If you are new to Drupal theming, my suggestion is to actually customize a theme first rather than start a theme from scratch. While there are lots of great resources out there, the newbie themer is much better off modifying a theme that has all of the critical pieces. After you've done this a few times (maybe more than a few), then it is much easier to create a theme from scratch.

A while back I tried demonstrating to a bunch of designers the simplicity of building a theme from scratch and it got hairy pretty quick.

* The first thing you should learn is about theme requirements (what files are required for a basic theme, what are the naming conventions, etc.). * Then you will have to know the Drupal template variables and the concept of regions and blocks. * Assuming that you know CSS, these will put you in good shape. However, you will also need to theme items that the basic HTML web designer doesn't know about: Drupal messages and errors, tabs, etc. If you don't add these variables to your template you won't be able to do simple things like switch between view and edit or see other messages that Drupal sends to the screen. * Then, you can begin getting more complex if you want to build new areas that function differently on different pages or if you want to let the user customize the theme via the browser, also known as configuring features.

So - with all of that said, I do like http://tips.webdesign10.com/how-to-make-a-drupal-theme. This was created a while ago, but I believe has been updated. This is very helpful. It was a good way to get introduced to the basics of the theme without having to know the finer grain details. I also heeded advise to use Zen (http://drupal.org/project/zen) as a starting theme, but easily got lost when I first started theming. It is documented well with comments throughout the code, but is is a complex maze to a newbie. Since then, there are a few great "streamlined" themes out there that are good to start with. I like to go with SuperClean (http://drupal.org/project/superclean) and Clean (http://drupal.org/project/clean). I've also found a few good themes that have the features that I like and then I modify these as needed. In this case, it's best to start with a "solid" theme that can stand the test of time, functions, etc.

Here are some good links that might help: Drupal 6 Theme Guide - http://drupal.org/theme-guide/6 Theme HowTos - http://drupal.org/node/22803 Theme snippets - http://drupal.org/node/45471

I'd recommend "Drupal 6 Themes" by Ric Shreves as well. This was a good place to learn the D6 theming. (I'm sure that I'm missing some great resources here, but just wanted to share my thoughts on theming from scratch.)

Sorry for the long message. I hope this helps. -Tina

Martin Hooper wrote:

Anyone got any links to docs that will tell me how to go about creating a theme from scratch? Drupal 6.13... -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]