Theme development

How do I check for a node type (story, forum, page, etc) before it is displayed in phptemplate theming. I want to hide things like "tabs" on places like forums as on Drupal.org.

Thanks.

I recently changed all the colors to my theme. Everything is fine except my admin panel, I am unable to read the text. Could someone please help me and tell me where I go to change the colors for the admin section. Thanks.

I created a template using the Xtemplate method; however, when ever the page is loaded the following error is logged:

  Xtemplate error: parse: blockname [footer.message] does not exist in 

however, here is is code which contains the {footer_message} in my xtemplate.xtmpl:

Hi,

I am new to the whole content management system idea and I am wondering if I design say a graphic layout for the way I want my site to look like (designed in Adobe Illustrator) can I develope a theme, change a theme, or do somthing to the drupal system so I can implement my own graphics? How much flexibility do we have in the graphics area?

Thanks,

rkodiyar

Is there any documentation on creating the css for drupal?

I just realized that the css needs to accomodate for user or admin changing the block and content disposition, found this on the drupal.org css:

I'm designing a tab menu using the sliding doors technique which uses a different id in each section for the body. I'd like to be able to give a different id to the body depending on which section the content it's currently at.

I don't know if this is possible, but I noticed the {onload_attributes} item tag in Xtemplate and I was wondering if I could modify the contents anywhere, but couldn't find it in the admin area.

Any ideas?

Thanks