Building a Drupal Theme

8/8/2019 Building a Drupal Theme

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Building a Drupal Theme

Gaurav Khambhala

DeepRoot Linux - www.deeproot.in

March 22, 2009

Gaurav Khambhala Building a Drupal Theme
http://find/http://goback/


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Introduction

What is Drupal theme ?

Drupal theme componentsTry it on your own



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What is Drupal theme ?

Drupal theme is a presentation layer to Drupal database.

Drupal theme is a set of few files, which will worktogether to present the Drupal backend data.



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Theme Files

Following are the few essential files for the drupal theme:

themename.infostyle.css

page.tpl.php

block.tpl.php

node.tpl.php

comment.tpl.php

template.php

logo.pngWe will follow the instruction and create a theme as a byproduct of this presentation. Create a theme directory asnamed example. In the next couple of slides, we will look intoindividual theme files and their contents.



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example.info

example.info description

A required file in drupal theme.

Drupal will pick theme name from this file only

It should be named as your themename.infoIt contains the stylesheets, javascript declarations

It contains block regions for the theme

If you want to define some theme level features, you can

list down in this file



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example.info content

Content of the example.info file:

name*description

version

core*

engine

base theme

stylesheets

scriptsregions

php

features



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example.info content

name Required. A human readable name of the theme.

In our case,name = Example

description A short description of the theme. Thisdescription is displayed on the theme select page.

description = Example drupal themeversion Version of the theme.

version = 0.1

core Required. Version of the drupal core, your theme

compatible with.core = 6.x

engine The theme engine.engine = phptemplate



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cont. example.info content

base theme If you are building a sub theme. It will inheritbase theme settings.This field is not requiredright now as we are building a new theme.

sub theme = garland

regions Set of regions you want to enable for thistheme.Machine readable values in square bracketsis the key followed by regions and human readablename as a value.

regions[region-name] = value



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regions Following are the default regions if no regionsspecified.regions[left] = Left sidebarregions[right] = Right sidebarregions[content] = Contentregions[header] = Header

regions[footer] = Footerstylesheets Stylesheet to use for the theme.

stylesheets[all][] = style.css

scripts Javascript files to use for the theme.

scripts[] = script.jsphp Minimum pHP Version this can support.Not

required for most of the themes. Can omit thissettings.

php = 4.3.3



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features You can enable/disable features for the themes.features[] = feature-name

Basically if you dont specify anything followingare the default values:

features[] = logo

features[] = namefeatures[] = slogan

features[] = mission

features[] = node_user_picture

features[] = searchfeatures[] = favicon

features[] = primary_links

features[] = secondary_links


l i f


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Now you have your example.info file ready with the followingcontent:

name = Example

description = Example drupal theme.

version = VERSION

core = 6.x

engine = phptemplate

stylesheets[all][] = style.css

No need to specify regions and features. Let it be defaultvalues.


Th i d


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Theme is ready to use

Now if you copy the example theme directory to your drupaltheme directory. Drupal 6 will detect it from .info file andready to be enabled. Go to Administer-Site

Building-Themes.You can see the example theme listed there.

Now we will require to create style.css and php template filesto display the content as we want for this theme.


T l fil


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Template files

page.tpl.php A main template file that contains the displaystructure of almost all of the pages.

node.tpl.php Defines the node content.block.tpl.php Defines block content.

comment.tpl.php Defines comment content.

template.php Defines comment content.


C t t l t fil t l h


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Create template files - page.tpl.php

page.tpl.php file is a combination of html tags as well asdrupal php template variables to show the requireddata.Following are some phptemplate variables to use. Moreyou can find out at http://drupal.org/node/11812

$footer message

The footer message as defined in the adminsettings, also the HTML for the footer region.

$headerHTML for the header region.

$logoThe path to the logo image, as defined in themeconfiguration.


C t t l t fil t l h
http://drupal.org/node/11812http://drupal.org/node/11812http://find/http://goback/


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Create template files - page.tpl.php

$primary links (array)An array containing the links as they have beendefined in the phptemplate specific configuration

block.$sidebar left

The HTML for the left sidebar.

$sidebar right

The HTML for the right sidebar.


C eate Theme files


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Create Theme files

Download Advanced theme construction kit from

drupal.org.http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/atck-6.

x-6.0.tar.gz

Untar the downloaded file.atck was developed in a

production environment for purposes of quickly buildingcss and xhtml valid Drupal themes from scratch withouthaving to un-theme an existing Drupal theme to do it.

So you have all the required files for building drupal

theme. Copy all these files and make required changes to.info file.

Now go to Administer-Site Building-Themes. Enable theexample theme.

http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/atck-6.x-6.0.tar.gzhttp://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/atck-6.x-6.0.tar.gzhttp://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/atck-6.x-6.0.tar.gzhttp://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/atck-6.x-6.0.tar.gzhttp://find/http://goback/

Documents

Building a Drupal Theme