Perform a fresh install with a freshly made database to test your customizations on. Then you will be sure that whatever changes you've made are the result of you, and not something that has happened beyond your control -- such as a user or live forum script/advertisement. You will need to create some test categories, forums, and posts to work with.
Be aware, that columns are affected also by the user settings. ie; all-on/all-off, left-only/right-only, show profile-details-on-left for profile editor, hide columns for registration settings, ignore shoutbox in column for shoutchat page, and several other locations. There are template column controls in the libraries files which also need to be updated.
That's what I wanted to avoid.
I read through the source code for the page, and looked at some of the css. If I understand it correctly, the size of the left column is controlled by the ubb code. If iI'm correct, then trying to control the size by using a table inside the column element will override the ubb design and could throw things off, correct?
I've just read the first two lines in your code
<table width="210">
<td align="center">
edit, since i kept reading lines:
wow. the whole thing is a mess.
for some direction, pass your html through a validator, and read each error from the results
https://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_inputThere is a ton of code just like that, and much worse, on the site. I'm trying to convince them to clean it up, but if I can just get the forum columns clean, that will be an accomplishment.
