I disagree with your statement regarding the use of HTML tables whereas at times they still have their place. The template in topic here will actually make it impossible to add any content on the left or right of the current display while using existing common SMF css classes. This is due to this template's 1000px and 950px title & catbg widths being used that stretch to the far right without any aesthetics to the right edge of the graphic used (because it extends to the end of the screen).   Even without tables, I do not think any portal side blocks/modules will appear correctly using this theme.

Btw, even the wiki article you linked states that tables still have their place:

There is still (as of 2011) some distance to go; some web developers have yet to remove the tables from their page layouts, while others are now afraid to introduce a simple HTML table even where it makes good sense, some erring by the overuse of span and div elements, perhaps even with table-like rules applied to them using CSS

HTML tables still have their legitimate place when presenting out tabular information within web pages.

Stating that one of your peers modifications was trash is very disrespectful.
That portal is currently the top rated one for SMF and has been for quite some time. 
Simple Portal is the #1 most popular and #3 most downloaded mods of all time.

The theme in topic here is also void of a category collapse and has the admin display toggle disabled, was that on purpose?

Regards.

Hello,

Your Pulse theme layout looks very nice although I do not agree with the use of a separate array to contain the forum nav links. This obviously does not work well with other custom mods that add navigation links to ones SMF installation. The Subs.php file is already loaded by default and I believe the setupMenuContext() along with it.

With the example below I will include the setupMenuContext() function call although I do not believe it to be necessary (already loaded).
My suggestion is to use the existing SMF array contained in the $context['menu_buttons'] global array to fill your $vp_nav_bar_items array with the necessary titles and url's.

ie. file: /Themes/Pulse1-0-2-0-RC5/index.template.php
find:

Code: [Select]

$vp_nav_bar_items = array
(
array
(
'Title' => $txt['vp_forums'],
'Link' => $scripturl
),
array
(
'Title' => $txt['vp_help'],
'Link' => "$scripturl?action=help"
),

array
(
'Title' => $txt['vp_search'],
'Link' => "$scripturl?action=search"
),
array
(
'Title' => $txt['vp_messages'],
'Link' => "$scripturl?action=pm"
),
array
(
'Title' => $txt['vp_profile'],
'Link' => "$scripturl?action=profile"
),
array
(
'Title' => $txt['vp_members'],
'Link' => "$scripturl?action=mlist"
),
array
(
'Title' => $admin_title,
'Link' => $admin_link
),
array
(
'Title' => $moderate_title,
'Link' => $moderate_link
),
array
(
'Title' => $sign_in_title,
'Link' => $sign_in_link
),
array
(
'Title' => $sign_out_title,
'Link' => $sign_out_link
),
);

replace with:

Code: [Select]

setupMenuContext();
foreach ($context['menu_buttons'] as $buttons)
{
if ($buttons['show'])
$vp_nav_bar_items[] = array(
'Title' => $buttons['title'],
'Link' => $buttons['href'],
);
}

Unfortunately without other substantial changes, the sub buttons are ignored however other themes such as core also behave like this.

Regards.