style_about.php

and breaking up the title/version

<?php
    $style_title = "Oval Office";
    $style_version = "2.0";
    $style_author = "George W. Bush";
    $style_url = "http://www.whitehouse.gov/";
?>

The easiest way would be to include the style author bit in a small PHP script. E.g:

<?php

$style_author = 'George W. Bush';
$style_url = 'http://www.whitehouse.gov/';

?>

and then name it style_author.php or something.

While I'm not excited about your choice in authors , a standard little php file with variables like that would be excellent.  Though I do agree with Frank H, and that $style_name should probably be included as well.

$style_name by <a href="$style_url">$style_author</a>

I thnk that's about all it'd take.  Granted it could be fancier, but I think it would go against the simplicity otherwise found in punbb.

<?php

$style_author = 'George W. Bush';
$style_url = 'http://www.whitehouse.gov/';

?>

and then name it style_author.php or something.

Now that's some good info!  You guys are a step ahead of me!  I'm still a bit concerned for boards with different themes, but there is mostly a workaround with css if need be.   That bar could be added with :after on modern browsers, but IE has no recourse.  I suppose that the Administrator could put <span>|</span> in the language file as a workaround for boards with multiple themes, but that doesn't lend itself very well to theme designing in such a way that themes can be installed on any punbb forum.

Actually, I didn't use li+li.  The problem is that you can't be sure where a given list item will appear because of delete and edit are different depending on a user's permssions.  I used:  .postfootright li a[href*="delete.php"]:hover  I'd bet that it won't show up for WinIE because it's a few years behind in its standards support, which I can live with, but just thought I'd bring it up.  Though, on some level, it's kind of satisfying to know that WinIE users are missing out.  I feel like I'm donig my part.  :evil:

But seriously, without an identifier added to those links, there's not a way in the world to style those links individually in WinIE.

Very cool.  And for a version 1, you're doing quite well.   Two thumbs up from me!

edit:  on a side note, I'm 25% 1337 because my postcount is 7. 

edit again:  There's another mark-up bit that's peculiar.  When a user is logged out you get an nbsp in:

<div class="linkst">
    <div class="inbox">
        <p class="pagelink conl">Pages: <strong>1</strong></p>
        <p class="postlink conr"> </p>...
</div>

That one is kind of a thorn in my side because I'm using the <p> to house the left end of a rounded corner button, and the <a> to hold the right half (the text is the wording on the button).  But when the user is not logged in, you see just the left half because the nbsp; makes the <p> tag appear even though it's technically void of content.

thats so annoying, another hack to put it, the css gets so complicated because of them and its hard enough for a newbie like me

Then stop pointing out problems

on a side note i am now 1337 since this is my 1337th post

lol i would but they probably just ignore me (and anyway i'm sure they are working 24/7 to fix it anyway )

Actually they don't seem to be. They have known about this since 2000 and don't seem interested in doing anything about it. I might have to hack something together to see if a fix is possible.

Oh, you know, I had another thought:  If you do choose to have a style directory structure, it might be a nice touch to have the forum parse a very simple text file (included in each theme, and given a certain name and location in the style directory) to give the designer a little credit in the footer somewhere.  The text file might even be just one line, or parsed down to the first 256 characters to prevent it from being abused.  It would be a nice little nod to theme designers to have a means for them to place a small link on the bottom of the page like they can with that other forum.

Thats not my call. I expect the words fluff and bloat might be mentioned. Of course, for users of decent browsers the designer could always use :after to get their name on the board.

You are quite right. Consider it fixed.

As above.

It's not part of the markup. The menu separator is in the language file. It's also there for the main menu though it's invisible by default. You can change it to '' instead of ' | '. The point is somebody might want to use some other symbol as a separator which you couldn't replicate without using a graphic.

From as design point of view I do see your point, it's just that it feels like overkill for PunBB. I assume you used li + li.

It's not nitpicking, it's refining. Even though PunBB is at version 1.2 the markup and css is really at version 1.0 so there are bound to be improvements that can and should be made.

Re: markup

I don't mean quirks as a bad thing, the mark-up is actually quite nice.  But there are a few areas that I find peculiar, and that's why I say "quirky."

For example, the use of non-breaking spaces.  In the <dd class="usercontacts"> there are nbsps insterted before the web address, and I'd think that semantically they might be separate definitions, but at the very least, the nbsp needn't be there, some margin or padding would do the trick just as well. 

Along the same lines, it's remarkably helpful to stylize links when either the enclosed text is wrapped in its own span or the link is wrapped in its own container.  The end result allows a designer to use the technique popularized by alistapart's sliding doors article.  I've only created one skin (and it's in progress, I'll let you know when it goes live) and I've found that most links are able to be styled with the sliding doors approach since most are in lists or other wrappers, but user contacts is a notable exception.

here's another that I find quirky:

        <div id="brdwelcome" class="inbox">
            <p class="conl">Logged in as <strong>roo</strong><br />Last visit: Today 12:50:10</p>

...
            <div class="clearer"></div>
        </div>

I think the break tag in that passage should be removed and instead have the Last visit part be wrapped in its own container.  A span or even its own paragraph.  It's workable, however.  I was able to single out that break and apply display: none; to it, but it is quirky to have a break tag sitting there for reasons that appear mostly presentational. 

I find it a little odd that there is a bar | between Report, Quote, etc.  I don't feel that it should be a part of the markup as it requires a designer to remove it if they choose an alternate means of styling that link.  The same effect can be achieved by adding border to one side of each list item, and by adding a class to either the first or last item in that list to which there is no border applied.

Also, it might be a nice feature to identify individual links.  The main nav might get an id on each <li> like <li id="index">, <li id="userlist">, etc.  The list at the bottom of each post might also be given classes <li class="report">, <li class="quote">, etc.  As it is now, I've applied different styles to each link by using css selectors that aren't supported in WinIE.  Not that I particularly care about WinIE, but having identifying attributes on those list items would make styling easier and more flexible.

Again, as it is, the markup is very workable, and the tags and classes are very well thought out and applied, but these are a few things I encountered.  Overall, it does a bang-up job of giving a designer everything he needs to style the forum, and again, I was able to work past nearly every one of these issues.  I didn't want to get into it earlier because I feel that I'm largely nit-picking, but you did ask.