Zikula Community

Downloaded and installed .726-3
Had to have new user regi options, installed xuser
Needed a calendar and forums, done
Did the "Blocks Module Mod for Advanced Block Placement w/PN themes"
Hacked the themefooter() - nuked the globals so the right side blocks show all the time(would have thought theres a better way, oh well)
Hacked the xusermenu and login so they match the extralitestarter theme (first of which I made a copy of w/a new name) and lined up right.

Confused but still reading, topics, categories, sections. I'm figuring out the permissions pretty quick (the project is kind of a private site, budgets, by-laws etc, almost intranet on the internet). Need to add some more user info - address, phone numbers, employer, spouse etc to the regi and DB.

Hacking themes...
AutoTheme? looks like that I'll cost me, skip it.
Xanthia, looks good, I think, oops no docs that I can find to help me install it, just do it like all the rest. All I have is Theme Config and a table with some titles.

Here's what I'm out to do, issues I have, let me know if you know a good way to get it done so I can start doing some real hacking, ah development and work on content.

Header, right blocks, center, left blocks, footer. Super.

Non site specific stuff. Left block - date, login or your account, search, terms of use, privacy policy, faq, howto, basic stuff all sites need.

One below it, a bit more taylored based on the site, cooler stuff, calendar, members, links, maybe stats or recomend us or hot posts. You get the idea.

Speed things up here. Left side for advertisers, polls, newsfeeds, quotes, creative PostNuke type stuff based on the audience.

Header - completely site specific. Background, logo, tabbed or linked or drop down menus or who can guess what next to forums, for sale, user ratings, our products whatever the site is promoting.

Footer. Copyright, designed by, visitor number or whatever basic stuff all sites might want.

I'm just tired of most nuke sites looking the same (no offense). Researched these CMS systems 4 or 5 years ago and weren't really ready for prime time, PN is looking real good nowadays, quick changes to sites, really hope to use it. When clients look at my work I need variety.

Thanks for any input and all the help so far, spent hours/days browsing forums and docs.

Links are great.
Brian

A couple examples of my work...

http://texnet.com - classified ad site, list of features and processes is long.

http://texnet.com/photos - a centralized app all my users have access to for their websites, needing only a config file and a directory for albums. Upload pics, everything else is done on the fly including resizing and permissions, includes a cool slideshow feature (never could find on of those, great show w/lots of pics).

It seems like you are asking how to create your own theme. Doing so can be complicated if you are new to PHP and/or PostNuke. AutoTheme offers a free version (AutoTheme Lite) you can try and Xanthia has a lot of users who frequest these forums who can give you lots of tips (check out the XTE Forum on this board). If you're set on not using either of these, try downloading some third-party themes and maybe tailor one you think comes close to what you are looking for. Hacking/editing a theme is much easier than creating one from scratch.

No not really, I can build a theme from scratch, I'm not new to PHP. If there are tools that can do what I want I'd like to try them. Xanthia might, is installed, but nothing is there. From what I can see there is not any way to control the look and feel of blocks, so I may have to do my "header block" via a custom theme. Don't really know for sure tho, cuz I havn't looked at Xanthia.

Thanks!