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Yup, that ever favourite subject of skinning vBulletin. Before jumping in and buying my license I contacted customer support to ensure that vBulletin would allow me to skin the site to my requirements and also build additional header/footer functionality, something along the lines of one of this website I run http://www.madabouthamsters.com/forum/index.php which I showed them (oh, development was halted midway, expecting to migrate to vBulletin which is why some areas point to really old content).

I received a confirmation email saying this was achievable in v4. I am used to xhtml, php, css etc. as well as working with various forums and CMS's, so expected this would be a case of just figuring vBulletins approach. However, having spent some time back end I am finding it all a bit limited if I want to do something other than a straight forward reskin (something I see from other threads is a common issue). Anyway, my question...

If I do want to do more advanced CSS styling, including controlling any additional divs/html I add in to templates, is the only way to currently do this to set the main admin option for CSS to save as files, ditch the back end stylevars and code straight in to the CSS files? I am a bit wary of this approach because of the unknown impact future patches/upgrades could have on my styling. If I am missing something, such as somewhere in admin I can add my own unique CSS coding, I would appreciate a pointer ;)

cheers for any help,

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