[themes] Workflow Question

[Mark Shropshire]

Thanks to the original poster for bringing up this issue. It has been  
great to see some different approaches for theming in Drupal.

Zirafa,

I definitely agree with your last statement that there is no real  
"right" way for theming. I think there are best practices and we have  
seen a few of those in this email thread. I have to admit that I have  
actually done the same thing with downloading foundation and renaming  
the theme folder.

Thanks,
Mark

On Oct 24, 2009, at 6:25 PM, Farsheed wrote:

> I generally like Squiggy's approach in creating static html and then  
> inserting Drupal after the fact.  My approach is slightly different  
> though:
>
> 1) take the Framework theme, rename it as a new theme (making sure  
> to rename .info files and template.php function names)
> 2) comment out or remove all the content related drupal variables in  
> page.tpl.php (sometimes i'll replace it with static dummy text)
> 3) this leaves me with a skeleton html tpl.php file but still loads  
> in JS and CSS dynamically through Drupal
> 4) I'll build out the theme using style.css (again commenting or  
> deleting when it is distracting)
> 5) Then I'll replace the variables from #2 and continue styling  
> those regions individually
>
> I like Framework for this because it has a well structured CSS file  
> and very basic tpl.php files, and minimum cruft to read through/ 
> delete. Readability is important for me.
>
> I also prefer to not use subthemes because it seems less confusing,  
> easier, and faster to just rename a downloaded theme as a new theme.
>
> I like to leave the dynamic JS/CSS load because I want to know what  
> kind of CSS or JS is coming down the pipeline from other modules  
> that might potentially cause css class name or style conflicts with  
> my own style.css. Nothing is more frustrating to me than thinking  
> I'm done but then having a module conflicting with it.
>
> I rely heavily on Webdeveloper & Firebug for Firefox, and Devel  
> module for printing out variable content dsm($node) and clearing all  
> caches quickly which is critical for theming advanced stuff in  
> Drupal. Theme developer I'll use occasionally when battling strange  
> bugs but it tends to slow down page loads, which reduces my  
> productivity.
>
> The important thing I think is to adapt Drupal to your workflow and  
> not the other way around. It's helpful to play around with existing  
> themes to learn how they work but despite what anyone says there is  
> no real "right" or standard way of doing it.
>
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes