Changing Your Dashboard Theme

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Changing your Dashboard theme is easy if you follow these simple steps.

First of all you need to open the theme's .psd file in photoshop, as you can tell, this image is pretty big.

You then need to determin what width you need the image to be. There are 2 types of styles your forum will be using, either Fixed Width, where the width of the forum is always the same regardless of the viwers screen resolution, or Fluid Width, where the width will always adjust to match the viewers screen resolution.

For the dashboard, a Fixed width skin on your forum is ideal, and probably the best option.

Fixed Width Users

First of all you need to determin the width your forum is fixed at, you can just guess, if its to big or to small go back and adjust your dashboard accordingly. Another option is to take a screnshot, open the screnshot in Photoshop, Crop to the width of your board, then click Image -> Image Size from the menu bar, this will show your width.

So now you have your width, its pretty straight forward, with your choosen theme open in photoshop, simply select from the menu bar IMAGE->IMAGE SIZE and ensure the 3 checkboxes at the bottom of the pop up window are checked (Scale Styles, Constrain Proportions and Resampl Image). Now in the width box, type in your width, you will notice the height will automatically adjust itself, this is correct. Click OK and you will notice the image changed to your desired size.

Next, save your image as .PNG (we use PNG because of its ability to use partial transparency) and upload where ever you like. All thats left now is to login to your admin CP and enter the URL or PATH to the image you uploaded in the dashboard setting.

Fluid Width Users

Same method as above but with a few differences, first of all width is not a problem, with Fluid width, height is the important factor, so follow the steps above but instead of changing the width, change the hight, Remember though, you just want teh height of th actuall Bouncy Xbox Live area. Usually a height of around 570 pixels to 600 pixels is suffeciant.

To get your dashboard looking as good as possible on a fluid width, the best thing to do is to design it so that the left edge of the design and the right dge of the design are identical. The Bouncy Xbox Live Dashboard is repeated on the X axis, so if the width of your dashboard image doesnt fit, it is repeated side by side to fill the width. Having a dashboard image that matches both on the left and right will make your dashboard look like a complete image, and hide the breaks where the dashboard is repeated.

If you need help with getting your dashboard looking its best, contact our support department by creating a support ticket from your client area.

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