Features System Requirements Installation Users Guide FAQ

The look of HyperThread can be easily customized by you or your designers with no modifications to the actual program. Formatting information is stored in external HTML templates, and the images used as buttons can be replaced by other images. By default the entire HyperThread has one look that is controlled by a single HTML template file, but you can also use multiple templates to give each discussion topic its own layout and images.

Using A Single Template

When you installed HyperThread you specified a directory where the HTML templates that HyperThread uses would be stored. In this directory you'll need to modify the "template.html" file to customize the look of your HyperThread:

template.html
This file is used as a design template throughout the HyperThread system, whether you're reading messages, posting a message, replying to a message, etc., the HyperThread will use the HTML layout from this file. You can modify template.html in any way you want -- the only restriction is that you must leave in the two comment tags:

<!--TITLE--> - is used by HyperThread to replace the text in the <title></title> tag with whatever is appropriate. For example, if you go into a Topic area called "Interactive Design", the title of that page will be something like "HyperThread: Interactive Design".

<!--HYPERTHREAD--> - is where HyperThread inserts whatever information it's outputting. If you are reading a message, this is where it places that message within the HTML template. If you are posting a message, this is where it places the message entry form with the HTML template.

Modifying the Images/Buttons

When you installed HyperThread, you specified a directory where the images that HyperThread uses would be stored. Most of these images are the buttons used to post a message, reply to a message, etc. There are two images that correspond to each button, one for when the button is active and the user can click on it, and a second button for when the button is inactive. You can replace these buttons with images of your own to match the graphic look of your site. They can be any shape or size -- just make sure they are in .gif format, and that you use the same file names as the existing buttons.

The buttons are named as follows:

Using Multiple Templates

In addition to having the main look of the HyperThread customized, you can change the look of each discussion topic. To do this you'll need to create new template files and name them in the form of "template_areakeyword.html", where "areakeyword" is the keyword that you called the discussion group when you created it. If you're not sure what keyword you used, just go to the Topics Menu of your discussion board and copy the link location of the topic that you want to change the look for:

http://www.radiation.com/discuss/
discuss.cgi?mode=AREA&area=community

The part after "area=" is the keyword (in this case it's the word "community"). Following that example, you would name the new template "template_community.html". Once you have the template made, place it in the same html directory as your main "template.html" file.

It's likely that you'll want to have that discussion topic use different images for the buttons. You can do so by specifying a directory of images the template should use. To do this, place the following comment tag in the appropriate template file:

<!--IMAGE_BASE: absolute_url_to_images_dir-->

Be sure to replace absolute_url_to_images_dir with the URL where the new images are stored (for example: http://www.mysite.com/discuss/community_images/). Then place your new images (using the same names: prev1.gif, prev2.gif, next1.gif, etc.) in that directory.

Other HTML Files To Modify

There are four other files within your HyperThread HTML directory.

guide.html
This is the file used when somebody clicks on the "Help" button within HyperThread. You can give it the same layout as the template.html file to keep the look of your HyperThread system consistent. Again, there are a couple of comment tags that you should leave alone: <!--BASE--> and <!--BACK-->

menu.html
This file contains the introductory text that a user sees when they first come into the HyperThread discussion system. You'll definitely want to change the text to something appropriate for your site.

header.htmlf and footer.htmlf
These files are used by the archiving system, so unless you are archiving your messages, you won't need to do anything with these.

	Choose One - Finding the Discussion area - Finding the Administration area - Using the Administration Panel - Using the Discussion Areas - Using The Moderated Mode - Customizing the look of your HyperThread