[support] Why SubTheme?

[Andy Fowlston]

I've been following this thread with interest. It seems to me that themes as they exist in Drupal serve two distinct purposes.

1. They make things look right. This is the CSS, JS, custom templates, template.php magic etc. that's necessary to make this-site.com look different from that-site.com.

2. They open up functionality. This could be the theme registry rebuilder, conditional stylesheets, Fusion-style column fun, etc.

If you're only interested in #1 then it seems to me that using a parent theme and updating it regularly might cause problems, and might not really help in anyway.

If you need #2 then I think your hand's kinda forced.

I think a hefty theme like Fusion really does straddle the line between module and theme, and that's part of the reason this discussion arises. 

I'm no expert, but there are parts of Zen and Fusion that perhaps belong in modules (that can supply their own CSS, JS) and life would be easier if a theme really was nothing more than the icing on the cake (no heavy lifting). I know that Fusion already expects Skinr, and parts of Zen's goodness can also come in module format, so I wonder where future development will lead.

A.

. . . . . . . 
Andy Fowlston
+44 (0)20 8747 5068
andy at pedalo.co.uk
Skype: andy.pedalo
www.pedalo.co.uk

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