I am planning on releasing this style in the Vanilla Add-ons!

Demo: http://neomenlot.ne.funpic.org/Vanilla/categories.php

A preview:


I have been working on my site, Neo Menlo, for quite some time. The site layout I'm basing the vanilla style off the main site. However, I would like to be able to integrate the links into the control panel, but if i try to change the template, I get errors. It doesn't matter, its me. I don't know the first thing about PHP. I just changed it (and back) in the hopes of it being able to add non-changing links.

I chose blue because its a very "business-ey" color. I chose metal because it gives a techy feeling, which fits the site. I feel its pretty universal though.

Current issues with it:
I have not validated (with W3C) the css
There is an anomaly with IE where it doesnt render the light blue background behind the black "Catagories" text
No rounded corners have been applied

What I would like from the community is any feedback whatsoever. I'd love to hear any thoughts or impressions.

Check the vanilla add-on documentation for an example of how to write a plug-in to insert links into the sidebar panel, and in what order. You can probably lift and adapt the example wholesale. (applies to version 1, which you seem to be using).

Colour-wise it fits with your main site, but with some playing around with the CSS, you could get it to fit better with the rest of your site, so that the controls appeared below your links menu and the messages in your light blue stripe. You should be able to use the forum title for the light blue stripe marked "home" on your homepage. Also, I think some of the messages could do with neatening up (some padding) as they sit hard up against the edge.

Alternatively, you might want to try another approach: Your About, Home and Links pages are all simple text pages. You could integrate these pages as new tabs into Vanilla and not use extra HTML pages for them at all.
Vanilla offers controls for inserting elements at different points on the page - you say where you want what and where (e.g. AddTab...) and Vanilla creates them as it builds the page. You specify what shows in them as HTML in a settings or definitions file.
An example: I've been playing around with adding an extra tab and page for an FAQ/Help-screen for not so web-savvy people, modelling it on the 'About Settings' page from Vanilla (which is really just a long text message). It could just as well be a "welcome" or "about" screen, though. I think there was an add-on in the previous version that did a similar thing more cleverly through the Admin page (PageManager?) but I've not used the earlier version of Vanilla so can't say for sure.

Even if your look may not be to everyone's taste, the example of integrating site links or adapting the header would help others in the community with their themes, and if you went with the "new tab-pages" idea, many might find that inspiring for their own designs. Try also making the CSS generic enough so people can drop in their own colours and backgrounds.