Important Updated Kunena, it deleted the template in use, now forum is unreadable, help!

Also, let me add (as the author of the "Q&D" hack) that this wasn't intended for "dark" sites. It was intended as exactly that—a quick and dirty customization—not a substitute for creating a custom template based on your needs. Remember that Kunena 1.6 isn't final yet. That means "caveat emptor" and BACKUP everything.

Creating a Kunena template is quite easy. Just duplicate the existing default template and start changing the CSS. If you have specific questions or problems, it helps to have a live URL. Otherwise, it's often very difficult to offer a solution when there are so many variables.

severdia wrote: Also, let me add (as the author of the "Q&D" hack) that this wasn't intended for "dark" sites. It was intended as exactly that—a quick and dirty customization—not a substitute for creating a custom template based on your needs. Remember that Kunena 1.6 isn't final yet. That means "caveat emptor" and BACKUP everything.

Creating a Kunena template is quite easy. Just duplicate the existing default template and start changing the CSS. If you have specific questions or problems, it helps to have a live URL. Otherwise, it's often very difficult to offer a solution when there are so many variables.

Ah, i thought that the template controls were moved to the template.css for the site as a whole. When i applied the Q&D to that file i found that i could change the forum colors. Messing with the Q&D was enough to allow my users to read the site without selecting the text.

What element in the file will change the text field background colors? Do we know? If you were going to change the default template so that the text was white, and the text fields were black, how would you do it?

The forum i'm running is closed to the public, a link wouldn't help. But i could post screenshots or sections of code if you tell me what to post.

A backup would be great if i had the means to restore it. i'll have to find some module to do it.

It's easy to say something is easy to someone else. You can tie your shoes in seconds and with your eyes closed, but for a child who is just learning... it is difficult. Things becomes easy with knowledge and practice. i have neither.

i'll try to find the default template file tomorrow.

The default template is at:

/components/com_kunena/template/default/

That entire folder is the template. Changing the background color will depend on what your main site template is doing. The whole page may have a background color, specific elements might, or even both. Those all need to be changed to background-color: #000; (if it was black, for example) or whatever color you want. There are a plethora of options to explain how CSS properties work:

www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=...or&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

www.w3schools.com/css/

So how does it work for this site? Is the site's template making the BG white and the text black or the Kunena template?

The tricky part with CSS is people can name the variable for background color Jeff. But they don't always tell you that jeff means background color, or background color of what. Guess i'll poke at it until i find it.

Thanks. i now know which needle stack contains the needle i'm trying to find. Should be able to manage it from here.

For this site (and most sites), the main template controls the background color. Looking in the CSS file in the site template folder shows:

You should use Firefox and install Firebug to see the styles:

getfirebug.com/

Right-click on the item in a web page and choose "Inspect Element". The bottom part of the browser window will open to reveal the element (image, table, button, whatever) and the corresponding CSS. CSS cascades so you can see each line of CSS that impacts that element (and the file/line number it's located at).

If your customizations are fairly straightforward, you can just create the extra CSS and add it to your site CSS file (like the Q&D code). But if they're more complex, you should create a new template.

Firebug is brilliant, thank you.

Now for some detective work....