Drupal Theming For Beginners – Danté SELF 2010

Drupal Theming For Beginners

By Danté TaylorMediacurrent Senior Designer

South East Linux FestJune 13, 2010

We will cover

• What is Drupal?• What is a Drupal Theme?• Contributed Drupal Themes, Engines, & Services• What can you do with Drupal themes?• Drupal Theme Anatomy 101• How to Design for Drupal• Create a Drupal Theme the easy way• Where to find help

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About Me

• Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Savannah College of Art and Design

• Worked as a Designer for 10 years• Have worked with Drupal since version 4.7 release (5 years)• Biggest project worked on in Drupal is savannahnow.com• Favorite project worked on in Drupal is ymib.com

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What is Drupal?

• Content Management System (CMS)• Application Programming Interface (API) built on top of PHP• A community of more than 800,000+ users and developers

contributing to build needed tools, services, and programs using a standard methodology or practices.

• There are more than 6,000+ profiles, modules, and themes supported by the Drupal community

• People who use Drupal include: Ubuntu.com, Whitehouse.gov, FastCompany.com, MTV.com

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What is a Drupal Theme?

• A set of files and templates used to build the Front-end of a Drupal site.

• The User-Facing section of a Drupal site that facilitates the majority of the user experience.

• To put it in Real Estate terms it is the Décor of a Web Site.

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Contributed Drupal Themes, Engines, & Services

• Zen Theme (Themes)• Garland Theme* (Themes)• PHPThemple* (Theme Engine)• Smarty (Theme Engine)• PHPTal (Theme Engine)• Drupal Gardens (Service)

What can you do with Drupal Themes?

• Design photo sharing sites.• Build a site for your local baseball team.• Build a personal portfolio or résumé site.• Build a theme for your church, civic group, or

organization.• There are not many limits to what can be done

with Drupal and Drupal theme design.

Drupal Theme: AutoTrader

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Drupal Theme: University of Georgia:

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Garland Theme

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Choose A Theme

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Configure Theme

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Add some color

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How to Design For Drupal?

• Install Drupal to experiment and learn how modules UI functions work together, before you begin your design project.

• Use built-in features of Drupal and modules to achieve Design objectives. (Try not to reinvent)

• Think in terms of how your Design elements can be reused or repeated throughout Web site.

• Work closely with specialist in Drupal Design or Development to save on time and budget as you plan your Drupal project.

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Drupal Theme Anatomy 101

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File Structure

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Popular Drupal Terms

• Hooks• Preprocess Functions• Theme Functions• Template Files• Regions• Nodes• Blocks• Delta

`• Content Types• Taxonomy• Settings.php• Template.php• Views• CCK • Menu System

Create a Drupal Theme the easy way

1. Create Theme Name directory (mytheme) inside “/sites/all/themes/” (create new directories if they do not exist)

2. Copy Garland theme from “/themes” and move it to “/sites/all/themes/”, then rename it to mytheme directory.

3. Change the garland.info file to mytheme.info. Open new mytheme.info file and change all names with garland to mytheme.

4. Change the screenshot.png file to match your new theme.

5. Clear system cache. (/admin/settings/performance)

6. Go to Themes list page and select mytheme, to start using or editing your new theme. (/admin/build/themes)

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.info file

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Where to Find Help?

• Mediacurrent.com/blogs• Drupal.org• Api.drupal.org• Drupal.org/project/Themes• AListApart.com• Lynda.com • Drupal.org/node/39451• Drupal.org/node/171205• Drupal.org/books• Drupal.org/node/190815

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Tools of the trade

• Firefox• FireBug• Theme Developer Module• MAMP• Admin Menu Module• YSLOW

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Contact Me

dante.taylor@mediacurrent.com

404 537 2493

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