No problem, furrymom! A "skin" is just a set of colors for the board -- what color the backgrounds and text and various boxes are.
You don't have to use the default colors (basically white with shades of blues and greys) for this board. You can go to your own profile and choose the "skin" (color scheme) you prefer. When you change your "skin" setting, it only changes the colors
you see; no one else will even know you did it, and you can change it as often as you like. Here are detailed instructions; they're long, because they're
very detailed, but it's actually pretty easy. ;D
If you want to use a different skin, first go to your own profile. To get to your profile, look up near the top of the screen, just below where it says "you have __ messages, __ are new" and the date. Below that is a row of buttons. The third one from the right is "
profile" -- click on it, and it will give you a new screen with your profile on it. You'll see a blue bar, and below the blue bar it will say "Member's Bio - Modify Profile - Bookmarks." Click on
Modify Profile. You'll get a new screen where you can set all sorts of things the way you want them.
The first section is ""Account Information." It lists your name, and then "
Password" and "
Password (again)". If there are black dots in the place for "Password", your computer has already filled it in and you can leave it, but if it's blank, type your password there. Then where it says "Password (again)", type your password -- that one is always blank.
Scroll down until you get to the section called
Account Preferences -- it's about half way down, after the Personal Information and Instant Messengers sections. In the Account Preferences section, the eighth thing you can set is "
Select Skin" -- yours will say "default" because you haven't changed it yet. To the right of where it says "Select Skin" there's a blue box that has a "v" in it -- click on the blue-box-with-a-v and you'll see a list of all the different "skins" you can choose from. Click on the one you want to change to -- that one should now appear in the place where it used to say "default."
Now go all the way to the bottom and click on the button that says "
Modify Profile" -- it's at the far left. Viola! The colors should change.
Getting back to the threads just takes one more click. There's a bar above all the useful stuff where it says "View Profile: furrymom1" (username: furrymom1)" or something close to that. Just above it, in itty bitty print, it says "Prime Time Crime :: View Profile: furrymom1". Click on "
Prime Time Crime" and you're back in business!
So,which skin should you choose? Here are descriptions of what's on the list. Some are named after the member who requested it, some I just put there. So far, we have:
"jaglady" based on dusty rose pink (dark text).
"suzmicsoc" based on dark orange (dark text).
"gregrox" based on pale yellow (dark text).
"cutecollege" based on turquoise (dark text).
"WordPerfect" with bright blue background, yellow text (like the word processing program used to be, if you're old enough to remember that ;D).
"PervyPurple" is purple. Very, very purple. ;D (It's named in CarusoLover's honor.)
"BrownStudy" is dark brown with text in shades of lighter brown.
"OliveBranch" has an olive green background; I'm definitely going to tweak the colors for the other bits, the default colors do not play well with olive green.
All you olive fans, feel free to make suggestions!
"WineRed" is dark red with white text; I played with the other bits, they're lighter red, but need tweaking....
"lilac" is, well, lilac -- and a little blue, with dark text. It can be changed to lilac and pink if that's more popular.
And for those of you who are masochists, I've made a BLINDING skin, based on Proboards' "do not do this" example. (Proboards' example can be found at
badcolors.proboards46.com/index.cgi ) ;D
If you would like a set of colors that isn't there, just describe it to me and I'll be happy to add it -- it's no trouble (actually, it's kind of fun).
Let us know how it goes!