Aardvark Topsites PHP 5.2 Manual

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Upgrade Skins

The biggest hassle in upgrading the script is that, inevitably, some things will change in the skins. So here I will try to tell you the easiest way to take skins from older versions of the script and make them run on the latest version.

5.1.x Skins

Between version 5.1 and 5.2, many skin files changed. I will attempt to go through them all here and describe what changes were made.

• admin.html - The only changes here were in the menu to link to the new features. You can either copy over the new changes to the menu or just use the new admin.html.
• edit_form.html - Just two minor changes here. You should use {$join_banner_size} to tell your users the maximum banner size. Also put this code at the top to display a nicer error message if there is an error in the form:

  <p class="{$error_style_top}" style="margin-top: 0px;">{$error_top}</p>

• gateway.html - This has been redesigned, but there are no functional changes.
• join_captcha.html - Two optional changes here; if you don't make these changes, the script will still work fine. A random number is now added to the end of the image to prevent caching and a refresh link is there in case the captcha is hard to read.
• join_email.html - Some more information has been added, but nothing essential.
• join_finish.html and join_finish_approve.html - Previously, {$approve_message} in join_finish.html contained content when admin approval was turned on. Now, that has been removed from join_finish.html and a new file, join_finish_approve.html was added to handle that case. So upload join_finish_approve.html and delete {$approve_message} from join_finish.html.
• join_form.html - The same changes as in edit_form.html, but also a password confirmation box was added and a hook for the security question was added. The password confirmation box is required, and if you want to use a security question, you'll have to add {$join_question}.
• join_question.html - New file.
• rate_form.html - Adding {$rate_message} to the top will make it a little clearer.
• stats_overall.html - This is a new file. It is heavily based on stats.html, if you want to make it fit in with your current skin. You should also make a link to index.php?a=stats somewhere to take advantage of this feature.
• table_filler.html - New file for the "fill empty rows" feature. If you want to enable this feature, you'll have to base table_filler.html on your table_row.html.
• table_wrapper.html - New file. It is a wrapper around your ranking table for content you only want on those pages. If you want nothing to change, just put {$content} in there.
• user_cp.html, user_cp_login.html, and wrapper.html - Change user control panel links from index.php?a=user_cp to index.php?a=user_cpl.
• wrapper.html - If it's not already there, add this below the <title> tag in wrapper.html:

  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
  content="text/html;charset={$lng->charset}" />

5.0.x Skins

To upgrade a skin from version 5.0, you'll need to do all the stuff mentioned above along with all the stuff in this section.

The following skin files are typically not modified when people make new skins, so you should just upload these new files:

• admin.html
• edit_form.html
• join_captcha.html
• join_form.html
• join_finish.html
• link_code.html
• rate_email_admin.html
• search_results.html

If you want to take advantage of the RSS feed, put this code below the title tag in wrapper.html:

<link rel="alternate" href="{$list_url}/{$feed}"
type="application/rss+xml" title="{$list_name}" />

Add this code below the title tag in wrapper.html and gateway.html:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
content="text/html;charset={$lng->charset}" />

In screen.css (or whatever css file you use), some code similar to this should be added:

.join_edit_error {
	background-color: #f0f0f0;
	border: 1px solid #f00;
	padding: 2px;
}

a.help { color: #f00; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; }
a.help:hover { color: #333; }