i am trying to give all my blocks a different background colour from the other parts of my site.

im not very hot on PHP and im not sure what files i have to edit and what edit is needed.

any help would be appreciated. i have tried extensive searching in the forum but cant find anything relevant

thanx

Just get the AutoThemes module. With a little HTML work, you can make a very dynamic website that can change from page to page.

thanks very much, i'll have a go.

It should be noted that you can do the same thing with Xanthia.

-Chris

Let's see. On May 2, 2004 autothemes posts the following referring to Xanthia:

Which can be found at: http://forums.postnuke.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=24951

Now on May 3, 2004 authothemes posts:


You must have been up all night running performance tests to be able to come back a day later and change from "it just didn't appeal to me" to say "Xanthia sucks". Or maybe you have paid some unbiased 3rd party to run the tests for you and you can provide a link to some usefull benchmarks.

I'll save you the trouble of finding some benchmarks since I'm pretty sure that you don't have any of your own.
http://forums.postnuke.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=20074
You will note that the results of this thread don't look good for Xanthia, but the astute reader will see that the last post was made on December 5, 2003 and was based on a prior version of Xanthia.


AutoTheme lite is a free alternative to Xanthia, true, the advanced features of AutoTheme however come at a price and are not part of the 'Lite' edition.
From the FAQ on the AutoTheme site:


Features that are part of AutoTheme 1.0 and 1.7 that don't exist in the Lite version. Again from the AutoTheme FAQ's:


I took the liberty of bolding the section that relates to this thread. The original question from this thread was:

Of course by Autothemes own faq this is a feature available in the commercial version. One interpretation of samsonite3000's question may be that they are looking to change 'ALL' blocks to have the 'SAME' background color. In which case the commercial version would not be necessary. If the question is interpreted as looking to change 'ALL' blocks to have 'DIFFERENT' colors then the commercial version would be necessary and the AutoTheme suggestion is no longer free.

I haven't played with AutoTheme in a while so it may be the case that the autoblocks feature of AutoTheme is now included in the Lite version. I notice in the AutoTheme download that there is an autoblock.cfg file that gets placed in the modules/Blocks folder so maybe it is. You will also note that the modules/Blocks/pnadmin.api file is also replaced.

Let's make it clear to the average user trying to decide which route to take. If you want to take advantage of the autoblocks functionality you need to replace your modules/Blocks/pnadmin.php file. This means that when a new version of PostNuke is released you will not be able to upgrade until Shawn (the author of AutoTheme) releases a new version. This should not be a problem since Shawn is really good about releasing files, but it is a hack of a core file.

To Joe User reading this thread.
Whether you want to use AutoTheme or Xanthia I don't really care. AutoTheme is a good product and if you want to use it feel free. Just know that it is also a commercial product and as such the advanced features come at a price. The reason for me responding at all in this thread is to let the average user and samsonite3000 know that there are multiple ways to achieve the desired end result and that it would be good to spend some time investigating all your options. If you walk into the Ford shop you should expect the salesman to tell you how much better the new Fords are than the Chevrolet's. The same holds true if you wander into the AutoTheme or Xanthia shop. Just keep in mind that you might want to get a few more points of view before you run out and spend your money.

To autothemes.

The only person making the holier-than-thou claims is you. I just told samsonite3000 that the same result could be achieved with Xanthia and that it was free. You on the other hand had to start the holier-than-thou mud slinging with the 'Xanthia sucks' posts.

If you really want to help somebody try telling them all the options and then give valid reasons why you think they should choose one or the other and stay away from the 'because it sucks' answers. That's the kind of response I expect from my 4 year old.

-Chris

For anyone following this post it appears as if someone has deleted his post so my previous post no longer makes sense. :D
-Chris

Censorship .... lovely ....

It's called enforcing the pnCode of Conduct. You can either behave or not post.

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Just drunk with your admin powers aren't you? I told him to get off his "high horse" - tell me how that violated any provisions of the code of conduct?

You'll notice I deleted more than that comment. Now drop it..

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I don't see any reason to drop it. When you abuse your admin powers you area an embarassment to the Postnuke community. I'm all for policing forums, but it not appropriate for you to delete posts just because you don't like the subject of the debate.

I deleted it because your comment was intentionally inflamatory.

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It was a statement of my feelings toward Xanthia. "Intetionally inflammatory" isn't a reason to delete posts (several I should add) And if you hadn't deleted my post I was fully prepared to argue the merits of AT vs Xanthia. Now take Ra3p3r, for instance, he spent a bunch of time arguing the point and I appreciated that. You, by comparison, just deleted my post because you didn't like my opinion. This was reflected in another thread where you answered my legitimate question concerning the decision to pursue Xanthia with the statement "because thats what the design team decided." Again, to me it clearly indicated that you either have something against AT or you didn't like the subject of the discussion.

Unless I miss my guess, that is not YOUR job as a moderator. Shame on you.

That particular post was removed on accident, but I don't have the ability to put it back, the resulting discussion was removed because it was, in my view, going towards inflamatory discussion.

I could care less what your oppinion of AT vs Xanthia is. However as I have said to you in another post, don't just flame Xanthia, it is not productive and does nothing to solve the problems you have with it.

Actually, my response was 'Because they chose to go a different direction". I also am fairly confident that the whys have been discussed.

I have no problem with AutoTheme, I've done work with it, and I even have a licence for AT Pro that I use on one of my sites. Until Xanthia was annnounced, it was going to be a foundation of services offered in one of my hosting ventures that's under development, however since Xanthia affords more features than AT does at this stage, and is a free part of the Core PostNuke project, it will be what I use.
My job as a moderator is to prevent where i saw this thread headed. If you have a problem with it, you can contact me PRIVATELY. If you have legitimate reasons why you think Xanthia sucks, then lay them out constructively, don't just say "Xanthia Sucks". Yes, I do have a problem with how you presented that statement, but I did not delete it intentionally.

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Sheesh ... if it was an accident then why didn't you say so. Its not like I'm out for blood. I just resented what I thought was an effort to stifle legitimate debate.

No harm no foul - forget about it. And if I offended by saying its sucks, then I apologize as well.

You try very hard in this forum and we all appreciate that.