Well, the system uses the Smarty Templating engine, so you'll need to escape coding accordingly; so when adding say the "Who's Online" box to the page one would enter (Taken from the "External Use" link on the Portal Layout screen):
{php}
if (!defined('UBB_MAIN_PROGRAM')) define('UBB_MAIN_PROGRAM',1);
$style_side="";$tbopen="";$tbclose="";
echo "<table width=\"100%\">";
include("/home/user/public_html/forums/languages/english/portal_islands.php");
include("/home/user/public_html/forums/languages/english/generic.php");
include("/home/user/public_html/forums/cache/online_now.php");
echo "</table>";
{/php}If you wanted to use a 2 cell table it'd be basic HTML:
<table width=\"100%\">
<tr>
<td>Table Cell Alpha</td>
<td>Table Cell Bravo</td>
</tr>
</table>
You'd literally just add the coding into portal.tpl where you wanted it to display; for clients in the past I've completely removed the existing portal coding (since all it really does is display latest posts from forums you select) and added in tables and external use boxes in them where they'd be displayed (custom portal boxes make great little content areas).
