modifying emerald

Emerald is by far my favorite. I want to put a vertical "skyscraper" ad just to the left, out side the 'meat' of the page, on every page. I can't find which template file I would have to modify, or where to put in the code.

Is anyone familiar enough with emerald to tell me where to look?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2011 11:52AM by dsibilant.

It is not really about Emerald. It is more about HTML design that is used in the template. Every template uses a header and a footer. Those can be modified to inlucde a skyscraper or other layout parts.

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

Thank you. I've already altered the header. But a skyscraper can't go there. They are 600 pix tall; the meat of the page would only appear at the bottom of the ad. I want the ad to run beside the meat.

I guess I just want to add the left column of violet to emerald.

This might be a good alteration to make to the banner mod. Lots of ad networks offer skyscrapers.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2011 12:03PM by dsibilant.

It cannot be added to the banner module, because a vertical page element is very HTML layout dependent. Horizontal elements can be inserted easily automatically, so that is what the module can handle for you.

You are seeing the header as the top of the page. The header however, is the HTML code that is put in front of the body HTML code. The header is therefore not limited to only implementing the top of the page. This kind of structure can also be implemented:

+-----------------------------------------------------+
|                                                     |
|                 header                              |
|                                                     |
|        +--------------------------------------------+
|        |                                            |
|        |                                            |
|        |                                            |
|        |                                            |
|        |                                            |
| header |        body                                |
|        |                                            |
|        |                                            |
|        |                                            |
|        |                                            |
|        |                                            |
+--------+--------------------------------------------+
|                                                     |
|                 footer                              |
|                                                     |
+-----------------------------------------------------+

The most crude way to implement such layout, would be using a table. Without testing, I guess something like the following.

In header.tpl, before <div id="phorum">, add

[code=html]
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top">
... banner code ...
</td>
<td valign="top">
<div id="phorum">
[/code]

In footer.tpl, after </div> <!-- end of div id="phorum" -->, add

[code=html]
</div> <!-- end of div id="phorum" -->
</td>
</tr>
</table>
[/code]

It sounds like you are editing the Emerald template directory. If this is the case, then please follow the instructions to create your own template directory. If you do not do that, then upgrading will become much harder in the future.

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Maurice Makaay
Phorum Development Team
my blog linkedin profile secret sauce

Ah, thank you. I think this will work for me. And I read earlier today about creating my own template directory, so I'll do that and restore the original emerald.

This site and your product are outstanding.