Skinning with Columns

[James200410]

Hi Guys,

I'm hoping one of you can help me with the following;

At the moment I have a skin that is only 1 page with 1 <div> I think.

I would like to make a Left Column and a Right column for putting in modules and stuff.

I have tried a few different things but keep messing up my skin.

If I knew how, where exactly do I put these <div>'s ?

Do I place them in the header.tpl ? or in the frontpage_mail.tpl ?

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Adam

[Nabeel]

I'd watch the skinning tutorial.

Also check out the crystal-sidebar skin, that has two columns. Usually the sidebar down to where the content is will go in the header.tpl, and the end of it finishes in the footer.tpl

[Tom]

There are a few ways of doing it with divs. You first have to know.. on which pages do you want the columns to appear? Both on all pages? or just one on every page and both on the front page.

Then find a method which works and can be easily split up into the header/frontpage/footer templates (otherwise you'll be editing them all - like I did. It isnt fun).

Or use a table.. I haven't tried but people seem to avoid it. No idea why.. but it's probably easier in this case?

In terms of splitting it up - you have everything up to the opening tag before where your main content goes (i.e. <div id="content">) in the header, everything specific to the frontpage in frontmage_main, and everything from the closing tag of the content  (</div) to the end (</html>) in the footer.

When it comes to having sidebars, as i said, try to find a method which allows them to be in the header/footer templates...

Also - I find it easiest to design the entire frontpage as an html page locally, make everything work and look how you want it, THEN split it up.

[James200410]

Thanks guys,

I dont know how I did it, but I have now a right side bar wich kinda looks ok.

Still a work in progress lol ;D

Thanks again, will keep plogging away..

[Nabeel]

Or use a table.. I haven't tried but people seem to avoid it. No idea why.. but it's probably easier in this case?

It's avoided because it's frowned upon with the W3C standards to use tables for design. Tables were really meant for data. People still use it, but the 'standard' is to use divs for it, it's much easier to control through CSS too. But it's mostly a school-of-thought kinda thing