Discus 4.0 expands on the capabilities of previous versions to offer a truly customizable viewing experience for the visitors to your discussion board. By generating the user interface from a customizable skin, you have the ability to alter the display of the user interface in just about any way possible.

You can customize skins to make your discussion board integrate within the rest of your web site. For example, you can add a navigation section that allows your discussion board visitors to click to another area of your site, just as they could if reading a regular page elsewhere on your web site. You can change colors and fonts and even add CSS formatting to make the discussion board look like your other web pages.

You can customize skins to alter the display of discussion board information. For example, you could remove the display of the last poster and instead display the originator (first poster in a conversation).

The Discus 4.0 skin system makes nearly any customization possible. We have prepared this documentation to introduce you to the way that the Discus software reads and interacts with skins. Armed with this knowledge, you can jump right in and customize your discussion board to meet your needs.

How skins are edited

Skin files resemble a number of HTML documents all compiled into a single document. These text files can be edited with any plain text editor such as Notepad, although we do recommend a more advanced text editor, such as UltraEdit or TextPad, when editing these files.

We recommend against using an HTML editor, such as Front Page, to edit the Discus skin files. While Front Page and other HTML editors may understand single HTML documents, they will almost certainly not understand several HTML documents put into a single file. Nor will they understand the template language that allows IF-THEN and other intelligent processing (more on this later). To customize skins will require some basic knowledge of HTML (by this we mean HTML tags themselves and not the ability to use your WYSIWYG HTML editor).

For more about the mechanics of skin editing, consult how to edit skins in this section of the Knowledge Center.

How skins are organized

A Discus skin is a collection of various "parts" which each serve a particular function or purpose in generating pages in your user interface. For example, the "page" part controls the look of pages in the user interface, ultimately controlling the display and formatting of subtopics. You can find a full list of the commonly used parts of skins by visiting the template language reference.

Here are the parts of skins that you will be most concerned with when you set off on your first skin editing project:

• dynamic_top: This controls the header section of every page in your user interface. This generally includes the top menu bar, if any, and the page title. If you are looking to add a banner or image to the top of all of your user interface screens, you will be editing this part.

• dynamic_bottom: This is similar to the dynamic_top portion of the skin, except that it controls the bottom menu bar and the footer on pages. If you are looking to add a footer to your pages, you will be editing this part. Also, if you opened any tables or other HTML tags when editing the header, you will close them in this part.

• no_frames_buttons: Most version 4.0 boards run in frameless mode, and this part controls a list of buttons or links to access most common utilities. Generally this bar appears at the bottom of the page, since it is called from the "dynamic_bottom" part. If you are looking to change these links, you will edit this part.

• page: This is the part of the skin that controls the appearance of all message and subtopic pages in your interface. The exact method in which subtopics and messages appear are controlled by this portion of the skin. Example modifications of this part include changing the format of the subtopic list (like adding the originator) and changing the location and/or formatting of the "start new thread" link/button.

• addmessage-public and addmessage-private: These control the "Add a Message" boxes in public posting and private posting areas, respectively. If you will be adding additional fields to your message boxes or otherwise customizing the look of the message boxes, you will do so here.

How skins are applied

The skin affects all pages and messages that are generated on your board, but changes are applied only to those pages that are saved or generated after the changes were saved. Thus, to ensure that changes are applied to all pages on the discussion board, it is necessary to regenerate the board.

To regenerate the board:

1. Log into your administration program as the board administrator (typically 'admin').

2. Click Appearance Manager from the main menu. From Appearance Manager, click the Regeneration tab.

3. From the drop-down box, select "All Topics" and click the "Regenerate Board" button. Wait for the progress gauge to reach 100% and the Appearance Manager screen to reappear to confirm that all pages have been regenerated successfully.

Skin editing caveats

Since skins control how pages are generated, and your pages are the primary source for messages and subtopics of your board, an incorrectly written or customized skin can cause data loss. For example, if your skin eliminated the code to store messages, and you then regenerated the board with that change, all messages on your board would be lost. DiscusWare cannot provide support for data loss due to improper skin modifications.

Here are some general hints and precautions you can take to safeguard your data when editing skins:

1. Always make a backup of your board before you apply a new skin. That way, if your new skin breaks the board, you can restore the backup and not lose your board data.

2. Test the skin before applying. One way to do this is to set up a second Discus board on your server for testing purposes. Or, you could install Perl and a web server on your own Windows computer and then install Discus on your desktop machine. By posting a few sample messages and confirming that your skin works properly on a test board, you can be sure that it will work properly on the "real" board.

3. Do not install untrusted skins. Just as you would not install software on your computer from an untrusted source, you should not install skins from untrusted sources. DiscusWare provides ample opportunity to skin designers to submit their works for inclusion in our on-line skin gallery. Skins from any other source have not been reviewed by DiscusWare.