Theming WHMCS – It’s EASY!

After reading several people struggling to theme WHMCS, I decided that I would write a brief tutorial to attempt to emphasize how easy this is if you read the directions and think it through.  First off, modifying the default them is *not* the easiest way to do it, you’re going to beat your head against the wall trying.  WHMCS has setup their system very simply.  Imagine the following php file-

<?php
include(header.tpl);
include(maincontent);
include(footer.tpl);
?>

This is an oversimplified version of how WHMCS works.  So here are the steps

  1. Setup a static design that you would like to use.
  2. Split the file around the main content area
  3. Copy/Paste everything above the main content into the header.tpl file for your skin
  4. Copy/Paste everything below the main content into the footer.tpl file for your skin.
  5. Replace meta variables (these can be found in /templates/default/header.tpl)
  6. Use FireBug to fix any minor issues in your css.

WHMCS uses the smarty template system.

Jug Hole – A cave too short…

Today Andreas and I headed off to Ichetucknee Springs State Park to dive Jug Hole.  Since this cave has a few restrictions, we had to dive side mount.  Andreas brought his camera along and got a few good photos, which I’ll try to post up here later.  We were hoping to explore a few going leads that we had heard about, but found that the 50w HID battery packs were simply too large to manage going through tight restrictions and will have to save those leads for another day :(.  Once beyond the lead, we had plenty of time to see the entire cave and poke around everywhere we could find on the way back, but Jug simply doesn’t have many side passages, or really even any potential leads at all.  It is however, a beautiful cave with some very pretty clay banks, as well as black and white layered walls.

Peacock Springs – The Crypt

After a few weeks out of the water (drysuit zipper was being replaced), it was time to get some cave diving in!  I had been talking with Heather about a NAUI Tech 1 course, and had both agreed to meet up for a familiarization dive with each other before class since we hadn’t dove together, and we could pick dive sites from there.  One room I had heard a lot about was the “Crypt”, which is a known water source for the Peacock Springs Cave System.  Since neither of us had been, we decided to attempt it.  Celia and her husband Scott helped us out with directions.

Although it wasn’t necessarily required, we elected to use a stage.  My first stage was dropped about 300ft shy of Olsen, and then I continued on with back gas.  Because of the head start the stage gave us, we didn’t have to worry about running low on gas in the lower, more silty areas, and also had time to turn around and find a jump again if we happen to have missed it.  Fortunately their directions were excellent, and we found the Crypt first attempt.  Round trip was 117 minutes.  The room was a disappointment for me, just a normal Peacock room with a bunch of snakes, bats, skulls, and various other man made items littering the room.

Here’s a video that someone recently posted of this dive on a diving forum.

Mainland and Sweet Surprise Circuit @ Ginnie Springs

After having swam the Mainland and Sweet Surprise tunnels  a few times, I had still not done the crossover tunnel, which connects the two.  Circuits aren’t necessarily all that appealing to me, I’ve only done one of them outside of training before today, but Allen has been talking this one up to me for a while, so I went along with it :).  After meeting up with Rob Culbert and Allen Beard at Cave Excursions East for some tank fills, we headed to Ginnie Springs to sign in and get to diving.

Because swimming in the Devil’s cave system just plain sucks, the plan was that we would all 3 scooter to the Sweet Surprise jump, and then swim the rest of the circuit, returning to main line to grab scooters with assistance of the flow.  We would each breathe a stage to breathe during the DPV portion of the drive, drop it at the jump, and swim on back gas (we had all swam at least half the circuit before this dive to verify gas).  The swim would be from about 2400ft to 4000 (ish) where there’s a T, and the left side leads to the “crossover tunnel” which heads towards mainland.  Once we hit mainland, the flow would be at our backs and the rest of the trip would be a breeze.  Due to the small nature of the crossover tunnel, they allowed me to lead since I hadn’t seen it before, and limited visibility was to be expected from diver traffic.  This tunnel is very pretty, with surprisingly little damage given how small it is.  After the crossover tunnel, we arrived at Mainland, which is my favorite area of the cave to date.  Unfortunately, there was substantial river intrusion, so even my 21w HID didn’t produce the beautiful blue glow I’ve grown accustomed to seeing.  Once out of Mainland, we coast from 3000ft to around 2400 where our scooters were waiting, ready to spare us from any more swimming!