I find styling XF frustrating.

Aarmin

Active member
This is more of a rant.

Anybody else? I don't remember having this much pain with MyBB. I like XF, but it seems different. I changed the category background picture, and the background styling of other parts of the forum also changed. I just can't get it.

Now I'm trying to figure out the navigation menus background when they are 'popped down'. The thread view page still has that gradient peach color background.. I thought I edited that?

Amongst other things I'm trying to edit, I probably added some (or left out) stylesheet edits that for all I know... break the site in other browsers. *goes check IE9* Surprisingly everything looks normal!

Well, I give up. Has anybody created a skinning guide?

Red.. test board
 
If you have Firefox installed then you can use Firebug to identify the class name of every element.
You can then view the css source and look for the @property tag which will indicate which section of Style Properties controls it.

The XenForo Manual may help:
http://xenforo.com/help/styling/
http://xenforo.com/help/style-guides/
http://xenforo.com/help/style-color/
http://xenforo.com/help/style-reference/

There's also a document here listing most, if not all, of the Style Properties: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/documentation-xf-style-properties-dictionary.11302/
 
This is more of a rant.

Anybody else? I don't remember having this much pain with MyBB. I like XF, but it seems different. I changed the category background picture, and the background styling of other parts of the forum also changed. I just can't get it.

Now I'm trying to figure out the navigation menus background when they are 'popped down'. The thread view page still has that gradient peach color background.. I thought I edited that?

Amongst other things I'm trying to edit, I probably added some (or left out) stylesheet edits that for all I know... break the site in other browsers. *goes check IE9* Surprisingly everything looks normal!

Well, I give up. Has anybody created a skinning guide?

Red.. test board
Yea, I agree with you. Btw you did a good job on that theme.
 

Easy tiger!!!! did you ever try vb styling!! wow now that even I ranted about.. anyways I find XF a 110% dream to style, mass editing all the css will auto change all the style props

As for your question see Brogan urls in his post am sure they will get you started and on your way :X3:
 
Xenforo without a doubt has the best styling system, easy to use for novices yet powerful and versatile enough for the advanced users who want to be a little more adventurous. If you install firebug this helps with finding specific elements but oten than not it's detailed enough for users to find them, make the necessary alterations and job done. To answer your question I don't find it difficult, infact the reverse, I find it a pleasure to work with the XF styling/template system.
 
To be honest, style vars annoy me. I prefer just writing my code into a file, rather than finding the specific stylevar for each bit & then some. I do understand it's infinitely easier for novice users though, and I admit I am getting used to it myself :p
 
I actually found it fairly easy, but maybe that has to do with experience? I did styling and integration services professionally for companies for years. I really enjoy XF's ease of use when styling compared to my painstaking hours with vBulletin. So far, my forums are looking fairly good, you can see them in my signature. Nothing "spectacular", but easy to do, took about 45 minutes each.
 
To be honest, style vars annoy me. I prefer just writing my code into a file, rather than finding the specific stylevar for each bit & then some. I do understand it's infinitely easier for novice users though, and I admit I am getting used to it myself :p
So write your code directly into the CSS templates. Nobody needs to use style properties if they don't want to.
 
This is more of a rant.

Anybody else? I don't remember having this much pain with MyBB. I like XF, but it seems different. I changed the category background picture, and the background styling of other parts of the forum also changed. I just can't get it.

Now I'm trying to figure out the navigation menus background when they are 'popped down'. The thread view page still has that gradient peach color background.. I thought I edited that?

Amongst other things I'm trying to edit, I probably added some (or left out) stylesheet edits that for all I know... break the site in other browsers. *goes check IE9* Surprisingly everything looks normal!

Well, I give up. Has anybody created a skinning guide?

Red.. test board

Styling xenforo is very easy. To make things even easier on styling, use the firebug add on for mozilla. It helps a lot and it saves a lot of time.

Nice theme btw.
 
So write your code directly into the CSS templates. Nobody needs to use style properties if they don't want to.
Yeah, true, but on the other hand, hate to rob admins who might not even know how CSS even works of an easy way to customize their skins. If it was a client design or something for myself, yeah, I'd probably write it directly into the CSS templates, but for public releases I'd rather not sacrifice that flexibility.
I guess I just need to get used to it. That or I'm a masochist ;)
 
This is more of a rant.

Anybody else? I don't remember having this much pain with MyBB. I like XF, but it seems different. I changed the category background picture, and the background styling of other parts of the forum also changed. I just can't get it.

Now I'm trying to figure out the navigation menus background when they are 'popped down'. The thread view page still has that gradient peach color background.. I thought I edited that?

Amongst other things I'm trying to edit, I probably added some (or left out) stylesheet edits that for all I know... break the site in other browsers. *goes check IE9* Surprisingly everything looks normal!

Well, I give up. Has anybody created a skinning guide?

Red.. test board

I cannot speak for XenForo here because I've not used it and seen the styling system, or how easy it is to make changes with it. But using MyBB myself and making a lot of style changes on my forum, and comparing it all to when I used to work with vBulletin 3 styling. I can honestly say that I've never worked with a forum board software package before that's been so dam easy to style and make changes with as MyBB.

So I do kind of understand we're your coming from about MyBB being easy to work with styling. When I styled with MyBB, I didn't do it from within the MyBB CSS template system. I just copied the whole CSS to my notepad text editor and worked with it all from there (keeping an original copy). Then just copied and pasted it back in with changes. I find that the easiest way by far and it lets me use the notepad powerful search tools and more to do things in the CSS code. e.t.c.

What I will say about XenForo though, and I don't mean this in a bad way. But people used to say that vBulletin 3 sites all look the same no matter what style you used. So far I've yet to see an XenForo site that looks very different style wise, I've seen a few now and they all basically look like XenForo with some colour changes and maybe a change with the navigation menu. Nothing out the ordinary so far I've seen that looks very different.

EDIT: Actually there is one forum, Shelleys. Very nice job done too I will add!

http://www.bbsmiley.com/
 
I agree styling xenforo is a bit of a pain. Just a little bit.

I liked the old CSS styling in vB3, that will forever be one of the best styling system known to man.

xenforo has more or less the same control panel, but parts of it make it harder to go back n' forth between editing the colors, and looking at your mainpage.
 
Yeah, true, but on the other hand, hate to rob admins who might not even know how CSS even works of an easy way to customize their skins. If it was a client design or something for myself, yeah, I'd probably write it directly into the CSS templates, but for public releases I'd rather not sacrifice that flexibility.
I guess I just need to get used to it. That or I'm a masochist ;)

You do know that changing CSS in templates will change style properties as well?
 
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