php question (theme)

shyguy · **php question (theme) -** 04-24-2005, 12:40 AM

hiya, i am creating my first ever theme... and my php knowledge is limited... so far i am going okay but i am confused on a few things:

1. in most theme.php files... in the functions there seem to be alot of global variables that people declare... and yet some of them i cant see called anywhere in the theme files? why are they there then... eg. $topic i can see used, but $slogan or $dbi i dont see used anywhere? why are they there then and where are people getting these variables?

2. in most .css files once again i see alot of classes declared but yet i dont see many of them used throughout any of the files?

3. where are the <HTML>, <BODY>, <META> tags etc. created as i dont see them in the header.html file...

ps. i am only dealing with the files in the theme folder, as i am only responsible for the appearance of the site...

i could have all of this working already, but i really want to understand what is going on... i have never done PHP but i worked with java at university... so i have the ability to understand programming... just takes a while to get my head around a different language...

socal · 04-24-2005, 12:57 AM

just remember..it's not all about PHP when it comes to themes in Nuke
It boils down to HTML and if can you see RAW HTML..not in DW or Frontpage..but HTML code.

Depends on themes also. Some themes use html files...nice and easy to manipulate and change those..but themes that only use a theme.php ok..a little different, but STILL html is embedded..only added slashes for php to parse the html.
Do not worry about $this and $that...those do matter, leave them. Work around them. Those are the variables within in the theme's html etc that calls the news readmore or a link or a usersname or a topicicon.

I hope I helped you.