There are some nice themes and the backend is really easy to catch on to. It also comes with a bunch of mods already in the directory for you to just install much like XOOPS mods. Check it out at e107.org and I'll have my test site up tomorrow so people can take a look. Not going over to the darkside but making sure I give everything a fair shake. Thanks for the help guys.