Thanks Derek,
You're spot on and possibly saved me about 24 hrs of reading this stuff trying to find out what goes where.

Got another problem you may want to try to help with - and here it is ->

Here's how I ended up doing the tables as I found out that $imagedir wasn't going to work in the original:
$imagepath = "$yyhtml_root/Templates/Forum";
$imgextg = "gif\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"";
$imgextp = "png\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\"";
$yytbl_top_l = qq~<img src="$imagepath/default/vista/tbl_top_l.$imgextp" />~;
$yytbl_top_r = qq~<img src="$imagepath/default/vista/tbl_top_r.$imgextp" />~;
$yytbl_f_l = qq~<img src="$imagepath/default/vista/tbl_f_l.$imgextp" />~;
$yytbl_f_r = qq~<img src="$imagepath/default/vista/tbl_f_r.$imgextp" />~;
$yyvistatop = qq~<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="center"><tr><td align="right" width="11">{yabb tbl_top_l}</td><td class="tbl_top_c" width="100%"></td><td width="11" align="left">{yabb tbl_top_r}</td></tr><tr><td class="tbl_l_s" width="11"></td><td>~;
$yyvistabottom = qq~</td><td class="tbl_r_s" width="11"></td></tr><tr><td width="11">{yabb tbl_f_l}</td><td class="tbl_f_c"></td><td width="11">{yabb tbl_f_r}</td></tr></table>~;
1;
And that works sweet - as you can see here ->
http://members.iinet.net.au/~cranky65/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.plBut! I'm running two themes and while I want to use the same VARS, I also need to separate them as in "default" and "blue".
Ok, so I tried splitting the request with:
if (-e "$yyhtml_root/Templates/Forum/default_vista.css")
{
Do this etc!
}
And
if (-e "$yyhtml_root/Templates/Forum/blue_vista.css")
{
Do this etc!
}
But I don't think "filecheck" works outside of the cgi-bin?
So I went another way - - - darn it! I'll go table-less and let the .css look after it with:
$yyvistatop = qq~<div class="t"><div class="b"><div class="l"><div class="r"><div class="bl"><div class="br"><div class="tl"><div class="tr">~;
$yyvistabottom = qq~</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>~;
and the CSS:
.t {background: url(./default/vista/vista_top_c.png) 0 0 repeat-x;}
.b {background: url(./default/vista/vista_bot_c.png) 0 100% repeat-x;}
.l {background: url(./default/vista/vista_l_s.png) 0 0 repeat-y;}
.r {background: url(./default/vista/vista_r_s.png) 100% 0 repeat-y;}
.bl {background: url(./default/vista/vista_bot_l.png) 0 100% no-repeat;}
.br {background: url(./default/vista/vista_bot_r.png) 100% 100% no-repeat;}
.tl {background: url(./default/vista/vista_top_l.png) 0 0 no-repeat;}
.tr {background: url(./default/vista/vista_top_r.png) 100% 0 no-repeat; padding:11px;}
YaBB DIDN'T LIKE IT! because it conflicts with some other div placements and tables - darn!

So I need to create a valid argument that either checks for a file outside of cgi-bin or a checkable $var statement of some sort that knows what theme file is in current use?
It's been a long day - - - And don't be like me! - - Make sure you have some breakfast before you start answering this!