Copy and paste all PHP to create new template?

[SubSane]

Hello all. I'm having issues customizing a theme's index.template.php in order to "skin" the forums to match my site.

I'm not the most advanced coder and my solution was to simply copy and paste the index.template PHP code into an HTML cell with the site design built around it. I made sure all images were where they were supposed to be, the file was obviously saved as PHP, but the result was this:

http://www.noiseland.net/forum/index.php [nofollow]

I'm trying to get it to look like this screenshot (a rough comp but enough to get the idea):

http://www.noiseland.net/misc/v7design_forum_comp.jpg [nofollow]

I've tried going through the original index.template to edit it line by line but that breaks more than it helps. Anyone got any suggestions on the best way to manage this?

[SubSane]

Ah, never mind, I see where I made the mistake. The PHP builds out the page and I was adding the design code in the wrong area. Plus there is a special image function that must be used. Once I made those fixes I got the page to display correctly, but there are still a few tweaks to make. If anyone can tell me why the page has that spacing at the top and bottom it'd be much appreciated.

Gotta love when you figure something out on your own. Thanks nonetheless for the awesome (and simple enough to understand and edit) forum software.

-Vic