Posts from Skin creator for the HW forum.

I think it would be logical to post that guide on creating skins for the forum in this thread, which I promised in the "New skin for the forum" thread. It's no longer just a guide, but a "Skin Constructor." I had to work on it quite a bit to get it to its current state. The guide is archived first in SFX-RAR format and then in ZIP format.

---

07/04/06 - The constructor version has been updated. There are no significant changes, but the archive is now 280KB instead of 370KB. LATEST VERSION OF THE CONSTRUCTOR in the very last post of this thread >>

Since all the skins I've seen so far were made using only logo_center.gif and without logo_left.gif and logo_right.gif (and mostly in JPG format instead of GIF), in this post I've uploaded a corrected version of forum.htm, which has only one image in the header: logo_center.jpg.
So, download this archive, copy the file into the folder with the map editor.

New update for the skin editor for our forum. The only difference in this update compared to the previous version is:
1) Now there is a new TEXTAREA field where you can copy the CSS generated using the "Generate CSS" button.
2) By clicking the "Read CSS" button, this CSS will be written into the editing fields.

!!! Unfortunately, a small error was made in the latest update, so if anyone downloaded the editor between October 15, 2006, and October 17, 2006, please update the version (attached to the message). !!!

New version of the skin editor for the forum.

Changes in version 2.0:

• Improved the CSS generation mechanism
• Improved the CSS reading mechanism
• Enhanced and expanded the skin preview
• Added the ability to generate a direct XML template, which can now be immediately used for direct import into the forum styles, allowing the author to create a fully ready-made skin that will no longer need to be processed later.

As a result of this new feature, the composition of the archive that needs to be uploaded to add a skin to the forum's skin list has changed. Now it includes:

• folder "images/" (required)
• saved file "scin_form.htm" (just in case, although it is no longer so necessary)
• file "scin.css" (optional, as this file can be used to re-load the skin into the editor)
• file "scin.xml" (this is now the most important file containing all the settings and ready for import)