Skins

How do I upload a skin via FTP?

Scenario:
"I want to use a new skin but I don't know how to use FTP to upload it!"

Original forum thread:
http://forum.nucleuscms.org/viewtopic.php?t=16159

Solution:
Most web hosts will have a user control panel installed on their server (such as cpanel) which will allow you to upload files to your server using your browser. This can be very time consuming if you have many files to upload, such as if you are adding a new skin to your site! The easiest way to upload a new skin is to use an FTP client.

There are many good FTP clients available which you can download and install for free if you do not already have an FTP client:

Windows

• Core FTP Lite Edition (freeware)
• FileZilla (opensource)

Method:

1. Download the skin you want to use from the Nucleus CMS Skins Site. Your download will be a single .zip file which contains a single folder named after the skin. We will be using the Enlight skin as an example, so our .zip file will be called enlight_skin.zip and it will contain a single folder called enlight.
2. Locate your downloaded skin .zip file on your computer.

   

3. Using an archive extracting program, unzip the skin folder from the .zip file. If available, choose the "Extract Here" option.

   

4. Find the skin folder which has been extracted. Some archive extracting programs will not have the "Extract Here" option and will save the unzipped folders and files in a folder with the same name as the .zip file. So in our example, you may have the /enlight/ folder inside another folder called /enlight_skin/. Only the /enlight/ folder will be uploaded.

   

   Check to see the folder appears to be complete. It should have at minimum the readme.html, preview.png, preview-large.png and skinbackup.xml files.

5. Open your FTP client and connect to your server. Navigate to your /skins/ directory (it should be in the same place as your index.php in the directory where you installed Nucleus). Browse to find and select your entire skin folder in your FTP client. Once you have done this, click to upload the entire folder to the /skins/ directory.

   

6. Wait for your files to upload...

   

7. When the entire skin folder has uploaded, you should see it in your /skins/ directory like this:

   

8. Now you can import your new skin!

Further reading:

• How do I import a skin?
• What is the password to the .zip files for Nucleus skins?
• How can I change the skin for my blog/site?
• I just imported a skin but when I try to use it, no images, formatting, css or styles show on my page!