Michael Tobisch wrote:
Well, there was not too much change in the principles of skinning in the last years. So I guess if you find a book that is about skinning in DNN 5 you get the basics and be able to write skins for DNN 6 and 7 as well. The bigger problems with skins are newer browsers like IE 10.
Anyway - if you want to do skinning, you need a profound knowledge of CSS (3) and HTML (5), a basic knowledge of XML and a good look at the DDR menu (see the Wiki here). But most of the skinning tasks are not very DNN specific, but more design principles.
Best wishes
Michael
Thank for the reply Michael. I have run through the Basic Skinning Video as well as the Skinning 101 4-part series. I have a template built in HTML and CSS ready to go, more than one actually. I have parsed it in and test applied it to see if it worked, it does, but am at the point where I need to better understand the panes and containers to get it fully operational and ready to accept content and modules.
This is the specific book I was looking at: Here 2007 pub date, damn that's old! Do you think this will be relavent or turn into a book end on my shelf?
I am fairly well versed with HTML and CSS and from what I've learned so far it seems to me the best approach is to take my HTML templates, have them parsed and then work the finishing integration from within the .ascx file. I think I understand what you mention with the XML file and from the Skinning 101 tut where it touches on using them for doctype version control. It also mentioned using them for other settings as well but didn't go into depth. If you have any suggestions or thoughts on best approach for custom skinning I am all ears, but seems a deep understanding of the .ascx files is required.
I am not interested how to apply pre-built templates other than ones I construct so mastering the skinning engine is key to my success with DNN. I have used several other CMS in the past but of course the .ascx files and the DNN skinning engine is quite a bit different and proprietary to DNN.
I use all HTML5 and as much CSS3 as possible and also only support back to IE8. I'm not sure what other problems IE10 has specifically but if there is a problem with integration with my chosen tech and methods then I might have a problem. Feel free to elaborate or share a link on what you were referring to.
Thanks