Hello,
I need help in PhpNuke theme design. I am expert an web designer with very good exposure of Flas, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, HTML, DHTML etc and going to design a theme for PhpNuke but its my first theme project so I don't know what should I take care of..Is there any specific format in which I need to design or any specific files to edit..

I know how to design a website but dont know how I should do a PhpNuke skin..My client is using PhpNuke CMS and he needs me to design a theme to integrate with its existing site and forum..I will really thankful if anyone can help..

Regards,

likely hood is it will be in css.

Most CMS's are wrapped around templates - bet you already that. Depending on the CMS, the theme will be html or php based. Since I am using MDpro for all of my sites, I will tell you about it. First I find a theme that I like, at least a little. Start here - http://www.cmsarea.com/ http://www.themesforge.com/ http://www.autothemes.com/

Take a look at those themes, find you that you can build off of and go from there.

I dont know if postnuke uses xanthia or autothemes, but it really dont matter. In the post nuke directory you will find /themes/theme name/theme.html or theme.php

The theme.html/php is the whole page, then there is the left and right columns, center block, articles, and summary files.

If you want the left column a certain width, and a certain back ground color, edit the left column file. The same with the right column file.

The summary.html or .php is the preview of the news article that appears on the front page.

The article.html or .php is the layout after the person clicks on the news article link.

Ok, if the site is active - dont be messing with the active theme. Upload the theme, create a "test" account, log in with that test account user, set your theme to the theme you are tweaking. You can change each users default theme in their account settings. Then only you see the theme and the changes, until you are finished. You can send people the user name and password, let them log in and see the theme before it goes active. You can also change the back ground color and the font color through auto themes or xanthia inside post nuke. Some of these files do use a .css file, those will be in the "style" folder of each theme.

You will see commands like <---start center blocks----> in the themes, leave those commands alone.

Does this help?

I just started using Post nuke a couple months ago and I'm very new to everything myself. But I do have a couple things to add. Postnuke uses xanthia or autothemes! However I don't think post nuke and phpnuke are the samething. They are two different cms's