How to apply my custom design to the member area?

This is the most flexible way to create your web site and member area design. Start by designing a website offline using an HTML editor such as DreamWeaver. Or hire a designer and get her to make a great looking design for you and ask her to send it to you as HTML pages. You can even buy and use one of the commercial or free design templates available on the web. Once you have the design ready to be used on the site, you will need a small manual change before uploading it into your site. You will need to insert a {BODY} tag inside the document where you would like the main body of the web page to show up. Body is the section where your content, forms or listings will be included. Simply insert a {BODY} string in the middle of the page. Then rename your index file as "layout.html".

Then upload your files to your web site under "dev/layout" folder. That's pretty much all you need to do to apply your design to the "non-member area" pages. You can also do something similar for the "member area" pages. Create a copy of the layout page, if you need changes on the design or navigation, do them and rename it as "loggedin_layout.html" and upload it into the layout folder as well. Next, click on the "Publish Site" button at the top of the admin panel. When publish is complete, you will see a "visit site" link to the live folder. Click on that to test your site. You should be able to see your pages properly. They will not be functional yet but they should look exactly like the pages you created on your HTML editor.

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