The only files you have to edit to alter skins or make new skins, are the files that are in the skins-directory.
They all begin with _xxx.php
The main file is _main.php
To change colors and layout you open your xxx.css file that is in that same directory.

I use dreamweaver to edit files.

Do NOT let frontpage anywhere near your files. I have no idea if it's improved any since I last used it (I doubt it), but it seriously butchers your code, and the html it generates will never, ever validate, and take about 5 times longer to load than propperly written xhtml.

The way I edit templates is to load the actual webpage in my browser, and then do a "Save page as" and save it locally. Then I take that html file and the associated files (like images and stylesheets, which will be in their own directory) and I copy them into my dreamweaver site, so that the page I saved sits in the same directory as my production stylesheet (since the stylesheet, on the server, sits in the same directory as _main.php).

I then edit the html file I saved so that it points to the real images directory, and the real stylesheet location. I don't worry about the images that might have been associated with the page I saved, I just worry about the core template graphics, like header and backgrounds... (At this point it's safe to delete the subdirectory that got created when I did the "Save page as"...

Now, once the image and css paths are fixed in the html file I saved, whenever I edit a stylesheet entry in Dreamweaver it edits the real stylesheet, and I can preview the page both in the dreamweaver design view and with a local browser.

This also makes it easier to find the piece of CSS that you're trying to change, since in Dreamweaver you can click on an element and it will show you what styles are applied to it.

Hope this helps. Takes about 5 minutes to set up, but after that, you're good to go.

jj.

Dreamweaver is good. :D

Or you can be lazy and just use notepad. I <3 ctrl+F (find) (actually, I'm sure Dreamweaver prolly has something like that).

notepad, or pico :P