Css themes vs others?

I'm getting ready to upgrade my phpbb forum to the latest vB. I have no idea where to start or what I need. Actually a friend of mine will be doing the actual upgrade, but I need to make the skin and such. I'll have access to a test board and I want to work on keeping my site looking as much the same as I can.

So any ideas where should I start?
What is the difference between a style and a theme?
What makes a CSS theme better?


Thanks :D

~Jing

The difference between a style and a theme is really just my imagination, lol. A theme is the same as a style technically, but I call mine styles "themes" because I endeavor to design each one around a theme.

For example, the "coffeetime" theme, the sports theme, the martini theme, the wine 'n' roses theme, etc. Get it?

Now there IS a difference between a style and a skin. A style is css-based, while a skin, is much more detailed, and includes custom coding, splicing and dicing images and coding them into the vBulletin layout. All fine and good... til vBulletin releases a version upgrade.. Then you have a slew of templates to either revert or upgrade. Depending on just how much customizing you've done, upgrading can either be simple... or a nightmare.

I live by the K.I.S.S. rule - Keep It Simple Stupid. ALL of my themes are CSS-based, with few, if any template edits.

So I don't need to worry about a skin because a style will work just fine?!? Or do you need both? I'm meaning does the CSS style 'overwrite' whatever skin? (like I said, I'm clueless)

You can choose to use either a skin or a style. A skin is a design that's been spliced and coded into vBulletin, and usually uses alot more graphics which can make a page load slower.

A css-based design, for the mostpart, doesn't have much, if any, coding. It's all based on css (style sheets), with not much more than the absolute necessary graphics and images, which makes for faster page loading, and a much easier upgrading experience. All of my designs (styles) are css-based.

Most other vBulletin design sites you go to offer skins - custom coded, spliced & diced images, and usually alot more images than are really necessary, but they look nice, so people use them - then gripe when they have to revert templates when it comes time to upgrade.

Thank you Peggy for helping me understand.

I should definetly go with a CSS based style. Sounds like that will be easier and way less hassle. I sure don't like to gripe -- the skin thing scares me!

Well, Peggy my thing is, I want to use my own graphics. Is that do-able using a style?

Yep, I use my own graphics all the time. Thing is, the only place you'll be able to use your own graphics is on the header image. All of the other images and icons that you'll need to customize for your site - forum markers, buttons, etc, you'll need to make yourself.