And I welcome you all, back for IPB tutorial session #2. For this tutorial I once again target you, the newbie, and will assist you in the process of customizing your forum.

When I first started playing around with Invision Power Board, I was unaware of all of its features. In fact, when I did learn of these features I had no clue what do to with them. So now, listen up, as I teach you the basics of creating and editing a new skin.

Let us begin.

1. Log into your AdminCP, on the left side expand the Skins and Templates section, and click on Board Wrappers. Then in the content section travel down to Create new Wrapper, base your new wrapper on Invision Board Standard (IBS), and create the wrapper. Give the wrapper a custom name, and click to create.

2. Back on the left side, click on HTML Templates, and in the content section, scroll down to Create New Template Set and click, using the default templet set to make a copy. A message will confirm its creation, and click the top button to return. Afterwards, click to "edit" the new template. Give it a nice custom name and click to confirm these changes.

3. Now on the left side again, click on Style Sheets. Scroll in the content section to Copy to New Style Sheet, using the default to make a copy. Once again, customize the name, and save the changes.

4. On the left side of AdminCP, click on Macros, and scroll down to Create a new Macro Set, using the default to make a copy. A confirmation screen will pop up, click the top link to return to the Macros page. Click "edit" on your newly created Macro Set, and give this a custom name.

5. Back on the left side, click on Manage Skin Sets. Once inside, create a new skin set, basing it on IPB. Once you click to create, edit the following.

- Skin Set title - customize its name.
- For Use Templates, Use Macro Set, Use Stylesheet, and Use Wrapper, click on each and set them with your new, customized names for each. Then click to use as default skin set.

There you go, you've made your first new skin! But wait, it's the same darn default looking board! Well, time to customize it.

1. Ok, so we want to change the boards' colors, we want something new and fitting to the subject of your board, first what you will need to do is go into your file manager, access your forum files, and make sure your "cache" folder and following files have their permissions at "777". If they are not, go ahead and make the changes.

2. Now to edit the look and feel of your board, go back to your forums AdminCP, and click on Syle Sheets. You will see a current style sheet in use - click on the edit button. Inside this you will now be able to edit the colors. Edit to customize to the colors of your choice, and in the meantime search for background images and other image links - go ahead and delete those. Don't do the changes all at once - save and look at the changes gradually. Once you have found the right theme, you're on your way to the next step.

3. So now you have a good idea on how to change the colors and theme of your board, but you still have that IPB image at the header...here is how you can change that.

A. First off, design your own header image.
B. After this, access your file manager, go to your forum files, and travel into "style_images/1/". You will see a bunch of image files, this is where you want to be. Upload your created image. After this, to be on the safe side of things, change the style_images and 1 folders to "777" permissions.
C. Go back to your AdminCP, go to skin and templates, and click on HTML Templates. Click on the "Manage HTML" of your current template in use. After this, you will see a link towards the top right hand corner of your browser entitled "Edit Board Header". Press go.
D. Find

After finding this you will see "Board Home" as text. After this, replace the default image file name with your created image file name. Save the changes, and go look at your forum. You new image should be there.

These are just the basics as to what you can do to manage the look and feel of your IPB forum. There are many more things you can do to improve your forum, but this will just be the start.

From my trial and error experiences I learned how to do this. I wasted countless amounts of time in trying to edit my skin. I even tried many times to find a tutorial on how to do this, but I failed to find one that told me much of anything. I hope all of the newbies to IPB can find this tutorial successrul in their attempt to edit the skins of their forums.

For any questions or comments feel free to PM me.
For a demo on what a customized IPB can look like, visit my forum.

elevenmil