Note: This stuff below is interesting (I think) but it's going to get a bit technical. Sorry non-tech folks...
Hey Glen,
Regarding the different photos on each board, I'm not sure, but I was wondering if it requires a mod or if it's just part of configuring the theme.
Here's a snip of the page source from the main CWF page, showing what it looks like for Susan's board:
<tr height="64px">
<td rowspan="2" class="windowbg2" width="83px" align="center" valign="middle"><a href="
http://www.celticwomanforum.com/index.php?action=unread;board=79.0"><img src="
http://www.celticwomanforum.com/Themes/CWIOH/icons/79/off.jpg" alt="No New Posts" title="No New Posts" border="0" /></a>
</td>
<td class="windowbg2">
<b><a href="
http://www.celticwomanforum.com/index.php?board=79.0" name="b79">Susan McFadden</a></b><br />
See the part in red? That tells us tiny bit about how the board icons work here. They're located within the icons directory of a theme.
Each board has a different board id, which we can see in the URL when you access a board, and also in the page source above (see the part in teal).
So basically, the icons in CWF are organized by board ID for starters. Whether all themes can do that or just special ones, I'm not sure yet.
Now the other interesting thing about this source above is the file name.
If we tinker with the file name, we can see how that part works too, based on whether there are read/unread posts:
Here's the icon for board 79 (Sue's board) when there are no new posts:
http://www.celticwomanforum.com/Themes/CWIOH/icons/79/off.jpgHere's the icon for board 79 when there are new posts:
http://www.celticwomanforum.com/Themes/CWIOH/icons/79/on.jpgNeat, huh?
So next, we need to figure out:
- Is this capability of all themes in SMF 2.x, or do only certain themes support this?
- Is there a standard way to configure this for different themes, or does each theme have its own way?
- Specifically, are the file / folder naming conventions the same.
For giggles, I checked the page source for Tara's forum and picked the "Tara McNeill Link" board arbitrarily as an example.
It looks like the on/off naming convention is the same for the theme Tara's forum uses.
<td class="windowbg" width="6%" align="center" valign="top"><img src="
http://www.taramcneillforum.com/Themes/sunset-2-0-1-5/images/off.gif" alt="
No New Posts" title="No New Posts" />
</td>
<td class="windowbg2" align="left" width="60%">
<a id="b4"></a>
<strong><a href="
http://www.taramcneillforum.com/index.php?board=4.0">Tara McNeill Link</a></strong><br />
http://www.taramcneillforum.com/Themes/sunset-2-0-1-5/images/off.gifhttp://www.taramcneillforum.com/Themes/sunset-2-0-1-5/images/on.gifAn important thing to note about Tara's forum vs CWF is that Tara's forum doesn't currently use any board subdirectories in the images folder.
That "Tara McNeill Link" board happens to have ID = 4, which we can see from its URL:
http://www.taramcneillforum.com/index.php?board=4.0So I wonder if having different icons for different boards is as simple as:
1. Adding a subdirectory for each board within the icons directory of the theme (naming each subdirectory as the board id for that board), then
2. Adding a off.gif and on.gif (black and white vs color), with a separate off/on image for each board, within each board's directory.
I got as far as being able to see the file structure in Tara's forum while logged in as an administrator. But so far, I haven't found a way to add files / directories. That may be a privilege only you have or something that has to be down outside that administrator interface within the forum. I'm not sure yet.
Sadly, I never got around to installing a test forum in a lab, but I can see if there's some documentation on this somewhere we can refer to. My initial thought is it's pretty low risk to tinker around a bit and try it with one of the boards as a test, but as always, it's best practice to back everything up before making changes.
Hopefully this helps!