Theme customization in forum software?

[Cello]

Hey guys,

I'm not really that familiar with forum software, as the only forum I've ever run was a cheesy little free one quite a few years ago, so I wanted to ask a few questions regarding theme customization before actually jumping in to developing my site/forums.

At the moment i'm looking into creating a forum using PhPBB, as I've heard a lot of good things about it and like their available forum add-ons on their site, but I wanted to know how far can you go when it comes to making a custom theme/layout?
Could you make a forum and completely rearrange how all of the things within it are organized and displayed, or can you only customize things like the icons, colors, and other basic assets?

The reason why I ask is because i'm trying to make a bit of an nontraditional forum that involves a lot of graphic design used all over the board as well as i'm attempting to break away from the traditional single column index page by wanting to split the forum sections into two columns for different categories.
An example would be something like this sites forum (I can't link to it according to the rules, so i'll just post a little snap shot):

Spoiler:

I'm fairly certain the person who made the forum in the above example coded the forums himself, but I was wondering if through theme customization I would be able to achieve a similar result using software such as PhPBB.
If not, is there perhaps a better forum software with greater theme customization for what i'm looking for?

Thanks.

 

[Hybrid Trainer]

I've not had much experience with PHPBB but if memory serves me correct it should have a theme editor in the admin control panel somewhere in which you can edit templates and themes. From that image I'd say it'd be possible to edit the way you want. It won't be easy, but it'll be doable.
I wouldn't be surprised if you found a style online somewhere that did something along the lines of that. Try searching through a few before you dive into editing templates to see if you can find a better starting point.

 

[aRedMoon]

When I used phpBB way back when, they actually had themes like that. You won't have any issues whatsoever.

 

[Bax]

If you are good in PHP, HTML and CSS you can customize it how much you want :) Also phpBB got a huge amount of themes and plugins :)

 

[Morkula]

To add to what they've already said, it's certainly possible to do a theme like that...probably with any forum software (though phpBB sucks). It's going to take a lot of template editing though, and maybe even some hard code edits. You're also going to need to remember that whenever you update the software, things are going to break or you're going to have to edit those templates all over again.

In the end, it's certainly doable, but it's going to be a lot of time and effort not only to initially make the theme, but also to keep it up to date.

 

[aRedMoon]

Assuming phpBB runs the same, it's not that difficult, because they give the changes needed. Unless it's some drastic huge change, most of the time updating the themes is pretty simple.