[development] New Themes for New Drupal

[Jeff Eaton]

Jeff Robbins wrote:
> The Zen theme is a framework for creating your own CSS-based themes. I 
> would love nothing more than to see several hundred better CSS-based 
> themes contributed and ready for release in Drupal 5.1. It would mean 
> that we'd have that many designers realizing the potential of Drupal.
>
That is something that comes up a lot. A huge number of people out there 
have taken it upon themselves to design style sheets for their web 
engine/cms of choice. That's not always easy for the hobbyist/curious 
designer to do in Drupal. It's possible with any of the well-designed 
themes, but very few have the level of flexibility necessary to do 
anything more than change the font and colors.

Contributing factors have included our historically 'dense' CSS file 
(which often required an all-or-nothing approach to CSS overrides), the 
necessity of diving into code to override specific kinds of pages and/or 
sidebar blocks, and core themes that while adequite used relatively 
outdated design techniques like table-layout and so on.. This version of 
Drupal makes huge strides in simplifying the forest of CSS. In addition, 
it's now possible to drop in individual .tpl files for specific page 
URLs and blocks. A 'foundation' theme like zen would also be awesome for 
hanging CSS skins on.

> In the meantime, please consider whether this is an improvement over 
> Bluemarine.
 From a structural standpoint, I think it's a home run. There are still 
a lot of subtle tweaks that I think would make it a smash on other 
levels, too.

--Jeff