ok well i read a page saying to edit the main template, and im doing just that.
well i got the header and the footer to work just fine but it changed the forum skin.
i plan to just add the header and footer and edit the original punbb forum theme.
my code is here (main.tpl):
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="<pun_content_direction>">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=<pun_char_encoding>" />
<pun_head>
</head>
<body>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
<div id="container">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://anime-tsukaima.com/evo.css" />
<!-- Navigation -->
<div id="navigation">
<span class="right"></span>
<span class="left"></span>
<a href="./index.html">Home</a>
<a href="./index.html">News</a>
<a href="./community.html">Forums</a>
<a href="./community.html">Gallery</a>
<a href="./events.html">mIRC</a>
<a href="./roster.html">WatchAnime</a>
<a href="./downloads.html">Downloads</a>
<a href="./contact.html">Contact Us</a>
<a href="./contact.html">Legal</a>
</div>
<!-- Banner -->
<h1>
<a href="./"><img src="http://anime-tsukaima.com/images/banner.jpg" alt="Evogaming • A free template by ClanTemplates.com" /></a>
</h1>
<!-- Spotlight Section -->
<div id="spotlight">
<span><span></span>
</span>
<img src="http://anime-tsukaima.com/images/spotlight.gif" alt="Spotlight" class="overlay" />
<img src="http://anime-tsukaima.com/images/spotlight_sample.jpg" alt="Command and Conquer 3" />
</div>
</body>
</html>
<!-- ............. begin punbb code ......... -->
<div id="punwrap">
<div id="pun<pun_page>" class="pun">
<div id="brdheader" class="block">
<div class="box">
<pun_navlinks>
<pun_status>
</div>
</div>
<pun_announcement>
<pun_main>
<pun_footer>
</div>
</div>
<!-- .................. end punbb code ..................... -->
<p class="clear" />
</div>
</div>
<p id="footer">
</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>here is the forum url: