OLD Manual

There's also a beginner's tutorial on phpbuilder.

This was originally written by Isaac in the forums

This is how I learned b2evolution really quickly, without much trouble at all.

1. Log in to the backoffice. (You can do this in most skins with some sort of handy "Login" or "Admin" link tucked away nicely.)

2. Go through each page in the backoffice. There are lots of fields there. Enter data in each one with a description of what field it is. For example, in editing blog A, you could enter this info:
Title: "Blog A Title"
Description: "Blog A Description"
Blogroll: "This is the blogroll for blog A."
etc.

3. Save all your changes.

4. Look at your page using a few different skins.

If you set up a test blog (perhaps running on http://localhost ) and go through all the backoffice items, and look at that test blog in a few different skins, then you'll see right away where every item comes from. You'll look at the page and see "Blog A Blogroll" and know, "Oh, yeah, so that's where that gets set up." If you check out the code for the skins (blogs/skins/skinname/_main.php is always the place to start) you'll be able to see why certain skins look different.

Also, it should be noted that b2evolution is specifically marketed as a blogging app with loads of cool "whiz-bang" features. It's not for everyone, and no one ever said that it was. And really, it works from the same general premise as blogger - you've got a backoffice where you enter data, and skins to display it. As far as I can see, besides having LOADS of additional features the only real issue is that evoSkins are a bit more complicated than blogger's templates (but not much - you just swap some proprietary <&blogger tags&> for php function calls.) Also, you've gotta read the code and play with it to tweak it just how you want it. But all the code is extremely well-commented. Open up blog_a.php, and read what it says in there.