[themes] Theme generator

[eric Farris]

On 1/7/06, Jason Flatt <drupal at oadae.net> wrote:
> Ha ha!  Point taken.  There is currently Theme Editor [0].  Could that be used
> as a starting point, or is that not enough?
>
> [0] http://drupal.org/project/theme_editor
>

I think even something like theme_editor is overly complex for a
certain group of people who have Drupal sites, particularly those who
are using it for a blog. CSS isn't overly complicated, but Drupal's
CSS *is*, especially if you're trying to learn CSS by modifying
Drupal's files.

I have several people at the Lab where I work that use a multisite
Drupal installation as a blogging tool, and they want two things from
their theme:

  * something different than the canned styles
  * something they can play with on their own

Mostly, they just want different colors, and a bit of style here and
there (rounded corners, background graphics, and so forth). Nothing
overly complicated; they don't want to define dynamic pulldown menus
or corner graphics for each block. Bluemarine with user-editable
colors would make them quite happy.

I think what we should consider here is dusting off the old Polder
theme, which, way back in the day, I was quite fond of. It had
basically a canned look to it, but it allowed colors and other
parameters to be modified through the admin interface:

http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/themes/polder/
(note, two years old, horribly broken)

Something like that would provide end-user customization, without
having to get their hands dirty and brains overloaded with
understanding Drupal's implementation of CSS.

--
e
www.eafarris.com