Hey there! So I wanna make my own theme instead of using one that another has made, so my site is more personalized but when I downloaded the skin I wanted to base it off of, I wasn't able to do anything with it, my computer wouldn't even open it.
Does anyone know what type of program is needed to be able to make a theme, or if it requires code, would there be someone willing to help explain what the different codes do and how to use them to make a theme?
Thanks a million!
~Scarzie

First the theme need s to be for forumotion forums, (If it is ) you would need to install the theme from your Admin Panel. You would then tweak the skin from within the Admin panel in either the CSS stylesheet and/or the templates. When coding what that means is your creating a theme from scratch. You would need coding experience. I'm not much of a coder so i'll let someone else fully explain that part.

interesting post..

Caroline01 wrote:interesting post..

@Caroline01, second reminder. Please keep the content or provide a solution to the topic. This is known as spam. Thank you.

Hi,

If you're creating your own customized theme, it's best to have some experience with the following.

• HTML
  This language will generally be used for template editing. (AP > Display > Templates)
  
  
• CSS
  You'll be using this language to design the majority of the forum. (AP > Display > CSS)
  
  
• JavaScript (Optional)
  I say this is optional, because JS isn't really needed for designing a theme. However, if you want to add dynamic functionality, then you'll want to know this language. (AP > Modules > JS)
  
  
• Image Editing
  You'll need an image editing program and some experience with one if you want to make images for your theme. (AP > Display > Images)
  

Now if you're unable to open certain files, that means you don't have the necessary program for editing code. In which case I have a few recommendations.

• Atom
  
• Notepad++
  
• Brackets
  

You should also be able to view the contents with the default notepad as long as you pick "open with...", but note that it's not a dedicated IDE.