Drupal Themes

Please note this is a copy of my previous blog post which was placed on my other blog.


If you have used Drupal then you will understand this blog post, if not then why don't you navigate over to DRUPAL and check it out.

I have used Drupal on and off for the past two years. For those of you who use Drupal you will know about the theming of your site, there are a number of third party sites as well as the main drupal theme repository where you can download a theme custom built by someone else.

Alternatively you can make your own theme!

Now, if you are a beginner using drupal this may seem very daunting and even more so if you are not familiar with CSS. I know as a beginner I was unsure even where to start making a theme for my drupal site and so I just downloaded a 3rd party theme and decided to leave it to the people who know what they are doing.

I recently started using drupal again to create my own portfolio site (www.thomasedavis.co.uk) I set out with dreams of establishing a massive customer base and sending out email newsletters to all my subscribers, alas this wasn't the case and I ended up just making a pretty standard drupal installation without much else.

After completing all the setup of my site I became slightly bored and so decided to set out theming my site, I decided to first of all create just a simple site, nothing too fancy just perhaps learn a bit of CSS and how to change text colours etc.

After about an hour of looking online for tutorials I found that creating a drupal theme is not only simple but quite enjoyable too! If you have trauled through the drupal theme repository you will have come accross the zen theme, I know I did and I found myself always coming accross this zen theme, so I decided to look into the theme more, why was this theme such a big deal, seemed quite simple to me even perhaps a bit boring.... and then I found out... Zen is brilliant.

The Zen theme isnt really designed to be a theme which is used by people but it is designed to be modified by people, customised to suit and it does this by explaining all there is to know about theming within its files and providing excellent online documentation to support the designers of new themes.

The zen theme is available from the drupal repository, a quick search and you will have the foundations for your very own theme.

Have a read of the support documentation, in there it tells you how to start building your own sub-theme of zen by modifying the various files within its starter_kit files.

I reccommend getting a tool called firebug: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843 - this little add on has made my CSS editing life so much easier, it enables firefox users to see how a website is put together, what css has been used, what files are used in the theming and even the line number of the section of code which is being looked at is on, an invaluable tool in my opinion.

Firebug also allows you to modify the css elements of any site dynamically, no change is permanent (obviously) but you can easily see the effect of changing a colour value for example from #ffffff to #000000 (this will change the colour from white to black.)

There are some issues with css which arise in the "which browser is best" arguments and debates, you see internet explorer doesnt seem to like some CSS rules whereas firefox will embrace them. I'm not too sure why this occurs but i would reccommend checking your site for compatability between browsers.

Well, its getting late and I need to head off - if you need to know more about css and theming Drupal then let me know via a comment here or through my website: thomasedavis.co.uk

My advice to all you prospective themers is to check out the zen theme first, this will give you the insight you will need into developing themes for drupal and css rules in general.

My Drupal Blog

For those of you who don't know what Drupal is or what it does, allow me to explain.

Drupal was created by a man called Dries Buytaert, a truly great guy if you ask me - never met him but for creating Drupal he certainly earns that title!
If you want to learn more about the main man Click Here

Now back to Drupal itself:- Wikipedia defines Drupal as: "...a free and open source[1] modular framework and content management system (CMS) written in the programming language PHP..." but it is much more than this.

Drupal gives complete control to anyone wishing to develop a website. The true beauty of Drupal is that it allows users to create fully functional and dynamic websites without any knowledge of PHP or advance scripts. Simply install the files on your server and follow the instructions within the files.

The first time I used Drupal it was due to being asked to develop a site which would allow people to sign up as a user and upload images. I took on the project because I wanted to learn more about PHP and dynamic sites, however when I came to researching PHP and trying to get started I became slightly overwhelmed with the programming language and feared I may not be able to complete the project. In steps Drupal.

Within the next day I had set up a site which allowed users to sign in and upload images. I was truly amazed not only at the simplicity at which I could set up the site but also the amount of support was available.

Drupal isn't just an open source CMS, it is an online community, to be cheesy it really is like a big family helping each other out.

I have started this blog to offer news, links and general chat on Drupal and it's community.

I hope you enjoy reading and subscribe to the feed to get regular updates.