Hi Goldeagle,
I don’t know where your skills are at programming/design wise, but for me creating a whole new blog was much easier. In a (small) nutshell this is what you do:
1. Create a container in the root of the document tree (where all your posts will go).
2. Create the HTML for your blog. Here’s a simple example of a blog post template:
<div class="post">
<h2><a href="[~[+id+]~]" title="[+title+]">[+title+]</a></h2>
[+summary+]
<span class="continue">[+link+]</span>
<div class="post_info" >Posted by <strong>[+author+]</strong> | [+pub_date:date=`%B %e, %Y`+] | Tags: [+tagLinks+]</div>
</div>
3. Style your template however you need.
4. Create a sample post.
5. Create the Ditto call so you can play around with it. Here’s a sample ditto call:
[!Ditto? &parents=`1` &id=`blog` &display=`5` &tpl=`blogTpl` &paginate=`1` &extenders=`summary,dateFilter` &dateSource=`pub_date` &dateFormat=`%B %e, %Y` &orderBy=`pub_date DESC` &paginateAlwaysShowLinks=`1` &getDocuments=`1` &trunc=`1` &truncLen=`1000` &truncOffset=`15` &truncText=`...Continue Reading` !]
<p>Showing <strong>[+blog_start+]</strong> - <strong>[+blog_stop+]</strong> of <strong>[+blog_total+]</strong> Articles</p>
<div id="ditto_pages"> [+blog_previous+] [+blog_pages+] [+blog_next+] </div>
6. Then test and test again. Tweak your styles and your template to get your blog looking just how you want it to.
Now, for your styling issues. If you’re not a CSS guru then I’d suggest finding a blog style you like, mimick the CSS and adjust it until it’s just right. But, your design or style problems stem from having the template defined. Once you have your blog template defined (e.g.,<div class="whatever"> <span class="whatever2">) then you can start adding the styling and tweaking it. I don’t know of any styling guides, as this is not a styles forum. You may find more help on the matter in the web design board:
http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/board,204.0.html
Good luck!
