if you use Dreamweaver try dreamweaver extension for drupal themeing. look here www.themegenie.net

On 10/24/09, Vincent // basicmagic.net vincent@basicmagic.net wrote:

if i were you, i would consider

1- downloading the tao and singular themes from developmentseed.org instead

2- customizing singular to make your first theme, by adapting the existing templates and css to your visual design

3- as you gain more experience... use tao/singular as a model for creating your own theme from html/css

4- or, you can do the same with bluemarine instead of tao/singular (dump out the tables in bluemarine when you do it- and change them to divs in the page templates and css...)

5- i don't use garland and i don't prefer zen, but people are free to do what they want now aren't they... that's what its all about

6- kickin' new thing i am looking at is adapting one of my themes to css dry for drupal

drupal is the best theming platform in the world

i have been on it for the past 5+ years, love it phptemplate is the bomb... that's good i think!

-vincent, in buffalo http://basicmagic.net

On 10/24/09, Tony Crockford tonyc@boldfish.co.uk wrote:

...

I'm new to Drupal Theming, but have solid experience in PSD to HTML/ CSS template creation, in other words I can build the HTML and CSS for a visual, efficiently and quickly.

So my question is is it easier to adapt the Zen theme to a visual design, or is it easier to convert a set of HTML and CSS to a Drupal theme?

or am I asking the wrong question?

What do you do?

TIA

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

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

themegenie appears to be vapor ware, most (all) of the links are

broken.

Steve Ringwood,

We had such issues in the past. Presently we have more than 100 satisfied users. We have discontinued trial because of policy change. that's why some old links are broken.

On 24 Oct 2009, at 16:07, sherif mayika wrote:

if you use Dreamweaver try dreamweaver extension for drupal themeing.

I hand code.

Which is partly why I'm finding the starter themes confusing. It feels like I'm going to spend most of my time cutting things out.

It depends on your design. I tend to prefer creating my own perfect markup and CSS. Then I change the name of the HTML file to page.tpl.php and add in the variables. If I do use Zen, I create my own page.tpl.php the same way.

If you start a theme from scratch, check out the Anatomy of a theme documentation (http://drupal.org/node/171194).

And this might be more than you were asking about... But the minimum required for a theme is an .info file (http://drupal.org/node/171205) and a CSS file. Themes automatically recognize a style.css. But if you want to add other CSS files, then declare those in the .info file (including any style.css).

-squiggy

Mark Shropshire wrote:

Both methods work and are best depending on the design. It comes down to how close is Zen to what you want to do without a ton of tpl.php changes. Sometimes I have found Zen to be perfect. Other times I use blueprint or completely custom theme.

It is good to try Zen for a real project so you can get a feel for it.

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 24, 2009, at 10:04 AM, Tony Crockford tonyc@boldfish.co.uk wrote:

...

I'm new to Drupal Theming, but have solid experience in PSD to HTML/ CSS template creation, in other words I can build the HTML and CSS for a visual, efficiently and quickly.

So my question is is it easier to adapt the Zen theme to a visual design, or is it easier to convert a set of HTML and CSS to a Drupal theme?

or am I asking the wrong question?

What do you do?

TIA

---

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

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

2009/10/24 Tony Crockford tonyc@boldfish.co.uk:

I'm also trying to get my head round how Drupal would choose different page layouts

This is probably what you're going to find hardest Tony. Which tpl files address which bits of the page, when to use a block or a region or a custom node.tpl and so on. Once you grasp it it's fairly straightforward I guess, but coming at it new it's confusing - theme developer module will be your friend (part of devel module).

• e.g. If I have one for articles one column) and one for

a form (two column) is that just down to body class?

Well most themes generate body class based on theme features, so for instance whether a sidebar is output (that often depends on whether there's anything to go in it).

Then there are regions, defined in the .info file and usually printed in page.tpl...

How do you match content in Drupal with different page layouts?

It comes down to what the layout is, and what content drives the layout - you might do well to take some advice on a particular design and how best to do it. If you don't want to do that publicly then pop on irc.freenode.net channel #drupaluk and pm me or get in touch via my contact page, site link below.

Laura,

Sub-themes outside of the the theme folder is very important. It has really helped me when I update the base contrib themes since the sub- themes no longer have to be a subfolder within the base theme as in Drupal 5.

Thanks for bringing this up!

Mark

On Oct 24, 2009, at 12:34 PM, Laura wrote:

Something others have not said, but is extremely important: Do not modify a theme you download. Make your theme a sub-theme of the base theme you select, and then just override what you want. More info on that is here: http://drupal.org/node/225125

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

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

On Sunday 25 October 2009 5:14:06 am Mark Shropshire wrote:

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

There is no one right way, but there certainly are wrong ways. :-) Large gobs of PHP logic in your template files is a Wrong Way(tm), regardless of whether you're using a base-theme approach or a from-scratch approach. (That's what preprocess functions are for.) And if you put SQL in a template file I will hit you. :-)

Also remember that the HTML Drupal spits out to you by default is already very extensive and complete, and more importantly is dynamic. As your site evolves, the structure of the HTML will change, too. Not page.tpl.php, necessarily, but what CCK fields you have will change over time, what Views you have will change over time, blocks will get added and shift around, etc.

I highly recommend the "sustainable theming" blog series by Colleen Carroll[1]. It discusses the practical benefits of "trusting Drupal" and going "with the grain" of the CMS in your theming just as you should in your code. There are cases where you don't need or or shouldn't, but in the long run you'll save yourself time by leveraging what Drupal already gives you as much as possible.

[1] http://www.palantir.net/blog/colleen-carroll

Specifically (I need to yell at our site admin to shorten URLs...): http://www.palantir.net/blog/sustainable-markup-how-be-a-themer-drupal http://www.palantir.net/blog/graycor-drupal-theming-works http://www.palantir.net/blog/drupal-theming-getting-your-hands-dirty-and- building-house http://www.palantir.net/blog/drupal-theming-applying-sustainable-method-view...