A Hello and a Question From a Rank Beginner

[Steel Hyaena]

Greetings! I have a whole slew of questions regarding the XenForo software. I am not facile in using CSS and HTML and am wondering how steep of a learning curve it will be for a beginner to customize the appearance of this software. What I want is to use tiling backgrounds rather than flat colors in some places. Also, I'm wondering how hard it would be to slightly change the appearance of items like toolbars. I'm a reasonably quick study, so once I have a template and know where stuff is, I can generally muddle through and figure it out. I also need a chat mod, dice, and blog capabilities. I know of Siropu Chat, but need someone to point me in the direction of where to find the others. The site I am creating is a roleplaying site with a lean toward darker subject matter, so it needs to look the part. I am also willing to consider paying someone to do some of the heavy lifting for me if necessary.

Thank you in advance!

 

[Lawrence]

Skullport
The above link to my site is styled just by changing the built-in style properties and css. No template edits. There are two custom templates I use, one for the posters info block to the left of messages, and the visitor panel. Those two templates are loaded in via the template modifications system. They needed to be custom for extra data to be displayed (click the bottom two images to view them.

So, to answer your question styling for XF is really simple and straight forward.

Darker subject matter? See this area on my site: http://www.skullport.net/location/loviatar/
Why did I create it, well because I could,

 

[Steel Hyaena]

Oooh, me likey a lot! Is there a way to change the overall background, the one behind your purplish one with the columns?

 

[matthewalan]

I think the style properties system is wonderful. You can change a lot of the site without much(or sometimes any) actual knowledge of HTML or CSS. You can change the background for the entire page (the black background on his site) or the container background which is the purple background. They style properties system offers a ton of flexibility without the need to dig into the code of a style.

I attached a screenshot from my development server, this is generally how you would change things on the site.

 

[Steel Hyaena]

Oh, good! So it does support images behind the other stuff! Thank you so much. I'm working on the install right now, and I'll pop up a screenshot of what I do!

 

[Paul B]

As you are now licensed, please post in one of the customer support forums for any further questions you have.

That will ensure the best response.

 

[Steel Hyaena]

I'll do that! Didn't know this was verboten, my apologies.

 

[Steel Hyaena]

Dumb question: where are those forums and are they appropriate places to ask questions regarding what parts of the palette do which things?

 

[Paul B]

All of the general customer support forums are under this category: https://xenforo.com/community/#xenforo-community-support.22

 

[Steel Hyaena]

Shiny! Thanks!