Hi Nige

There are a lot of ways to approach your theme. This is what I do:
1. If I need a comp done in PS, I get a friend to help me out.
2. Instead of slowing the site down with full blown bg graphics and all that, I copy down or have the graphics designer tell me what HEX code is for what region and I use that in my CSS. This minimizes graphics but maintains the overall COMP.
3. Almost all the CSS you need to have is inside your Theme folder. If your using one from the marketplace, they are normally called either style.css or main.css. Just modify those. There is also a typography.css that is used as well in some themes.
4. I then edit my css files and decide what template I want to make sure are included in the theme folder and modify very little php code.

Once you have done it once or twice, you can get a new one done quickly.

That's how I do it.

Bill

Thanks for that. I couldnt see with a cursory glance the .css file in the theme folder but I will check that out.

So you think you can replicate any photoshop design you want. You can put in images or bg images if you want cant you?

Im going to give it a go and thanks for your help.

I hope you dont mind but you do seem to know a lot about this.

I just read your Beginners guide and it was helpful although there are certain things I would like to know.

My background is a graphic designer and art director who can build websites in Dreamweaver. I only build in css now. I have made some good ones but I always start by designing in Photoshop first. Then I slice up the individual files etc.

Using css I use some bg images but a lot of plain colours and I think Im getting better at this.

Concrete looks great but its frustrating for me at the moment because I dont have enough control.

In the themes folder and css folder in my concrete folder (on my local server) there is nothing – despite having activated a theme.

I want to be able to specify width and height, bg images, insert div tags and add content just like I do in Dreamweaver. Move things around, change Nav position etc. Its all css so it should be possible right?

I could probably get by with the existing templates but I want to design my own. I appreciate their is a whole developers section but its a bit scary at the moment. Its all code. I can handle a bit of that if its spelt out and I do want to learn it eventually. (perhaps you could point me to a good place to learn about this in the context of using concrete)

Concrete does look like the future but could you just get me started with a bit more layout and css ability.

Thanks a bunch.

Nige

if you're using a default theme like plain yogurt or green salad, you're looking for

/concrete/themes

if you've got a theme off the marketplace or trying to make some big edits to the files for those default themes, you should be working in the root
/themes
directory..

perhaps that'll help.

copy plain yogur from /concrete/themes to /themes and rename the thing in teh descriptions.txt file and you should see HTML much like what you're used to dreamweaver creating..

you could even use dreamweaver to do your layout, stick that file in the theme as a template file, and add some editable areas following the examples in there..


what concrete5 doesnt really do is give you layout tools like front page and dreamweaver do... its great at managing content, its not a design tool

ahhh. I see it now doh! Sorry for wasting your time.

I’m getting it – its a great thing. Theres so much you can do.

Im going to lay this concrete!

Thanks heaps for your help.

Nige

Hi,

I copied the folder as you suggested and renamed the desciption.txt file.

I cant see the html file anywhere. Does it appear in the same file? Does it have a .html sufix?

Sorry for being stupid.

Nige

look at the php files in that theme directory.

they contain the presentation html for the template for your site. their names match the page types you can choose when making a new page.

Thanks Frz, its all coming to me now. You guys are so patient, thanks a lot.

There is one other thing if I generate some html with div tags and an external css file (eg Dreamweaver) I know I can change the .html file to .php and add the necessary php code as per the tutorial BUT can I use the generated css file instead of the main.css file in the concrete/themes/ directory, or do I need to keep the concrete css file?

If I do need to keep it do I just add extra bits to it?

Im nearly there with this.

Nige

everything in the theme directory is specific to the theme, you can replace it. The concrete5 editing styles are in a different file.

Thats brilliant thanks for that.

Fantastic support.

Nige

just slice and dice into the images folder with matching names and perhaps make a few tweaks to the fonts and background colors of the typography.css file.

http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/themes/zen_of_concrete_5...