I agree, it is daunting but at the end of the day, it can be done.
You have to appreciate that this is an ALPHA release and the Skin issue will be dealt with pretty fast.
If you find it frustrating, I suggest you wait a bit and stick with the 1+ version.
You will have the current selection of skins and then when you upgrade to 2 Final, the skin gurus will have their skins updated.

Hi,

Yes, please wait a bit more until v2 Final. There are lots of changes from 1.x to 2.x. There are areas in the skin that have to be re-thought of to get similar effects and layout to work.

Some authors might be considering adding a few more features to take advantage of jQuery (now comes with v2.x).

However, I don't know how long you have to wait, as I'm not part of the team :p I'm only taking care of the skins I converted for b2evo right now, decided to wait for the final version before adding more skins.

Hi John,

thank you for the reply back into this post, yes I feel as well that it
could be done and yes it might take some time to do so
I am not afraid to try to upgrade the themes at all,
but I just needed some help as to what should really go where etc,
sort of like that threaded post in the manual to guide me a bit better
before I tried.

I did have the 1.10 installed with my host and went ahead and
did the upgrade already to the 2.0.2 alpha version on my own
as the host didnt have the next version available and it does look
to be so much better laid out in the admin part then the 1.10 version
as far as using it goes, I couldn't really understand all the features that
was in the 1.10 version, but seeing it in the 2.0.2 alpha version is better
laid out to use the functions with this software as well as easier for
me to use it this way then with the 1.10 version.

I don't really want to mess up and downgrade back to the 1.10 version
I have been further searching this topic and found a section here
http://manual.b2evolution.net/Upgrade_from_1.10.x_to_2.0.x

But again not really following it to well as to what files needed to be
edited out to make the skins work.???
Would it be easier or harder in your opinion to do a template instead
of a skin or again are they one and the same ?

I thank you for taking the time to reply back to my post here and any
further tips you can share with me to proceed I would greatly appreciate
it as well

thank you
Libby

Hi Laibcoms,

Yes I am sure that the final release will be worth the wait, but I already
did the upgrade to make better use of the admin side of the software
as I couldnt really get use to the 1.10 version,and this upgraded version
does seem to work better for me to use in the admin side of it as I was
using WP and this seems now to be a bit similar in the backoffice part
although much much better then WP by a long shot for what I want
to use it for.

Actually it was your site that I went to to read up on the tutorial on how
you upgraded your theme for the midnight theme,
which got me wanting to do that for some of these other themes
that I wanted to use on my different blogs , as there are some really
decent ones at the skins site that are great!!!

but I must confess that it was hard for me to read it on your blog
as your theme is in black, but I did manage to see some of what
you was saying and that was a great great step by step that you
wrote out there which is what I am after really to better understand
what should go where etc, I was trying to use the evopress as
my guide to edit with and was mainly copying over what was in each
of those files over to say for example the ality theme.

But as I went on to read more into the manual on the B2 site and
the Upgrade from 1.10 x to 2.0 it got me a bit confused there between
your steps and there steps, your steps made it simple to understand
but it seemed like there was bits missing on your steps or I felt there
was something that I was missing as you used your theme pages
as a example to edit it with, so I thought ok I will download
your theme and try to use that as a guide to upgrade the other theme
by. But again didnt get far, I am a fast learner if given the steps in
easy terms to follow to.

You seem to know your stuff or you give me the impression that you
know enough that you was able to upgrade your theme so if you can
be so kind as to maybe lay the steps out here for me to follow along
to then maybe just maybe I can edit out the themes enough to get
them working until the final release come out with the stable version?

What I need are the steps as to what files are needed to edit and
upgrade to since the themes already have the files there but they are
called different file names then to what the upgraded version themes
are now being called? So would I just rename the theme files to these
new file names? Somehow I dont think it is as simple as that?
I also saw mentioned about container etc, and I did
notice that when I installed the themes they all said no containers
are in with this theme?

But again the themes themselves would not work in the backoffice,
they uploaded and I could see them but when
I tried to use them got the 500 error or sometimes the 400 error
message, so would have to change the theme back to the custom
theme or the nifty corners one for now.

I also would need a structure if you will as to what files go into each
folder to make up the theme itself, I again tried to use the theme's
structure to go by but when comparing the evopress files to the
theme files they didnt even look to be the same so that was why I
decided to come here and ask before I mess anything up.

Now I also saw that you used Xampp to do your editing with, I
had that on my PC but it messed with my pc to do bad so I took it
off, I do however have a phpdesigner software, on my system and I
do have NVU as well as HTML tool Kit on my pc that I can easy
work with to do the editing, I like the way that this forum can post
this code part goes here and that code part goes there etc as I can
follow along with steps like that as well, but just need some guidance
as to WHAT CODE GOES WHERE so to speak?

I do hope that I have given enough info here so that you can better
help to proceed with the upgrade on some of these themes??

Also if you have the simple steps as to how I could maybe alter out the
header part on say the theme of nifty corners or a 3 column theme
or even that theme like the kubrick one then I would again greatly
appreciate your time with helping me to proceed with this project

look forward to your reply as well as any others replies
to get this started with.

thank you

Libby

Ahh... I see..

Yes you are correct, I did not include the "whole" content of the files, mainly because these are "calls", example calling the html_body file. I concentrated on the part of the files that should be edited, and left out those parts that shouldn't be touched.

Another problem I see will be how the 1.x themes were coded, especially on the CSS part. Since with v2.x we now have widgets(-container), if in 1.x we can design each widget individually/independently of each other, in v2.x, if we want to do the same effects, we have to target it specifically using CSS Selectors (descendants or child [descendant will work with IE, child won't]). Which I encountered while upgrading the HillaryDuff skin to v2.x.

I also encountered other areas that must be tweaked to achieve the same result in v2.x, so it really is time-consuming and frustrating. I myself, take long-breaks (completely forget about it), before I go back to it. That way, I'll have a fresh new look at it and can think clearer again, and perhaps approach the problem in a different angle and direction.

For the header part... Im not sure what exactly is it that you need, but the header part is localted at _body_header file. It is just a widget-container, the only thing you want to look at it is the CSS class used (if there is).

The best way I can see is you need to understand how skins v2.x works first, then you will understand how to upgrade v1.x to v2.x.

Example, if you are asking how the header part (Blog Name and Blog Description) can be edited in v2.x, that will be in the widget-container and the widget itself (backoffice). But in v1.x it is all there in the _main.php file.

You don't need to rename the files. You literally have to create a new skin. Copying slowly which each part to Skins v2.x. I laid out the stuff on the guide I created ;)

I don't know how else to explain it, as I do not know your level in XHTML, CSS, and well programming. I approach it as a programmer - separating groups of code, thats why I was able to see which bits goes where.

What I can do is provide the guide in a different skin. I'll fix it up, give me a week (got day-job ;) have to schedule it).

:)

Keep it cool.

Hi Laibcoms,

thank you for once again for the reply, first off yes that would be great
if you could put your guide into a different skin for me to see the steps
that you outlined, and I can wait till you get to it as I understand about
the day job and this world and trying to blend them both.

I am glad that you said that about what you had left out, I thought I
was surely missing something there at first glance:) but if you could
please do this part for me I would greatly appreciate it as well:
is there a way that you could add the whole page file there and
highlight maybe what it is that you had to change from the V1 version
over to the V2 version as then I could use that file info to compare
to when doing the theme upgrade.???

I understand about the header part and the widget parts on the admin
side, how to change the Blog Name and Blog Description, but what I
was after was how to change the image of the header itself, I
dont believe that this could be done thru the admin, but that it would
need to be done thru the header file itself is that correct? Those are
the steps I needed for that part there to edit out the header image
for the current theme say for example nifty corners?

Now I can read CSS a bit, and I can understand a bit on PHP
and on HTML itself.

But I am not a programmer by know means, I can copy and paste
files and coding into area's but I need to have simple steps as to
what code goes where and into what files,and what folders they belong
in, that was why when I first found your guide it did help me to better
understand what certain files I was needing to edit and what code
needed to be added to the theme files themselves somewhat,

And I do the same here as far as taking the breaks go as your right
it does get very frustrating to say the least LoL ,but I am determined
to get the themes edited so I can begin to work on the content and
the blogs themselves, but I wanted to get the themes that I would be
using sorted first so I didnt have to go back to them later on after the
content was added and then alter the themes if that makes sense as to
why I am stuck at the moment trying to at least alter out a theme or
2 to work with for starters?

So I will await your update here as to hopefully getting your guide in
a lighter skin or if you could just maybe post the whole guide itself say
onto one light static page if that would be faster for you to do there
I wouldnt want you to go thru creating a whole new lighter theme just
for me to read the steps to your guide , but again what ever is easier
on you and not to much trouble your end I would so very much
appreciate it as I already much appreciate you taking the time out
to post back to this thread and help me to get started with the project.

I do have one or maybe several more questions please if I may, that
maybe you can help me with, you say that I need to create a whole
new skin for this upgrade to work, right? So would I be safe to say
I could just copy over for say example the evopress files into a new
folder called say my theme and then add in the current theme coding
example ality theme over to the evopress files ? do I have that part
straight?

if so then what I needed was the steps as to where the old
coding startes and the new coding starts or needed to be added into
to make the theme work for the V2 version does that make sense?
example: ality theme has no containers in the main.php file, but the
evopress has the index.main.php file and that has containers in its
coding, so I would just need to use say a file compare software
like winmerge to see what coding has changed between the 2 files
or am I again way off target here as to how I am trying this all?

I thank you for the help thus far and look forward to your next reply
again any and all help I could get with these questions I would really
appreciate it. thanks everyone:)

Libby

Libby wrote:

I understand about the header part and the widget parts on the admin
side, how to change the Blog Name and Blog Description, but what I
was after was how to change the image of the header itself, I
dont believe that this could be done thru the admin, but that it would
need to be done thru the header file itself is that correct? Those are
the steps I needed for that part there to edit out the header image
for the current theme say for example nifty corners?
Libby

I just did this, and I'm no CSS master, so I thought I'd pass on my newbie-friendly advice.

Look in the CSS file for your skin, scroll down to where you see:

div.pageHeader

strip out the line that begins with "background" and replace it with:

background: url(myimage.jpg)no-repeat;

(replace "myimage" of course, with the url of your image)

OK, now you should have your nice new image as your header, but how do you get rid of the text over it? (Assuming you want to, if you want to use that text, you're done.)

Go to your backoffice, select "costumize--blog properties," staying on the "General" tab, delete whatever you have in the "full name" text box. Then delete your tagline.

OK, now looking at your blog you don't have that text, but your header image has just been flattened to about 20 pixels high.

Go back to that CSS file, to the same section you edited before:

div.pageHeader

and add this line:

height: 111px;

(Of course, it doesn't have to be 111 pixels, that's just the height of my header.)

Save the CSS file again, look at your blog, and you should be good!

This is a bit hack-y, I'm sure. (Seeing as how I'm a bit of a hack.) If there's a better way around the text issue, please let me know.

Well, that doesn't seem to work at all in IE :(

Maybe someone can tell me what I did wrong?

jenyum,

Do you have an URL for the site where you tried this?

It's working now! I'm an idiot, it was a syntax problem. I forgot to put single quotes around the URL, Firefox read it correctly but IE couldn't deal with it.

If you'd like to see it (It's just a mock up I'm playing with), it's here:

http://www.365tacoma.com/blogs

It seems to work properly in both browsers now, but with removing the blog title there's no title at the top of the browser. I'd still like to find a better way to make the text go bye-bye, if you have any suggestions.

You can enter the title and style it hidden in css:

display: hidden;

The image looks ok in both FF and IE6. Well done.

where should I put this CSS? I've tried two sections that look like the right place, but it still shows up:

div.pageHeader

and

div.pageHeader h1

sorry, my mistake. It is:

display: none;

The place you mention is correct. I think both will work.

Good luck

Thank you for the speedy help, I got it working.

It has to go in the H1 section, otherwise it hides the whole header image.

You know, this would make a really great feature to have in the backoffice. An option to upload an image to use as a header, and a toggle to hide the title would really make a lot of people happy, I would think.

There is an option in backoffice to change the css file. That way bloggers with limited permissions can still edit *their* blog to their taste.

Good luck

jenyum wrote:

You know, this would make a really great feature to have in the backoffice. An option to upload an image to use as a header, and a toggle to hide the title would really make a lot of people happy, I would think.

Easy stuff :

with the new widgets system of the latest beta release you can :

create a FREE HTML widgets to place in your header container, within this widget you paste the html code to display an image (your header image) that you have previously uploaded to your media folder (this way you can even generate the code from the media manager and "see" before generating the code wich image header you want to use. ((when you do this, never copy the generated code with the <div> tags it will break your template, start from the <img> tags and it will be safe.))

something like this :

<img src="http://yoursite/blogs/media/yourimage.gif" alt="" title="title" width="775" height="121" /> 

the toogle to hide the title ? your title is now a widget also, just remove it or put it elsewhere in another container of your template, and put your free html widget alone in the Header container of the skin of your choice.

see : www.vajra.be

and that's it..you can even make diferent header image for each of your blog :)

HI All,

I have been away for awhile sorry, I have noticed that there has been some sort of solution to my issue at hand , However I followed the steps here by first off:jenyum Thank you so much for the steps as I was able to use them but again got a bit stuck as my questions for you are below if you can further help:

And forgive me if I sound like a complete idiot here but I got the image to go into the header part in a round about way But I don't believe I have the correct spot that I am putting the Image URL in as I don't no which folder the images should be in so that I get the correct URL needed for the image to show? What exactly is the correct path to upload my image into example which folder and directory does the header image need to be in?

That is my one of my problems here as it seems that if I use nifty corners theme for say 2 blogs then that same header image showes up for both of these blogs if that makes sense so far by editing out the css.file like the steps said to do, it did work but again was a bit also confused when you said it needed to go into H1 area in the css file as I only put the url which I put the image in my media folder thru my cpanel and then used that URL in the css.file was that correct so far or did I get that as well wrong

The 2nd part to my question here is this and for Buzzworks please you posted a EASY method to get to the point that I can have a different header for each of my blogs and once again forgive me if I sound dumb here but could you please explain it to me how you go about to get these steps done please:

(1) within this widget you paste the html code to display an image (your header image)
My question: How do you get the HTML code in the first place? I saw the widgets I think I got that section of it right but stuck after that and as the questions below as followes:

(2) that you have previously uploaded to your media folder
My Question: Where or how do I get to the media folder and is this in my cpanel or is it on the B2 Admin side?

(3)(this way you can even generate the code from the media manager and "see" before generating the code which image header you want to use.

My Question: How can I generate the code from the media manager and thus "see" before I generate the code for the image header I want to use please?

I thank you all so much for the help thus far with this I really apppreciate it , I would not have come even this far if it had not been for this forum and the helpful people here that helped me to better understand the techy side to this blogging set up and this is even before I begin to blog but so worth it to get this all set up .
I look forward once again to any and all help with these questions i have stated above

Libby