Customizing default SMF theme

[mosukeric]

Consider you just installed SMF, keeping the default theme.
How is it best to customize the default theme so that updates won't break changes?

What I do now is just edit .template.php files.
Is there a better way?

[@rjen]

Depends on what you want changed. I personally felt all I needed were .css changes.

So, copy the default theme to a new theme and only make changes to the copied files. Then you are safe 

[Diego Andrés]

Unless the theme has many templates, you're even less likely to encounter an issue during a patch than with the default theme, not 0% chances though.

In fact, if you plan on editing templates anyways, you're better off with a custom theme and keeping your default templates pristine, so do as @@rjen suggested.

[mosukeric]

I see, so a custom theme is better.

I have played with creating mods, I have a question about the translations.
Is it possible do add/remove translations from Who.english.php for example?

Have created a mod that creates a page with a menu entry, only thing that I have to manually do is the Who.english.php, otherwise everything is added and removed by the install process.

[Diego Andrés]

I have played with creating mods, I have a question about the translations.
Is it possible do add/remove translations from Who.english.php for example?

Have created a mod that creates a page with a menu entry, only thing that I have to manually do is the Who.english.php, otherwise everything is added and removed by the install process.

You can add a new language file and load it using loadLanguage function, that way you don't need to edit language files either.

[Kindred]

You should use a custom language file as mentioned...  or, barring that, add strings into modifications.english.php instead of the specific core file.

[mosukeric]

Adding to modifications.english.php requires manual editing, I wanted to avoid that, so loading a custom language file seems to be the better option in this case. Otherwise modifications.template.php would be fine.