Hi johnj. Everything is possible, but it might not be easy. I'm busy upgrading skins to 240 and platinum is on my first round list so I'll keep this in mind when I get there. For now you'll want to look at this section of your _main.php file:

<div class="pageHeader">

<?php 
/* -------------------------- BLOG LIST INCLUDED HERE --------------------------
 * customize this with settings in skins/skinname/_bloglist.php or 
 * copy skins/_bloglist.php to skins/skinname and really customize it
 */
require( dirname(__FILE__).'/_bloglist.php' );
// ----------------------------- END OF BLOG LIST --------------------------- ?>

<h1 id="pageTitle"><?php $Blog->disp( 'name', 'htmlbody' ) ?></h1>
<div class="pageSubTitle">
<?php $Blog->disp( 'tagline', 'htmlbody' ) ?>
</div>

</div>

After the bloglist section is where you would want to add in the images, and I think before the H1 for the title. Probably you will have to use class="rightmargin" and class="leftmargin" to get the pictures to float to each side, but I'm not sure how the div for the tagline will work if you do that.

Heck test it out a bit and see what works and what doesn't! Just back up your files before you find out that it's all broken and you can't get it back to normal yah?

hey, any suggestions on what code to plug into what file to get separate jpg banners for each of my 4 separate blogs? i had that implented in the basic skin in 1.x series b2evo, but now that i'm on 2.x (2.4.0 to be precise), i'd like to implement that customization.

currently, i'm using the default evopress skin. i tried implementing pieces of my old code into the main.header.php file or whatever, but that was unsuccessful... returned an error. any suggestions?

Yeah in evopress it's pretty easy. Enable "custom css per blog" then upload to media/blog_path/ a replacement header image and a "style.css" that calls for the new background image. It's working that way on my evopress clone, so I'm pretty sure it'll work on yours :)

To have an image that is NOT a background-image from a style sheet is a different thing. Dunno how to do that.

hmmm... not sure if its a background image i'll need, but i'll give it a try when i get home. would a background repeat for the whole page, or would it be able to act as a top banner?

evopress header (the blue thing) is a background image that doesn't repeat, so yeah it doesn't have to. But it can. It can repeat across or down or both. It can be in the middle or just about anywhere on the screen you want it to be.

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/propidx.html is a great place to get friendly with all sorts of css stuff. In particular you might find http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/colors.html#propdef-background-position both exceedingly dull and somewhat informative.

upon creating the said directories in the media dir, and uploading the styles.css files and their respective banner.jpg, is there anything that should be done about the original styles.css and header.jpg in the actual skin directory itself?

No, but I miss-typed above. It is "media/blogs/blog_name" and you should not have needed to create them. File manager should have made them if you have ... something enabled on your Global settings tab. Or maybe on the Files tab?

Anyway for a blog named 'myblog' (and see the Blog settings tab for which field will be used for each blogs media folder) if you have "allow blog specific css" enabled and have a style.css in that folder and it is good css for replacing a background image and have the new background image in the appropriate path it'll read the additional css and use the replacement header.

ok, i managed to figure out the banners thing. thanks EdB (funny... i always want to prounounce that ED-DEE-BEE instead of ED-BEE).

now i'm trying to figure out the SIMPLEST THING IN THE WORLD and its eluding me! i remember it eluded me for a while back in 1.x, but not like this is eluding me now: how in the &%$# do i get rid of that big blocky h1 header displaying the blog title? i hate it! i've gone through the style.css and removed this and that... gone through all the php files looking for where it's being called from. and nothing. i'm still stuck. and it's making me feel stupid because i know it has to be so simple.

*deep breath*

after i manage that i have one more nigh-impossible header related task to try and tackle (but i already have a plan b if that doesn't work out). but one thing at a time i guess. any suggestions on the blog title header in evopress?

You mean a suggestion other than "hit the widgets subtab on the Blog settings tab for any given blog and remove the title widget from the Header container"? Nope. I have no idea what you can do about that ;)

OT: A long time ago there was a website where you could do a google-thing on your own name and it would come back with a list of stuff that various web pages said about your name. Like "shunsai is (example only) used in a natural gas reclamation process" or whatever. You would get a fairly long list of weird stuff. So I put EdB in there (and yeah I pronounce it eee dee bee) and came back with lots of stuff about ethylene dibromide. Apparently I'm not very good for the environment... I kinda miss that funky site but oh well.

well, i found one way in the backoffice by deleting the title in General Parameters... but it gets rid of the title at the very top of the window too (that one that's displayed in- what do you call that thing- the window pane(?)... i just want to get rid of the big headline looking one.

hehe. i just read your post. seems like your method results in the same missing window pane title that my method does. :S

EDIT: nope, wait... forgot to hit refresh. your way works. trumps my way. thanks again. darn i feel stupid! *bangs head against wall*

EdB- bad for the environment; great for forums B)