skinning plone the plone way
There is more than one way to skin a plone. The simplest is to make your changes within the custom folder in the ZMI. You can also create "proper" skin layer through the ZMI. The best way however is to make a filesystem based skin in the form of a Product. In preperation for a plone skinning demo I one day intend to do (ahem.. originally some time in August, but not looking too possible to meet that particular deadline!), I ran through this howto. This really is the best way to do it for several reasons:-
1. it integrates with Plone really nicely so that your skin appears on the list of available skins within the plone settings.
2. you can work directly on the filesystem using your favourite editor.
3. if you break something whist creating your new skin, you can switch back instantly to plone default or other skin while you investigate what went wrong.
4. you end up with an installable product easily dropped into a plone installation.
This has also opened up a new possibility for one of my personal plone projects. The idea is to create a plone based collaborative online magazine. I’m now creating the skin as a product, and I also intent to create some content types to go with it. This means that I could release my end result as an online magazine product, including a skin, so may finally have something to contribute back to the plone community 