Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 4 – Layout
*** UPDATED AUGUST 4, 2009: The screenshots are BACK! Found them on my computer
***
This is part of the osDate 7 part blog series. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for links to the other parts.
The hardest part of learning a new system is understanding its layout and which files to edit to change something on a page. Lucky for you I’ve made screenshots to help you figure out which tpl files to edit to change certain parts of the site. This visual guide should make it a whole lot easier to modify your layout.
The default osDate template files are stored in templates/default/. If you want to use other themes, the templates folder is where you want to move your files to. To activate a specific theme, go into Admin > Site’s Global Settings > Site theme / skin. The screenshots below are taken of the default osDate template.
FRONT PAGE SCREENSHOT - click the image to enlarge

LOGGED IN SCREENSHOT – click the image to enlarge
PROFILE SCREENSHOT – click the image to enlarge
When you’re not sure which tpl file to edit, here’s a tip. Open up the PHP file of the page that you’re on. Scroll down to the very bottom where it says:
$t->assign( ‘rendered_page’, $t->fetch( ‘xxxxxx.tpl’ ) );
The x’s of course will be different depending on the file. This is the file that you need to edit.
Onto Part 5 for themes: Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 5 – osDate Themes

