[amy2203]

Thanks,

thats just a real hassle, and takes up a huge amount more server space, we've got thousands of products and images etc, and without it all it's easy for a skin to break,

It's not huge changes I'm trying to make to the skin, and I've nearly got it working where it uses a different skin folder for me,

in smarty.php:

if ($CLIENT_IP == "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx") {
#admin tester
$smarty->use_sub_dirs = false;
$smarty->request_use_auto_globals = false;

$smarty->template_dir = $xcart_dir."/skin2";
$smarty->compile_dir = $var_dirs["skin2templates_c"];
$smarty->config_dir = $xcart_dir."/skin2";
$smarty->cache_dir = $var_dirs["skin2cache"];
$smarty->secure_dir = $xcart_dir."/skin2";
$smarty->debug_tpl = "file:debug.tpl";

$smarty->assign("ImagesDir",$xcart_web_dir."/skin2/images");
$smarty->assign("SkinDir",$xcart_web_dir."/skin2");
$smarty->assign("template_dir", $smarty->template_dir);
$smarty->assign("sm_prnotice_txt", @$_prnotice_txt);
}
else
{

#normal user
$smarty->use_sub_dirs = false;
$smarty->request_use_auto_globals = false;

$smarty->template_dir = $xcart_dir."/skin1";
$smarty->compile_dir = $var_dirs["templates_c"];
$smarty->config_dir = $xcart_dir."/skin1";
$smarty->cache_dir = $var_dirs["cache"];
$smarty->secure_dir = $xcart_dir."/skin1";
$smarty->debug_tpl = "file:debug.tpl";

$smarty->assign("ImagesDir",$xcart_web_dir."/skin1/images");
$smarty->assign("SkinDir",$xcart_web_dir."/skin1");
$smarty->assign("template_dir", $smarty->template_dir);
$smarty->assign("sm_prnotice_txt", @$_prnotice_txt);
}

I just keep getting the error:
Error: Smarty error: the $compile_dir '' does not exist, or is not a directory

I have created the new folders in xcart/var but it doesn't like it.

If I leave the $compile_dir as templates_c it works, but I'm worried about it overwriting complied files etc and messing up the live skin.