Here's a quick tip on how to quickly edit the templates for each of your XOOPS modules. I know that you can just edit the template code directly through your browser window, but I find this confusing, and I like to see more of a "design view" of the page if possible, so I know where the tables are, and where things seem to be in relation to one another on the page.

(if you use Dreamweaver, you will know what I am taking about, it allows you to quickly switch back and forth between a "design view", and a "code view", for any page that you are working on).

So, this is what I do to edit the templates code for any module:

1. Open up a new, blank html page in Dreamweaver.

2. Go to the code view of this page in Dreamweaver, select all the code, and delete it

3. Go to your "edit templates" area of the XOOPS admin, and select the template that you want to edit. When you get to the exact template that you want to change, you will see an open editing window with the template code.

4. Cut and paste the template code from the XOOPS admin, to the blank Dreamweaver page you have created.

5. Use the Design view of Dreamweaver to help you edit the code as you want it to be, move the tables around etc.

6. When you have made the changes that you want to make in Dreamweaver, go back to "code view", hit the "select all" and then "copy" tabs.

7. Then erase all the code in the XOOPS template editor window, and paste your new code from Dreamweaver in.

8. Hit Submit, and your template code is updated!

(Note: somtimes when you do this, you get a "taking you back to where you were" message, instead of "database updated". In this case, just navigate to the template editing window again, and paste your code in again...it should be saved this time).

And remember - with 2.0.16 - instead of pasting the code in the database window - you can upload it instead to the correct location in the theme directory.

I'm still trying to decide what cms to use for my site. I have some html and css knowledge (very limited) but I have built a site in dreamweaver. I was looking at joomla, drupal and cutenews but they all seem complicated to change customize the look or theme. With XOOPS would I be able to create my entire site with dreamweaver and fireworks or photshop as I have done in the past?

I find XOOPS easier to customise then Joomla or Drupal, but that's just my opinion... :)

The easiest way to find out is to install Xoops, and install a few different themes as well. Play around with the theme.html file and style.css file for each theme, to see what it does.

In general, the theme.html file controls the overall look of the site...if it has three columns, one column... if it is full-screen or a fixed-with.

The CSS file controls the common elements of the pages...so, what font is being used, what a H1 title in the side bar looks like etc.

The smarty templates control how the elements of each module are displayed on the screen, within the parameters of the overall theme. If you wanted to change how the discussion board module that you have installed looks (as far as the arrangement of the elements of this module), you would tweak the smarty templates, as described in my first post above.