I figured it out myself! It turns out the "footer" was not actually in the footer.php file at all, even though the theme author told me that was what i needed to edit. It was in both the header.php and the header-gallery.php.

Hi. Could you explain (to a newbie) what steps you followed to remove the footer?
Thank you!!!
j

Hi! Sorry for the late reply. I had to redo this fix when I updated my theme Aperture.

I logged onto my file manager at Bluehost.com. I found the header.php file here: public_html/packages/theme_aperture/themes/aperture/elements

I then used the online html editor to remove the following code from both the header_gallery.php and the header.php files:

<a href="http://www.concrete5.org"><?php echo t('concrete5 CMS')?></a><br />
© <?php echo date('Y')?> <a href="<?php echo DIR_REL?>/"><?php echo SITE?></a>.
<?php echo t('All rights reserved')?> <br />
<?php
$u = new User();
if ($u->isRegistered()) { ?>
<?php
if (Config::get("ENABLE_USER_PROFILES")) {
$userName = '<a href="' . $this->url('/profile') . '">' . $u->getUserName() . '</a>';
} else {
$userName = $u->getUserName();
}
?>
<?php echo t('Logged in as %s.', $userName)?> <a href="<?php echo $this->url('/login', 'logout')?>"> <br /><?php echo t('Log Out')?></a>
<?php } else { ?>
<a href="<?php echo $this->url('/login')?>"><?php echo t('Log In')?></a>
<?php } ?>

Just so everyone reading this post in the future can understand what's going on here, the 'footer_required' line mentioned in the original post should never be removed because that's the line that renders the concrete5 top edit bar. The 'header_required' and 'footer_required' lines are required. That's why they have 'required' in their names. ;-)

The solution proposed does indeed remove the content at the bottom but it removes all the content including the copyright notice and the sign-in link. The sign-in link is a convenience that you can decide to leave in or not. You can always get to the login screen by adding 'www.yourdomain.com/login' in your address bar.

To leave the copyright notice in, leave this code in there:

This sounds like a current reply from someone who knows how I can solve my problem without screwing up my site!

What I'd like to do is:

Remove the login from my footer and edit the copyright text to include my name along with the year.

I'm using the Lucid theme from Formigo and am new to concrete5 and all current forms of code, but I used to write sites in HTML so I'm familiar with some form of coding and the process of editing it.

I tried a few suggestions but I can't seem to get these elements edited.

Please help me out when you have a moment - thanks!

If you'd like to send me a PM with your site name and server log in info (Cpanel), I can make the changes for you. When I'm done, I'll message back and you can change your server password.

I'll be around for at least an hour tonight and most of the day tomorrow.

-Brian

Thank you Brian, but I believe I figured it out!

This is certainly a learning process, but it's nice to finally be getting with the times...

Good news. Like anything worth learning, there is a learning curve with C5, but it's a great platform to work with.

Glad to hear it worked out. Head back to the forums if you get stuck again.