well, you have first to understand what css theme are you using. i believe it’s the default blueprint.
if that’s true…on your views you design them as you want. for example, you want two inputfields in the same ROW (hint. check .row class inside your css files) you would do something like this…
<div class="form">
<?php $form=$this->beginWidget('CActiveForm', array(
'id'=>'transaction-form',
'enableAjaxValidation'=>false,
)); ?>
<p class="note">Fields with <span class="required">*</span> are required.</p>
<?php echo $form->errorSummary($model); ?>
<div class="row">
<span style="float:left; width: 120px;">
<?php echo $form->labelEx($model,'unit_price'); ?>
<?php echo $form->textField($model,'unit_price',array('size'=>10,'maxlength'=>10)); ?>
<?php echo $form->error($model,'unit_price'); ?>
</span>
<span style="float:right; width:120px;">
<?php echo $form->labelEx($model,'lot_size'); ?>
<?php echo $form->textField($model,'lot_size'); ?>
<?php echo $form->error($model,'lot_size'); ?>
</span>
</div><!-- HERE IT ENDS ONE ROW, EVERYTHING NOW WILL COME BELOW -->
<div class="row"><!-- NEW ROW .... -->
<?php echo $form->labelEx($model,'lot_total'); ?>
<?php echo $form->textField($model,'lot_total'); ?>
<?php echo $form->error($model,'lot_total'); ?>
</div>
<?php $this->endWidget(); ?>
</div><!-- form -->
so you can write your views the way you want, create your boxes in css and put them inside your views, then inside that same boxes put your php code related to the form…