# Tutorial: Integrating HostBill with your current website layout
- URL: https://blog.hostbillapp.com/2009/11/21/tutorial-integrating-hostbill-with-your-current-website-layout/
- Published: 2009-11-21 (updated 2020-04-08)
- Author: Kris Pajak
- Categories: Tips & tricks
- Tags: templates, themes
> In this short tutorial we will show you how to quickly integrate your HostBill installation’s template to match your website’s look and feel.
In this short tutorial we will show you how to quickly integrate your HostBill installation’s template to match your website’s look and feel. No advanced html/css skills needed – just some copy/paste and we’re done!
**Tools needed: **
- text editor (anything will do the job, best will be with syntax coloring – like free notepad ++ for windows)
- FTP client
- Firefox + FireBug plugin can be helpful for finding bugs
- small coffee
**Lets get started!**
I’ll be using free html template from _Freelayouts_ as an original website, so HostBill will match its look and feel at the end. Template I picked is _“Green and Plain”_ :
[](https://blog.hostbillapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/original.jpg)
Our tutorial main hosting page
**STEP 1. Create new template directory**
With your FTP client go to **/path_to_your_installation/templates** and create new folder under it, in this tutorial I will use **test_1**
**STEP 2. Download base template to modify**
Any template shipped with HostBill will be good – I’ll used **clean** template. Copy all **templates/clean** directory contents to your local machine.
**STEP 3. Starting file modification**
_Note: Only basic HTML knowledge is necessary to create new HostBill template using old one as pattern. HostBill is also using Smarty template system, so if you have any problem with its advanced syntax refer to [Smarty documentation](http://www.smarty.net/docs.php). _
HostBill client area template is divided into few key sections, and for basic integration you should edit only these:
- **header.tpl** – contains template header – every client area page is including this file at the top
- **footer.tpl** – same as above, included at the bottom of every page
- **style.css** – client area’s main stylesheet
- **sidemenu.tpl** – contains sidebar navigation
- **submenu.tpl** – contains top navigation viewable only after logging in
I assume your website is not divided in many sections and every html file contains all informations to display it properly in web browser. Same is with our tutorial **index.html** file (which also have its own stylesheet kept in **style.css**). It is important for us to understand our website current structure, here is how it looks in our example:
[](https://blog.hostbillapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/division.jpg)
Our website structure
**3.1 Modifying header.tpl**
Let’s begin from the top. Leave everything unedited to tag. Afterwards paste new header from current website, change page to tag {$business_name} taken from HostBill:
Entire page content in actual hosting website is being kept in** ** tag, so lets add it below our newly added header. Note that as with (almost) every html tag we need to close
– it will be closed in our footer.tpl.
Every page can contain errors or infos that need to be displayed – this is being handled automatically by HostBill, just add into your template (in header file):
{foreach from=$error item=blads}{$blads}{/foreach}
{foreach from=$info item=infos}{$infos}{/foreach}
What about logged users? They should be able to see client menu only – add it simply with:
{if $logged==’1’}
**{include file=submenu.tpl}**
{/if}
Because every page contains sidebar we need to add it in header since it’s included automatically, after information tags mentioned before I’ve added line:
**{include file=sidemenu.tpl}**
This will automatically load sidebar menu from separate sidemenu.tpl file.
As shown on the image earlier page content is being kept in **** so we end our new header.tpl file with it.
**3.2 Modifying sidemenu.tpl**
Not much to do here – all we need to change in this case is id property of outer sidebar div from **id=”sidemenu” **to **id=”sidebar” **so it will match our new styles
**3.3. Modifying footer.tpl**
In this file we need to close opened in header.tpl tags, and insert footer navigation/information.
**3.4 Modifying style.css**
To do it quick and dirty way – get content from your current website stylesheet and paste it at the bottom of style.css in HostBill template – this may create naming collisions, so page may look weird in final result – in order to fix this you should have css knowledge
**STEP 4. Uploading files to server & testing template
**
Upload your modified template files into directory created in previous steps on your server using FTP client (like FileZilla on Windows or GFTP on Linux) .
In order to test your template without changing your HostBill appearance for client go to your HostBill installation in browser, and add param **?systemtemplate=test_1** to your request – where **test_1** is directory name under which you stored newly created template.
[](https://blog.hostbillapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/final.jpg)
Final result
Image above contains final result of our HostBill template modifications – fast &l cheap wasn’t it? About 20-30 minutes and one coffee. Note that your current website is probably way more complex than free html I used here – if you don’t code html yourself you can always hire somebody to do the job right for you – visit our job board on our forum.
Good Luck with your modifications!