Presenter: Ben Di Maggio, IT Consultant

Audience: Mid-level techies, accidental and otherwise.

I'll begin by contrasting default sites with highly styled ones, then briefly go over a few CSS properties/tools that you need to master in order to do this precisely (margins, padding, borders, backgrounds). I'll then go into how to use them with each system to set your site apart from others (Drupal's PHPTemplate and Plone's DIYPloneStyle, as well as other control points in each system). Will end with some gotchas that you often encounter (neglecting to test for compatiblity with target browsers, common naming convention mistakes, etc.).

Note: I had been planning to include Joomla in the presentation but I realized that I wasn't going to have enough time, so I had to prune that one...

Another note (with next to no notice, I admit): if you want to follow along as I skin these CMSes, please do! You'll need:

• A laptop
• Drupal 4.7.2 and/or Plone 2.1 and up
• The files packed up in this zip:
  http://www.tokyoben.net/work/cms_talk/cms_talk.zip

Please do follow along! It will be fun! No, really!