Something that i noticed a while back when editing theme.html files to make changes to the layout in Xoops: The themes I downloaded from the theme repository sometimes lacked a basic fix in the theme.html (theme.php?)to prevent displaying a blank column if all left blocks are made not-visible on the admin-->blocks menu. The fix is on or about line 36 of the /themes/yourtheme/theme.html file. Insert 'if' statement at about line 38 (and then end the if at line 46) as depicted below:

36<table cellspacing="0">
37<tr>
38<{if $xoops_showlblock == 1}>
39<td id="leftcolumn">
40<!-- Start left blocks loop -->
41<{foreach item=block from=$xoops_lblocks}>
42<{include file="default/theme_blockleft.html"}>
43<{/foreach}>
44<!-- End left blocks loop -->
45</td>
46<{/if}>
47<td id="centercolumn">


The odds that someone will actually use the admin menu to create this apparently abnormal situation are not high, but then if you look at it... it means that template edit/creation modules for XOOPS are able to create a theme template (by actually writing the theme.html file after editing it) on a case by case basis from user input... a good one could even move the blocks around to any page position and size. Add a few color frills like itsy bitsy border graphics and control of the .css file... An admin theme editor/creation tool? Now that would be cool. Looks like the power of oop showing through. Anyone have any suggestions on how to get one started?

P:S: How does this text look? On the preview it seemed the format was a little off re: the line numbered code text. PPS: The actual submission looked fine.