Need help changing PHP layouts/templates

microbox · 04-14-2008, 12:54 PM

I downloaded a PHP gaming league script and installed it onto my website. The final results are here: http://microbox.890m.com/www/

But the problem is, I don't like the layout and designs that it uses. I need to know what's the easiest way to edit the layout and designs.

I want the layout to look similar to my homepage here:
http://microbox.890m.com/league.htm

I know that Frontpage has a VERY easy visual designing system, which is what I used to create the homepage. Is there any software that will do the same for PHP webpages?

If not, then what is the easiest way to do it?

microbox · 04-15-2008, 02:53 PM

lol.. maybe I haven't made it clear enough.. so I'll rephrase it into one simple question:

What is the best software with WYSIWYG interface to edit Smarty TPL templates?

jump · 04-21-2008, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by microbox

lol.. maybe I haven't made it clear enough.. so I'll rephrase it into one simple question:

What is the best software with WYSIWYG interface to edit Smarty TPL templates?

You can use Dreamweaver:
http://www.smarty.net/faq.php#19

I have a site which has a script with Smarty templates but I did not use DW to edit.

All I did was create the template which was to be used for the site.

Then I found the main smarty layout files. In my case it was:
- main.tpl
- header.tpl
- footer.tpl

Then I added my design layout to these files one at a time, checking changes after each edit and making sure to keep all PHP statements and template tags unchanged. For example, if header.tpl looks like this:

Code:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
{popup_init src="/javascripts/overlib.js"}
<TITLE>{$title} - {$Name}</TITLE>
</HEAD>

I can add anything I want to any .tpl file as long as I don't mess up the code which the script needs to generate the content in the places where it is supposed to go.

After establishing the basic layout with the above 3 templates, I worked my way down through all the other .tpl files making minor layout changes where required.

I used a text based editor to avoid code-bloat which is common among WYSIWYG editors.

So what you can do is design your template first in some kind of WYSIWYG editor (like Dreamweaver for example), then use a text based editor to make changes to the actual templates, or you can change your tag delimiters in DW as suggested in the above link.