Theme development

Hi - hoping to accomplish something like this, where there is a block in the left navigation that filters the current view:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/shop/8612/Digital_Cameras_Point_Shoot_Digi...

OR same idea here:

HI, stupid question, but how do i add pictures to my site? and how do i get banners up for advertising? email me at kylec@702.co.za

thanks

I have created my own theme and I am trying to customize it even more. This is the problem I want to solve:

I want my $site_slogan to change depending on which node I am on. I would like to be able to set it up so I can create the slogan when I create the page (similar to something like CCK, but that does not get displayed IN the node area), but if you leave the page slogan empty then it will default back to the $site_slogan variable.

http://drupal.org/node/60317

The above node discusses using PHP to set block visibility via the block configuration page. The discussion takes some pains to point out it is applicable to 4.7. Has anyone run through these examples to see if they are still valid for 5.x? Has anything changed that wd impact this in 5.x?

I am trying to theme a table view so it don't show the file name and link, I would like it to show a small icon (better if it is according to file-type) linked to the file.

As far as I have gone I created a:

I was updating my site and I wanted to change something in my settings....but the strangest thing.....I can't. When I go to the settings page I can't open any of the settings. All of the plusses (to open a setting) have turned into minusses. What I see is this: