I origintally posted this at vb.org but it just gets overlooked.
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I'm trying to use the forum template on a non forum page and used these instructions: and this worked fine if I had the files inside of the forums folder. however I've moved the page one folder away and the style no longer appears.

ex.
works >http://www.troc.us/forum/testpage.php
doesn't work >http://www.troc.us/forum/subdirectory/testpage.php

note we've tried to apply this fix:
but it did not affect the template/styles.

I'd really appreciate it if anyone could give me some guidance on this, thanks.

Jolten was correct.
Above:
You should add
For example: On this site I use this code for the portal page.
Since that page isn't in the forum dir. You can find your path name by creating a file with this code in the file.

Point your browser to that file and look for "DOCUMENT_ROOT". Next to that it will have the name and dirctory to your root directory. Mine is:

So that means my forums are
Hope this helps

we applied that and in my case itsbut it did not work.

it seems that the problem lies in this bit of code which I spotted when I chose to view the source:I looked in the headinclude template where I think it pulls that from and it says this:so I'm guessing that the $style[css] is what directs it to the file, but I don't know how to change that at all.

Also looking inside the vbadvanced portal page(since it uses the styles outside of the forum folder as well) they have this:but I wasn't able to find from it where they applied the change at.

You chdir() should be:

If of course your running on a linux box. Then your template should contain the following. Template name for example: "test_template"

Your PHP code should look like this:

thanks for the quick reply, time and simple instructions.
I tried the public_html thing like you said but my host really has it likeFollowing the steps you laid out and putting in the code as you say works fine if I keep the file in the same folder as my forums, however when I move the file to a subdirectory it doesn't work.

ex. in forum folder
http://www.troc.us/forum/test1.php <- using public_html
http://www.troc.us/forum/test2.php <- using troc.us

ex in subdirectory
http://www.troc.us/forum/subdirectory/test1.php <- using public_html
http://www.troc.us/forum/subdirectory/test2.php <- using troc.us

I just tried this because I saw that vbadvanced could use their cmps index file outside of the forums page and it used the sytles just fine. I looked at their source for that page and it hadbut I couldn't find where they edited the path for the style sheet, so I went in the headinclude template and changed the $style[css] to and it seemed to work. Will doing this cause problems elsewhere in the forum or styles? Is there some way to access $style[css] and make the change from there instead of taking it out completely?

The only thing that will do is grab the style css infomation. To make it look like your style of your forums. But you won't be able to grab infomation from the database with just having that.

Is there some simple code I can try to see if we're tied into the database? The problem we were trying to fix first was the styles, but eventually we'd need to use the database too I think.

but as far as replacing the $style[css] bit in the headinclude with the direct information to the css file, that is ok to do?

btw, thanks for your replies, I've posted this stuff on several sites (vb.com and org)and you're the only person to reply.

If you want PM me FTP access and I'll see why you can't seem to use the code I posted.

thanks for being so accomodating.

The problem was bugging me so much (even though I found a work around) that I kept looking around the files and settings to see what was going on.

Apparently if you set your board to store the css stylesheets as files then the $style[css] call no longer can load it properly and you have to edit the headinclude to point directly to the stylesheet file that you'd like to use. (even if you only have 1 default style)

I changed my setting to not store the styles as files and replaced the direct call to the stylesheet file with $style[css] and everything worked as it should.

admin cp > vb options > style and language settings > store css stylesheets as files