On 8/7/07, Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote:

On Aug 2, 2007, at 2:21 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

Peter, could you pick the most appropriate group on http://groups.drupal.org and then work with the g.d.o folks to get a chipin fundraiser started to build the dreamweaver extension.

How about $3K for starters, and see how many folks chipin?

In the last Drupal user experience survey of 2000 administrators, theming was consistently the number one issue of most important, hardest to do for most Drupal admins. It's my understanding a weak implementation of Dreamweaver extensions for Mambo brought a lot of designers to Mambo simply because they could recognize the tools they needed.

Also, any necessary changes to Drupal 6 that would need to be made to support the extension could still fall under the code freeze if you started now.

Cheers, Kieran

I am disabled and have been since late 2004 and I am on the waiting list for Social Security Disability here in Florida where there is a two year backlog. And the only other money I generate since becoming disabled is selling most of my personal belongings and the $100.00 a year I make with Google Adsense. And I have child support and other bills on top of that like my doctor visits and pain medication. Unless my lawsuit against the company that caused my disabilities in the car accident that totaled my car by their Semi I don't think that I can personally afford this 3k myself. I was thinking that it wouldn't cost anywhere near that much just for an extension of course I have seen Dreamweaver extensions that are 299.00 and think "are they out of their mind?"

At 3K we would need: 600 people to donate $5.00 each. 300 people to donate $10.00 each. 200 people to donate $15.00 each. 150 people to donate $20.00 each. 120 people to donate $25.00 each. 60 people to donate $50.00 each. And I would be willing to do this? Are there enough Drupal/Dreamweaver Meb Monkeys out there willing to pay this amount?

Peter, I suspect you'll get a few designers making good money from big clients who will push past the 3K. I was suggesting you contribute time and a design for the module and the community would supply the funds. Let's start with a design, I know little about dream weaver myself, and I'll work with you off list to get the ChipIn widget set up in: http://groups.drupal.org/designers-and-information-architects Sound like a plan? Cheers, Kieran Peter

http:www.apokotos.com

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-- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

On 8/7/07, Laura Scott <laura@pingv.com> wrote:

Count me as extremely skeptical that Dreamweaver is anything but a web 1.0tool (my rant on this: http://pingv.com/blog/laura/200703/adobes-creative-suite-for-web-1-0 ), but I'm certainly happy to be proven wrong.

That's a good point. Perhaps dreamweaver is no longer the designers tool of choice. Anyone have market data? Personally I don't feel that web design requires a wysiwyg application, but

what seems obvious is that many people -- and universities -- are resistant or intimidated by CSS. I started by hand coding in the early '90s before the various web design apps came out, so maybe I'm coming from a different place, but learning CSS fundamentals is not rocket science. I feel the real design happens in the imagination, and photoshop, illustrator, indesign, inkscape, fireworks, etc. All that dreamweaver does is combine the design with some auto-generated mark-up, yes? But if dreamweaver can be leveraged into making decent markup, that could help a lot of people, it seems.

Is there a proof of concept or proposed architecture for such a project?

http://www.mambosolutions.com/dw_tutorial/#dw_extension Further up in the thread I alluded to the idea that many people chose Joomla because it had a Dreamweaver extension. For an advanced user like yourself this extension will probably not be helpful. The question is could it pull the next level of design talent towards Drupal? Cheers, Kieran Laura

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-- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I've actually seen that mambo extension in use, teaching those who were already tied to using dreamweaver. It basically just inserts the <?php print $random_variable_here ?> statements that our *.tpl.php files are littered with. I'd think the folks in the themer-pack group: http:// groups.drupal.org/themer-pack-working-group might be of some assistance sine they have a similar goal (minus the dreamweaver integration). I largely agree with Laura (that Dreamweaver is useless), but there is non-trivial learning curve for dealing with phptemplate, and creating a drupal theme. If work towards this extension would flatten that learning curve I think it's a positive step. Needing a button to insert <?php print $primary_links ?> into your template, and knowing that $primary_links even exists are separate issues. I'm much more interested in solving the latter ;) blake hall On Aug 7, 2007, at 3:32 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

On 8/7/07, Laura Scott <laura@pingv.com> wrote:

Count me as extremely skeptical that Dreamweaver is anything but a web 1.0 tool (my rant on this: http://pingv.com/blog/laura/200703/ adobes-creative-suite-for-web-1-0 ), but I'm certainly happy to be proven wrong.

That's a good point. Perhaps dreamweaver is no longer the designers tool of choice. Anyone have market data?

Personally I don't feel that web design requires a wysiwyg application, but what seems obvious is that many people -- and universities -- are resistant or intimidated by CSS. I started by hand coding in the early '90s before the various web design apps came out, so maybe I'm coming from a different place, but learning CSS fundamentals is not rocket science. I feel the real design happens in the imagination, and photoshop, illustrator, indesign, inkscape, fireworks, etc. All that dreamweaver does is combine the design with some auto-generated mark-up, yes? But if dreamweaver can be leveraged into making decent markup, that could help a lot of people, it seems.

Is there a proof of concept or proposed architecture for such a project?

http://www.mambosolutions.com/dw_tutorial/#dw_extension

Further up in the thread I alluded to the idea that many people chose Joomla because it had a Dreamweaver extension. For an advanced user like yourself this extension will probably not be helpful. The question is could it pull the next level of design talent towards Drupal?

Cheers, Kieran

Laura

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-- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

On Aug 7, 2007, at 6:22 PM, Cary Gordon wrote:

There is a lot more to Dreamweaver than the wysiwyg aspect. it is very handy when working with complex cascades like those that can occur in Drupal.

That said, I still don't get what Peter is looking for here.

Cary

I just want a tool that will be kept up to date with Drupals' theme and CSS requirements so I don't have to redundantly create the basic files for each tpl file. With being disabled it is very hard for me to keep focus on what I am doing and because of the pain I am in I often make mistakes. Before the accident I could make drupal phptemplates fine. But why go through the hassle if a tool can be made for Dreamweaver that will give me more time writing material than making templates for my 180+ domain names? And on top of that I am the type of person that may change a template one day or week to week. I get bored easily. Peter

On 8/8/07, Ram Dak <ramdak5000@yahoo.com> wrote:

I joined this list only because I saw this thread. Not that I am a drupal wizard running a 1000 sites, but it immediately struck a chord.

Like many other people, I have found creating a drupal template intimidating, but I can handle Dreamweaver reasonably well. In fact, at one point of time last year, I was ready to dump drupal in frustration, so I went looking for and purchased Project Seven's dreamweaver template extensions. They come with superb guides that tell you how to customize them. All I had to do was to learn a bit of Fireworks to customize the images in the templates and I was immediately more productive than I had ever been with drupal.Today, even a charity doesn't want a plain looking site, despite all the power that drupal has under the hood.

I think the only people capable of taking this project and seeing this through are CivicSpace.

Thanks, I was just offering to help gather requirements and get the chipin widget going. I think I would leave it to Peter and others to identify capable developers to complete the extension. I also think that the $3k is too steep- for example, the Project Seven

templates are not more than $90 and they are truly terrific. Of course, the end price doesn't reflect the development costs, so the point is moot.

I don't think we are talking about individual templates. I think we are talking about something that magically takes DreamWeaver output and converts it into a Drupal theme. Correct me if I am wrong. I personally think that if the module is made available as a commercial

module, designers familiar with DW and looking to bridge the gap would really make a beeline for it. Is there space within the drupal ecosystem for such commercial offerings?

Not in Drupal. While some people believe there should be proprietary Drupal modules, there are not accepted by the Drupal community to be distributed. You'll get nasty mail defending Drupal's GPL and opinions that is covers distributing compatible modules as well. Joomla has recently taken this stance as well. I don't know if I will be in a position to donate to the project, but I just

wanted to voice my strong support for such a project.

Ok, well helping us with requirements would be a significant contribution. Kieran Thanks,

venkat-rk on drupal.org

*Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com>* wrote:

On Aug 7, 2007, at 6:22 PM, Cary Gordon wrote:

There is a lot more to Dreamweaver than the wysiwyg aspect. it is very handy when working with complex cascades like those that can occur in Drupal.

That said, I still don't get what Peter is looking for here.

Cary

I just want a tool that will be kept up to date with Drupals' theme and CSS requirements so I don't have to redundantly create the basic files for each tpl file. With being disabled it is very hard for me to keep focus on what I am doing and because of the pain I am in I often make mistakes. Before the accident I could make drupal phptemplates fine. But why go through the hassle if a tool can be made for Dreamweaver that will give me more time writing material than making templates for my 180+ domain names? And on top of that I am the type of person that may change a template one day or week to week. I get bored easily.

Peter

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_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

-- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

On 8/9/07, Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote:

The oversight of the project I will happily do. And define the feature set that would be needed in the extension. But since I am not a Dreamweaver coder I won't be a help there.

Peter, sounds great. I can help you identify some individual developers or shops that would agree to implement a Dreamweaver plugin to create Drupal themes. Let's see if we can flush out the spec on what the output of Dreaweaver is and how it can become a Drupal theme. Cheers, Kieran Peter

On Aug 8, 2007, at 12:26 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

On 8/8/07, Ram Dak <ramdak5000@yahoo.com> wrote:

...

I joined this list only because I saw this thread. Not that I am a drupal wizard running a 1000 sites, but it immediately struck a chord.

Like many other people, I have found creating a drupal template intimidating, but I can handle Dreamweaver reasonably well. In fact, at one point of time last year, I was ready to dump drupal in frustration, so I went looking for and purchased Project Seven's dreamweaver template extensions. They come with superb guides that tell you how to customize them. All I had to do was to learn a bit of Fireworks to customize the images in the templates and I was immediately more productive than I had ever been with drupal.Today, even a charity doesn't want a plain looking site, despite all the power that drupal has under the hood.

I think the only people capable of taking this project and seeing this through are CivicSpace.

Thanks, I was just offering to help gather requirements and get the chipin widget going. I think I would leave it to Peter and others to identify capable developers to complete the extension.

I also think that the $3k is too steep- for example, the Project Seven

...

templates are not more than $90 and they are truly terrific. Of course, the end price doesn't reflect the development costs, so the point is moot.

I don't think we are talking about individual templates. I think we are talking about something that magically takes DreamWeaver output and converts it into a Drupal theme. Correct me if I am wrong.

I personally think that if the module is made available as a commercial

...

module, designers familiar with DW and looking to bridge the gap would really make a beeline for it. Is there space within the drupal ecosystem for such commercial offerings?

Not in Drupal. While some people believe there should be proprietary Drupal modules, there are not accepted by the Drupal community to be distributed. You'll get nasty mail defending Drupal's GPL and opinions that is covers distributing compatible modules as well. Joomla has recently taken this stance as well.

I don't know if I will be in a position to donate to the project, but I

...

just wanted to voice my strong support for such a project.

Ok, well helping us with requirements would be a significant contribution.

Kieran

Thanks,

...

venkat-rk on drupal.org

*Peter Apokotos < drupal@apokotos.com>* wrote:

On Aug 7, 2007, at 6:22 PM, Cary Gordon wrote:

There is a lot more to Dreamweaver than the wysiwyg aspect. it is very handy when working with complex cascades like those that can occur in Drupal.

That said, I still don't get what Peter is looking for here.

Cary

I just want a tool that will be kept up to date with Drupals' theme and CSS requirements so I don't have to redundantly create the basic files for each tpl file. With being disabled it is very hard for me to keep focus on what I am doing and because of the pain I am in I often make mistakes. Before the accident I could make drupal phptemplates fine. But why go through the hassle if a tool can be made for Dreamweaver that will give me more time writing material than making templates for my 180+ domain names? And on top of that I am the type of person that may change a template one day or week to week. I get bored easily.

Peter

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

------------------------------ Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles. Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center.<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=48246/*http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/;_ylc=X3oDMTE5cDF2bXZzBF9TAzk3MTA3MDc2BHNlYwNtYWlsdGFncwRzbGsDZ3JlZW4tY2VudGVy>

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

-- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

-- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Hi Since I'm getting value out of reading this thread, my conscience says I should mention my current project, even though I've only used dw for a sum total of 3 days in my life. I plan to let dw users edit some individual page elements with Dreamweaver, individual files for things like "blocks", "left sidebar", complete with dummy content. I'm going to mark up these files with locked tags. Then another process will do the conversion into a real theme using these tags (the designer won't see that). The designer will need to follow instructions to make sure things are done right (eg. css files are correctly linked etc). It won't be a purist solution, but then again my goals are not lofty. Simply allow dw designers to mess with a theme a little, and in a controlled way. In the meantime, I'll keep reading this thread :) Simon

How would such an extension deal with pre-existing CSS and HTML generated by core/other modules? template.php? individual tpl.php files? perhaps my questions are out of scope, and i'll admit i don't have any idea how extensions work. I'm imagining a scenario where somebody uses Dreamweaver to design the page.tp.php file and this plugin would help them be like, "make this a block region" and then update template.php accordingly and place a $region in the page.tpl.php file. It would then ask if they want to modify the way a block looks, which would lead them to start editing block.tpl.php. As a process, I see template design in layers, starting with page.tpl.php. It would be great if there was a way to somewhat step the designer through so they can dive in to the various sublayers without getting distracted/confused by template.php. Commenting is one way to deal with some of these barriers, too. Farsheed --- Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote:

On Aug 10, 2007, at 10:59 AM, sime wrote:

...

Hi

Since I'm getting value out of reading this thread, my conscience says I should mention my current project, even though I've only used dw for a sum total of 3 days in my life.

I plan to let dw users edit some individual page elements with Dreamweaver, individual files for things like "blocks", "left sidebar", complete with dummy content. I'm going to mark up these files with locked tags. Then another process will do the conversion into a real theme using these tags (the designer won't see that). The designer will need to follow instructions to make sure things are done right (eg. css files are correctly linked etc).

It won't be a purist solution, but then again my goals are not lofty. Simply allow dw designers to mess with a theme a little, and in a controlled way.

In the meantime, I'll keep reading this thread :)

Simon

One of the key features of this extension would be the comments for each of the template files. In the comments you would read what php functions you can use or what should be used. Also the standard CSS things like how to wrap the text around a picture in the content. Or how to assign a common photo or icon to distinguish what category this content falls under. Like you would find in the CMS Geeklog. And that is just the beginning. For example I use the Well Rounded DW extension. Why? Is it because I am too lazy...no it's because there is a tool that is drag and drop and saves me time.

Peter _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

____________________________________________________________________________________Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/

Any theme can make all the others go away. However, that is really an advance theme issue. By far the vast majority of the Drupal admin population needs the help of the included starter css. As such, those advanced enough merely exclude print $styles in their theme and accept they will need to build everything from scratch. The rest of us can leverage the existing helper css quite nicely. Drupal 6 theming takes this much further. -sp On 8/10/07, Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote:

Pre-existing modules? If they have defined divs, classes and so on then you could just adjust or add the settings to your new C.S.S. with your new templates. Of course I also think that the Drupal.css file should go away and have only one style sheet for the majority of items. But I would leave the amount of style sheets to each theme developer because not everyone works the same way. I personally use just one and use shorthand and compress the sheet as much as I can. But I would still like to see all of the module developers use XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS 2.0 (3.0 possibly) and I won't pick on them only. Drupal needs it too. Another issue I have is either create a module for the <HEAD>So that I don't have to dig down in the core of Drupal to add or change items</HEAD> Or just leave the head to be changed independently for each page, article, book, node and so on.

Peter

On Aug 10, 2007, at 4:04 PM, Farsheed wrote:

...

How would such an extension deal with pre-existing CSS and HTML generated by core/other modules?

Farsheed

--- Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote:

...

On Aug 10, 2007, at 10:59 AM, sime wrote:

...

Hi

Since I'm getting value out of reading this thread, my conscience says I should mention my current project, even though I've only used dw for a sum total of 3 days in my life.

I plan to let dw users edit some individual page elements with Dreamweaver, individual files for things like "blocks", "left sidebar", complete with dummy content. I'm going to mark up these files with locked tags. Then another process will do the conversion into a real theme using these tags (the designer won't see that). The designer will need to follow instructions to make sure things are done right (eg. css files are correctly linked etc).

It won't be a purist solution, but then again my goals are not lofty. Simply allow dw designers to mess with a theme a little, and in a controlled way.

In the meantime, I'll keep reading this thread :)

Simon

One of the key features of this extension would be the comments for each of the template files. In the comments you would read what php functions you can use or what should be used. Also the standard CSS things like how to wrap the text around a picture in the content. Or how to assign a common photo or icon to distinguish what category this content falls under. Like you would find in the CMS Geeklog. And that is just the beginning. For example I use the Well Rounded DW extension. Why? Is it because I am too lazy...no it's because there is a tool that is drag and drop and saves me time.

Peter _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

______________________________________________________________________ ______________Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

If anyone would like to donate to this project please go here <http:// donorge.org/d_donate/basket_add/0/1/1014> Thank you for your support on making this project a reality. Peter Apokotos On Aug 10, 2007, at 9:52 PM, Steven Peck wrote:

Any theme can make all the others go away. However, that is really an advance theme issue.

By far the vast majority of the Drupal admin population needs the help of the included starter css. As such, those advanced enough merely exclude print $styles in their theme and accept they will need to build everything from scratch. The rest of us can leverage the existing helper css quite nicely.

Drupal 6 theming takes this much further.

-sp

On 8/10/07, Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote:

...

Pre-existing modules? If they have defined divs, classes and so on then you could just adjust or add the settings to your new C.S.S. with your new templates. Of course I also think that the Drupal.css file should go away and have only one style sheet for the majority of items. But I would leave the amount of style sheets to each theme developer because not everyone works the same way. I personally use just one and use shorthand and compress the sheet as much as I can. But I would still like to see all of the module developers use XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS 2.0 (3.0 possibly) and I won't pick on them only. Drupal needs it too. Another issue I have is either create a module for the <HEAD>So that I don't have to dig down in the core of Drupal to add or change items</HEAD> Or just leave the head to be changed independently for each page, article, book, node and so on.

Peter

On Aug 10, 2007, at 4:04 PM, Farsheed wrote:

...

How would such an extension deal with pre-existing CSS and HTML generated by core/other modules?

Farsheed

--- Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote:

...

On Aug 10, 2007, at 10:59 AM, sime wrote:

...

Hi

Since I'm getting value out of reading this thread, my conscience says I should mention my current project, even though I've only used dw for a sum total of 3 days in my life.

I plan to let dw users edit some individual page elements with Dreamweaver, individual files for things like "blocks", "left sidebar", complete with dummy content. I'm going to mark up these files with locked tags. Then another process will do the conversion into a real theme using these tags (the designer won't see that). The designer will need to follow instructions to make sure things are done right (eg. css files are correctly linked etc).

It won't be a purist solution, but then again my goals are not lofty. Simply allow dw designers to mess with a theme a little, and in a controlled way.

In the meantime, I'll keep reading this thread :)

Simon

One of the key features of this extension would be the comments for each of the template files. In the comments you would read what php functions you can use or what should be used. Also the standard CSS things like how to wrap the text around a picture in the content. Or how to assign a common photo or icon to distinguish what category this content falls under. Like you would find in the CMS Geeklog. And that is just the beginning. For example I use the Well Rounded DW extension. Why? Is it because I am too lazy...no it's because there is a tool that is drag and drop and saves me time.

Peter _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

____________________________________________________________________ __ ______________Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

What is Chipin? As for the spec I am not quite sure as to what you mean. Is it retaining to the theming or the extension? On Aug 15, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

Peter, my suggestion would be to go with ChipIn as it's a tool that's worked successfully on Groups.drupal.org.

Also, I think we need to do more work on spec so people know what the would be supporting and we need to get more feedback on a spec that people would be willing to pay for it.

Cheers, Kieran

On 8/14/07, Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote: If anyone would like to donate to this project please go here <http:// donorge.org/d_donate/basket_add/0/1/1014>

Thank you for your support on making this project a reality.

Peter Apokotos

On Aug 10, 2007, at 9:52 PM, Steven Peck wrote:

...

Any theme can make all the others go away. However, that is really an advance theme issue.

By far the vast majority of the Drupal admin population needs the help of the included starter css. As such, those advanced enough merely exclude print $styles in their theme and accept they will need to build everything from scratch. The rest of us can leverage the existing helper css quite nicely.

Drupal 6 theming takes this much further.

-sp

On 8/10/07, Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com > wrote:

...

Pre-existing modules? If they have defined divs, classes and so on then you could just adjust or add the settings to your new C.S.S. with your new templates. Of course I also think that the Drupal.css file should go away and have only one style sheet for the majority of items. But I would leave the amount of style sheets to each theme developer because not everyone works the same way. I personally use just one and use shorthand and compress the sheet as much as I can. But I would still like to see all of the module developers use XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS 2.0 (3.0 possibly) and I won't pick on them only. Drupal needs it too. Another issue I have is either create a module for the <HEAD>So that I don't have to dig down in the core of Drupal to add or change items</HEAD> Or just leave the head to be changed independently for each page, article, book, node and so on.

Peter

On Aug 10, 2007, at 4:04 PM, Farsheed wrote:

...

How would such an extension deal with pre-existing CSS and HTML generated by core/other modules?

Farsheed

--- Peter Apokotos < drupal@apokotos.com> wrote:

...

On Aug 10, 2007, at 10:59 AM, sime wrote:

...

Hi

Since I'm getting value out of reading this thread, my conscience says I should mention my current project, even though I've only used dw for a sum total of 3 days in my life.

I plan to let dw users edit some individual page elements with Dreamweaver, individual files for things like "blocks", "left sidebar", complete with dummy content. I'm going to mark up these files with locked tags. Then another process will do the conversion into a real theme using these tags (the designer won't see that). The designer will need to follow instructions to make sure things are done right (eg. css files are correctly linked etc).

It won't be a purist solution, but then again my goals are not lofty. Simply allow dw designers to mess with a theme a little, and in a controlled way.

In the meantime, I'll keep reading this thread :)

Simon

One of the key features of this extension would be the comments for each of the template files. In the comments you would read what php functions you can use or what should be used. Also the standard CSS things like how to wrap the text around a picture in the content. Or how to assign a common photo or icon to distinguish what category this content falls under. Like you would find in the CMS Geeklog. And that is just the beginning. For example I use the Well Rounded DW extension. Why? Is it because I am too lazy...no it's because there is a tool that is drag and drop and saves me time.

Peter _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

---

...

...

...

__ ______________Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

-- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

The extension would make every template and css style-sheet needed for a complete theme. And it would use an Assistant Interface for the building each theme. And have all of the theme template code built in so it would be drag and drop. And as I mentioned before output XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS 2.0 and Section 508 compliant code. And each template made would have comments about the theme elements that could be used in that particular template. And then allow you to modify the theme even more manually. If there is something missing please let me know. Peter Apokotos On Aug 15, 2007, at 3:33 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

The spec would be to describe what the extension to Dreamweaver could do.

On Aug 15, 2007, at 6:38 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

On 8/15/07, Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote: The extension would make every template and css style-sheet needed for a complete theme.

I assume Dreamweaver does CSS today. Is that correct?

Yes and it already does XHTML 1.0 Strict too.

Should it pick from a couple solid bases, like Garland and Minetti?

Something similar. I see mostly frameworks for different types of designs.

And it would use an Assistant Interface for the building each theme.

Do you want to use PHP based PHPTemplate or a mark-up template language like Smarty or PHPTal? Our target users are not PHP devs, if they have learn PHP it's going to be a problem.

PHPTemplate is the way to go unless the theme method is changing again D6 like in D5. And the PHP would be just drag and drop. There will be a panel for all of the Drupal PHP functions. And when you hover over them in Dreamwweaver it will explain what the function does.

And have all of the theme template code built in so it would be drag and drop.

So we need a library of template files or template functions that can be stubbed in.

Correct. Too bad the theme documentation for Drupal is so poor. Or it would allow the developer of the extension to finish it faster but with all the options of Drupal for each person to create their own unique theme.

Box edit Default edit Block edit Comment edit Node edit Node Weblink edit Node Og edit Node Page edit Node Content Authenticated Page edit Node Content Quote edit Node Blog edit Node Book edit Node Forum edit Node Story edit Node Storylink edit User Profile edit Og View edit Page edit restore Views Filters edit

And as I mentioned before output XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS 2.0 and Section 508 compliant code. And each template made would have comments about the theme elements that could be used in that particular template. And then allow you to modify the theme even more manually. If there is something missing please let me know.

How's that for a start?

Cheers, Kieran

Peter Apokotos

On Aug 15, 2007, at 3:33 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

...

The spec would be to describe what the extension to Dreamweaver could do.

_______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

-- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

On Aug 15, 2007, at 9:10 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

On 8/15/07, Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote:

On Aug 15, 2007, at 6:38 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

...

On 8/15/07, Peter Apokotos <drupal@apokotos.com> wrote: The extension would make every template and css style-sheet needed for a complete theme.

I assume Dreamweaver does CSS today. Is that correct?

Yes and it already does XHTML 1.0 Strict too.

...

Should it pick from a couple solid bases, like Garland and Minetti?

Something similar. I see mostly frameworks for different types of designs.

Could you make a list?

Such as?

...

And it would use an Assistant Interface for the building each theme.

Do you want to use PHP based PHPTemplate or a mark-up template language like Smarty or PHPTal? Our target users are not PHP devs, if they have learn PHP it's going to be a problem.

PHPTemplate is the way to go unless the theme method is changing again D6 like in D5. And the PHP would be just drag and drop. There will be a panel for all of the Drupal PHP functions. And when you hover over them in Dreamwweaver it will explain what the function does.

For the record, CivicSpace uses Smarty Template and believe that it's easier to edit and comprehend than PHPTemplate. But with the automated tools for PHPTemplate themes like contemplate and view and cck wizards it is hard to keep up.

That is why I want to have the extension created.

...

And have all of the theme template code built in so it would be drag and drop.

So we need a library of template files or template functions that can be stubbed in.

Correct. Too bad the theme documentation for Drupal is so poor. Or it would allow the developer of the extension to finish it faster but with all the options of Drupal for each person to create their own unique theme.

Since good documentation is a part of the design, could you be specific about why Drupal's theme documentation is poor? It will help us set a design goal.

As for other types of template systems I suppose they could be included in the extension but that means more time and money to have it created. For example I don't know all of the abilities of PHPTemplate, other than from what I see from the code in other templates and this is the purpose of the extension for Dreamweaver. To have all of the information for novice to advance designers to make their templates in minutes and then hand tweak if they like. There will be nothing supporting one browser over another or work around for a browser. Such as I.E. as this extension will be compliant. Unless I have missed something I have never found any straight forward documentation for any of the theme back-ends. More like a snippet here and there. If I am wrong and there is a place that will provide me a list of all of the custom PHPTemplate code and all of the CSS already in use please let me know where to find them.

Are we ready to start doing wireframes?

Such as in designs? That would be the work of the extension.

Kieran

-- To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. _______________________________________________ themes mailing list themes@drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/themes

On Aug 16, 2007, at 12:35 PM, Kieran Lal wrote:

...

...

Something similar. I see mostly frameworks for different types of designs.

Could you make a list?

Such as?

I started with Garland and Minetti. That's three column fluid, and three column fixed. What other base theme outputs would you like?

That would be up to the end user of the extension.

...

...

And it would use an Assistant Interface for the building each theme. For the record, CivicSpace uses Smarty Template and believe that it's easier to edit and comprehend than PHPTemplate. But with the automated tools for PHPTemplate themes like contemplate and view and cck wizards it is hard to keep up.

That is why I want to have the extension created.

Are you suggesting that the output from Dreamweaver should rely or be integrated with Contemplate, Views, and CCK wizards? If so, what do we gain from integration from integration of Dreamweaver and Contemplate, Views wizard, CCK wizard.

Not at all. I would prefer the Extension perform the basic template which is PHPTemplate. The Dreamweaver Extension I have in mind would base it's designs on theme engines. You mentioned that you preferred the Smarty theme engine so we could have a PHPTemplate and Smarty Template options in the extension.

...

...

And have all of the theme template code built in so it would be drag and drop.

So we need a library of template files or template functions that can be stubbed in.

Correct. Too bad the theme documentation for Drupal is so poor. Or it would allow the developer of the extension to finish it faster but with all the options of Drupal for each person to create their own unique theme.

Since good documentation is a part of the design, could you be specific about why Drupal's theme documentation is poor? It will help us set a design goal.

As for other types of template systems I suppose they could be included in the extension but that means more time and money to have it created. For example I don't know all of the abilities of PHPTemplate, other than from what I see from the code in other templates and this is the purpose of the extension for Dreamweaver. To have all of the information for novice to advance designers to make their templates in minutes and then hand tweak if they like. There will be nothing supporting one browser over another or work around for a browser. Such as I.E. as this extension will be compliant.

Unless I have missed something I have never found any straight forward documentation for any of the theme back-ends. More like a snippet here and there. If I am wrong and there is a place that will provide me a list of all of the custom PHPTemplate code and all of the CSS already in use please let me know where to find them.

http://drupal.org/node/509

...

Are we ready to start doing wireframes?

Such as in designs? That would be the work of the extension.

1) What does the interface of this extension look like in Dreamweaver?

What I envision is an assistant look to the extension asking the user what settings and options they want for each template page.

2) What do the output files look like in this extension?

Just like regular themes with individual templates for the theme being created and comments added to explain what a certain function does. But for advanced users that don't need the comments they can just select an option to turn those off.

3) What does the text inside the CSS and template files look like? What are the comments, formatting structure, etc look like?

Same answer as number 2. CSS 2.0 output would be the same as the style.css but with shorthand and compressed. And for your second question. The same as a regular theme but maximized to be small and efficient outputting pure XHTML 1.0 strict code.

4) Let's pick a base design from Dreamweaver and show what it is going to look like as a Drupal theme. We need a starting point, with hand coded changes to show the input and the output.

Well you can look at the source of my page http://www.apokotos.com and this was done in Dreamweaver. But I am sure it could be optimized more and that would be the work of the extension. Most of these questions I cannot fully answer since the developer of the extension would take our requests and develop the extension around those suggestions or I should say theme engine standards along with Web Compliant Standards.

Cheers, Kieran

On Aug 16, 2007, at 12:37 PM, Progga wrote:

On Thu, Aug 16, 2007 at 12:23:09PM -0400, Peter Apokotos wrote:

...

Unless I have missed something I have never found any straight forward documentation for any of the theme back-ends. More like a snippet here and there. If I am wrong and there is a place that will provide me a list of all of the custom PHPTemplate code and all of the CSS already in use please let me know where to find them.

IMHO, Chapter 8 of "Pro Drupal Development" development explains it quite well.

I didn't know about this book I would purchase it. But I don't know what kind of theme engine changes are coming for D6?