<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">As part of the Drupal administration user experience survey we identified Drupal theme issues as the most difficult administration issues( <A href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/DisplaySummary.asp?SID=1425065&U=142506581557">http://www.surveymonkey.com/DisplaySummary.asp?SID=1425065&U=142506581557</A>). There was some confusion about the results so Trae McCombs, from CivicSpace Labs, conducted six additional theme development interviews.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Trae identified some common goals of theme developers, basic theme tasks, and difficult theme tasks. I have created a documentation page, <A href="http://drupal.org/node/39451">http://drupal.org/node/39451</A>, which outlines all this. I also spoke with Dries yesterday and requested that a theme developers mailing list be started to focus on helping with Drupal's most difficult administration task.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>In summary here are the actions we are taking to improve administration specifically focused on Drupale theme development.</DIV><DIV>1) Identified Drupal theming as the most difficult Drupal administration task.</DIV><DIV>2) Improved the project module to allow for categorization so that themes can be categorized to help themers pick a solid base theme. Designed by Dries and implemented by Nedjo Rogers for CivicSpace Labs. This is coming in the next few weeks on Drupal.org.</DIV><DIV>3) Provided a "Manage inconsistency in themes" documentation page with best practices. <A href="http://drupal.org/node/37156">http://drupal.org/node/37156</A></DIV><DIV>4) Created a support channel #cstheme to support development of the CivicSpace theme. This may lead to a dedicated Drupal theme channel.</DIV><DIV>5) Added a link to theme help from the theme admin interface using the CivicSpace theme. Added several base layouts to the CS theme for theme developers to customize with styles.</DIV><DIV>6) Created a theme help documentation page to focus on basic and difficult theme tasks. <A href="http://drupal.org/node/39451">http://drupal.org/node/39451</A></DIV><DIV>7) Requested a themers mailing list to focus specifically on the tasks of Drupal theme development</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Please help us to develop theme help documentation(<A href="http://drupal.org/node/39451">http://drupal.org/node/39451</A>). Understanding basic and difficult theme tasks, and how to solve them, will allow us to attract more themers to the platform and make it easier for all of us to theme our sites.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I'll leave you with a quote:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="member:identifier:dries_"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><B>Dries_</B></SPAN></FONT></A><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">:</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">it's the reason I didn't convert buytaert.net yet -- it takes too f*****g long to make a theme</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">Cheers,</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">Kieran</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">Development Manager</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">CivicSpace Labs</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Lucida Grande" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"></SPAN></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>