The anatomy of Drupal
March 15, 2010 - 11:14pm
Theming Drupal is easy
Hey Jim,
Basically you've got four ways to theme a Drupal site. As a designer, theming from scratch is by far and away your best first step.
Open up a page.tpl.php file in your themes directory. It should look very familiar to you. However, instead of static content you've got variables (sometimes wrapped in if statements). In fact, you can edit any html file, and by replacing content with a few php print's, Drupal can render it.
Dreamweaver would generate:
<title>My ÜberCool Page</title>Drupal recognizes:
<title><?php print $title ?></title>There are a ton of variables every Drupal site makes available. However, you will typically only use a few.
To complete your theme, you'll only need an .info file and some css.
Theming Drupal is easy (most of the time). This will get you started.
-NP
PS: If you're anywhere near Chicago and free on Saturday, March 27, check out the Chicago Drupal Spring Jam. I'll be speaking for 4.5 hours on this very topic in my Introduction to Drupal For Designers.
March 16, 2010 - 2:32pm
The anatomy of Drupal Part 2
Thanks for the starter (Other than simply replacing graphics I am starting from scratch today)
My project is behind. Fortunately I like to learn new things.
So far so good… I can see why Drupal is preferred over Joomla in regards to theme development.
I also made a couple of discoveries that may put me on the fast track:
The Drupal API extension for Dreamweaver
http://groups.drupal.org/node/...
(Although it is supposed to be compatible only up to CS3, I am going to give it a shot.)
And
Drupal 6 Theme Starter
http://xtnd.us/drupal/themesta...
I will post my discoveries as I enjoy sharing what I know with my brethren. Hopefully these extensions/apps may be helpful to others.
March 16, 2010 - 2:58pm
Drupal Theming Basics
Pastor Jim,
NonProfit is right, Drupal theming is easy. Once you get your head wrapped around it. I still think this Drupal 6 Theme Basics videocast by Rob Feature is the best crash course available on the subject. If you're at all familiar with PHP, HTML and CSS concepts, these twelve short minutes might not make you a Drupal theming expert, but you should get a good overview of the basics. The link that NP gave you to the Theme Guide will give you info about the specifics.
Micah
Since you guys seem to be big on Drupal my assumption is that you may be able to answer the following. Sorry if my question may seem a little cryptic but I am coming from a background heavy on Photoshop and Dreamweaver…. PHP is very lite.
I am trying to understand the anatomy of Drupal as it relates to creating a theme. Is there a list of objects/modules/ that I can position in CSS?
(I am essentially using the old table slice trick with DIVs).
Also is it possible to strip out all components I would not use EXCEPT for just enough for a client to: add or remove a page, add or remove links from a ul/ol that I will style into a horz menu on the top, add or remove links on the footer, and add/remove content from a center area.
Thanks in a advance,
Jim