I'm just getting started with DNN and I don't understand how to use some of the free designs that are available. I am confused concerning which designs are skins and which are templates.

I've downloaded and installed some free skins. These are, as I expected, designs that determine the appearance of the pages. Thanks to those that provide free skins.

I've also downloaded designs that I thought were templates, but they seem to be just a HTML file that shows the design. What am I missing?

I understand thar templates determine the organization and content of a site. If someone builds a site, say for a local church, then he can export that site as a template for others to use as a base for another church site. Since this seems so easy, why aren't there more free templates? 

Gary Minor 

Gary Minor

That's easy.  All of them are skins and none of them are templates.  :)

I'm with Chris on this, I'm not sure why templates aren't released more.  They're very useful for anyone working in a market segment, such as real estate, medical office, blog/forum, etc.  They're a lot less useful I think for the general purchaser, because a template kind of determines the flow of a site and not just the design.  Many of the DNN sites I see out there could use good templates to improve them, it's just that I never seem to be doing the same site twice.

A place like AllDNNSkins.com could likely provide templates with their specialized skins, but most general skins have so much variety in how they can be used that it's tough to come up with a specific template for them.  Another issue is that many skin "sets" seem to be verging on templates, providing a home page, admin page and several other page layouts in a set of skins.  I have a tendency to use a single skin for all pages of a site, with appropriate panes that collapse when they have no content.  This has become my standard skinning technique as I have converted to CSS-based skins and it provides for multiple layout styles in a single skin by populating the correct panes.

Templates don't even seem to have an importance in DNN 5 (at least not yet) except for web hosts that are providing automated installations.  And they could make it so easy to get a new site started without much in the way of programming or design experience.  Maybe if DNN included several example templates instead of just the one.  Anyone in the Core Team listening...?  :)

Jeff