I am currently trying out XOOPS to see if it is the CMS for me. As I am exploring the structure and the documentation I have two main questions.

1) As I understand it, a Template is the structure of a page (header, left column, content area, etc). A theme is how these template-areas look visually, and a module is what functionality is put inside these areas. Is this right?

2) I see that the basic template (and theme) are based on table-layouts. Does this mean XOOPS is incapable of CSS layouts? If not, where do I find a "default" template/theme that is tableless?

Hello, and welsome to XOOPS

I'll try to help with your queries as best I can.

1. Templates come with modules and these control what is displayed within a module's blocks and on the modules index page. The XOOPS 2.3.0 download comes with a few modules (system, Protector, pm, profiles) and each of these has html templates in its /templates and /templates/blocks folders.

The XOOPS "core" uses the "system" module.

Themes control how a module and its blocks display, i.e. the overall "look" of a XOOPS site, via a combination of theme.html and style.css

Templates will look different depending upon what theme is in use.

2. You are correct in that the default XOOPS theme uses a table-based design. However, there are a number of css-based, tableless themes available so XOOPS is certainly capable of using them.

I'm sure that someone will be along shortly to point you in the right direction