In a discussion started in the New York City Group, it was suggested by johnvsc that I organize a Themers Play Day here in Jersey. At the Northern NJ Meetup robbiethegeek agreed it was a good idea. They have both offered to assist me in this endeavor.
Date Confirmed
Saturday, May 15 is the day I reserved the room.
the time is from 12:15pm to 4:00pm. <------ end time changed due to library budget cuts.
Topics
There appear to be no pre-set topics as no one has yet expressed their preferences.
This will be like a BOF or a 'hack-a-thon'. People should come with questions and projects. It will be very unstructured with people just breaking out into smaller groups at different tables to work on theming 'stuff'.
I'm organizing this event along the lines of the NYC Themers Playdays. For example, summarizing the March 20 Playday Johnvsc had said:
First of all, seasoned pros, designers and devs, are truly encouraged to come and attack on a project like The Borg. Last time, Jen and Steven were jamming on Jen's core theme and they got a ton of work done. I am always in awe when I see developers work together ... and get things done. Really, I have found that artists have a hard time being so productive .
Second, alot of people came to the Play Day really wanting to hone up on skills. Lucia had a project ... a layout, it was a front page of a site and not a deep wireframe or site layout.
(http://groups.drupal.org/node/47176#comment-129808)
I would personally like to learn how to put background images on top of other elements through css.
Location
The Themers Play Day will take place in the lovely, community-oriented Rutherford. Located only minutes away from NYC by bus (190, 192), train (Rutherford train station) or car (Routes 3, 21 and 17 and NJ Turnpike and Garden State). Rutherford has a reputation for its restaurants (italian, Thai, Cuban, French, Chinese, etc). It is also close to the Meadowlands and Giant Stadium. Parking on Park Avenue is a challenge. Although I often find parking on the side streets.
The Rutherford Library (150 Park Avenue, Rutherford, NJ 07070, 201-939-8600, ruthcirc@bccls.org, ) has agreed to allow us to use their space rent-free and insurance-free. They are also allowing us to use their wireless network and their audiovisual equipment (in case anyone wants to use a projector). We are allowed to bring in our own food. They do NOT offer accommodations for coffee so we would have to bring our own. The room can fit about 100-125 people. I haven't a clue how many people expect. 10? 20? 30? They have tables and chair we can set up.
The library director is familiar with Drupal through other libraries using it and is excited about our event. She suggests that the organizers come a few days early to test the equipment.
There will also be a Cultural Festival going on that same day. The main street (Park Avenue) may be closed to vehicular traffic.
Again, this is my first time. So if I've made any mistakes or violated any protocols kindly point them out and steer me in the right direction.
Comments
That is FANTASTIC!
Thanks for doing the legwork on this Tom. We should post a poll for the 3 available dates to democratize as much as possible :)
Poll for Themers Play Day in NJ
Poll for Themers Play Day in NJ
Edit: Poll is closed. The date is set for May 15.
Theming tools and practices
It would be great if someone (or the group collectively) could put together a list of all the tools that might be useful to themers (ideally with a brief description of what they do) prior to then so that there could be some meaningful discussion (and perhaps demos). Sort of like Theme Builder or other tools which might allow interactive remote modifications/tweaking of templates and/or CSS in real time.
From the methodology side it would be good to hear about some different ways people approach theming (those starting with Photoshop or the like, those strating with containers, with some discussion of pros and cons and when which approach might be more suitable).
Best Practices (and bad practices to avoid) on theming would also be good.
Finally, I don't know if this would be the best forum, but a brief overview of the theme architecture in Drupal. (How does it work and what are the implications - possible things you can't do or should avoid as a result of how it works.)
The above is just a quick brain dump so is not organized the best, but I think the drift is clear. Even if we don't get to see/talk about these items at the event, getting a list list of tools, approaches, etc., would be valuable and could be the basis of some online discussion or trials prior to a subsequent meeting.
bg1 suggestion: Theming tools and practices
Has anyone considered tackling bg1's suggestion on putting together a list of all the tools that might be useful to themers?
How about yourself, bg1, are you working on such a list?
Maybe everyone could come with a list of tools that they use? It doesn't have to be a complete list nor a list of the 'best' tools.
However this event is more of BOF, hack-a-thon, an unstructured free-for-all.
Theming Tool collection -
I haven't used Stylizer but understand that some people who do drupal theming think highly of it.
Psd2cssonline is an online service that uses psd layer naming for positioning of drupal regions. It's evolving and does support relative positioning.
I have found people who use it. I suspect it may be very useful for prototyping and relatively uncomplicated site-designs.
I don't know whether it is something that could evolve into a tool that would be useful in the kind of work that's done in "large corporate" settings. I'd love to hear some feedback re this tool.
I have a conflict on the 15th - would have loved to be there.
This is great! I'm really
This is great! I'm really going to try and make this since it's on a Sat.
Praying to the Drupal Gods!
A themeing free-for-all
A themeing free-for-all sounds interesting. Having something on a weekend would definitely make it easier to attend. I might come. I'm interested in other people's best practices and practical tips.
Great choice!
I'm so psyched for this, as I live in Clifton. Rutherford's a fantastic town. I'd like to suggest Blarney Station, just on the other side of the railroad tracks in East Rutherford, for post-event drinks. They also have very good food.
If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know.
-=Ed
Good idea. Do we want
Good idea.
Do we want organize this as well or just leave it open? I guess that would depend on whether we want to get a bite to eat or just go for drinks.
I'm free
Looking good Tom! My schedule is free after all, I had my months mixed up.
I will be there!
Glad you're planning to come
Thanks, Elijah. Hope to see you there.
Good luck with Flemington Drupal.
Glad you're taking the initiative.
Date possibilities?
If possible, could the date change to the 8th? I accepted another commitment involving the high school percussion ensemble I teach on the 15th.
Sorry you can't make it
Sorry you can't make it Emdash.
Would you like to organize the the next NJ Themers Play Day?
Perhaps for June or July. We could alternate with johnvsc's Play Day in Brooklyn.
No worries
It happens. I'm going to try to stop in for at least a little bit. Hope to see you all there!
looks like i'll be there!
performance cancelled. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help out!
-=Ed.
That's good news! I believe
That's good news!
I believe you had previously suggested Blarney Station over the tracks in East Rutherford after our event.
Did you want to follow up with that? Not sure if people will also be interested in getting a bite to eat there as well.
In which case we may want to consider making reservations (assuming Blarney Station will take reservations).
Also on that same day there will be a Culture Festival and show going on in Rutherford ( My daughters will be performing about 5ish). So restaurants may have stations set up with food. The main street (Park Avenue) may be closed to vehicular traffic.
Otherwise there are plenty of restaurants. My favorites at the moment are Village Gourmet and Mambo TeaHouse. There's also a Blimpie's and a Subway.
happy to help
i'd be happy to call Blarney Station and set things up. Their dining room area isn't huge, so I'll have to know approximately how many people are attending.
There's a ton of great restaurants in that area. A new-ish Thai place just opened as well that's pretty good. Eros cafe has good food, too.
I was thinking of going to the NYC House of Brews meetup tonight. if you're going, let's discuss further.
So far we've got 12 people
So far we've got 12 people signed-up. Although if this is like your typical meet-up there may be a few more showing up without signing up.
Sorry, won't make it to NYC House of Brews tonight. However, I will be attending the NYC Drupal meetup on May 5.
excited to go to the meetup
i will be there helping, clearing roadblocks and giving advice :)
Great! Thanks!
Great! Thanks!
You rock sir! Your dedication
You rock sir! Your dedication to helping is awesome, I don't think you get enough nods for that :)
Thanks!
I am a maybe
Think this is the day my wife is graduating from Grad School. Will keep everyone in the loop, let me know if you need anything Tom :)
Robbie
The Drupal gods and my wife seemed to have stopped fighting :)
Looks like I will be there. Looking forward to this, I am thinking my lack of theming stuff, will be a benefit I will set up a break fix station to do Drupal / IT style support so that people can get assistance and not slow down the whole group. This is a good opportunity to get assistance with stuff you haven't been able to grok in or around the Drupal space.
Robbie
If only a couple hours earlier :(
Ah, just won't make it, have an EMS dinner @ 5pm, hour south of his location. :(
End time changed to 4:00 pm
Please note that due to budget cuts to the library, our event is ending a little earlier: 4:00PM
So:
Themers Play Day
15 May 2010
12:15 pm to 4:00pm
Library
Rutherford, NJ
Drinks and/or food afterwards.
Tom Sherlock
201-362-9836
Play Day Poll
I posted a poll to get a consensus on what to do after our time at the library:
Play Day Poll
Please let us know if you have a preference. If we decide on dinner at Blarney Station, we'll need an accurate headcount to reserve space.
Rutherford is a "dry" town; Blarney Station is the closest bar within walking distance, across the train tracks in East Rutherford.
Also note that Rutherford is having a "Multicultural Festival" that day, apparently with food:
Festival promotional PDF
Hmmm ... afterward, i would probably
head on over to AJ's
i mean ... that is my idea of a bar ;)
AJ's
in Secaucus? heh. not my cuppa tea.
Drupal Dojo after Themers Playday
Three days after our fantabulous Themers Playday, John Albin Wilkins is scheduled to present an introduction to theming on the phoenixed Drupal Dojo.
I tried theming using Drupal
I tried theming using Drupal Gardens - its a great tool too for themers! Very easy to use and offers great GUI with various options. It easily exports the theme and you can then import it to your server or site. Its a good one!
We could possibly mention this one too during our meet up - what say?
-Smita
What I'd like to cover on Themers Play Day
It is likely that most of us will come with specific questions on theming related to our own personal and professional projects, non-profit, civic or commercial.
If we have an idea what these questions it might be a good idea to post some of them here. See mine below.
My Challenges
I have a few challenges related to a website I handle on a voluntary basis: LincolnSchoolPTA.net
I want to slightly retheme two pages: a sign up sheet and a profile page.
I also want to focus on placing images in a layout on top of or under other elements.
A Suggested Project
I would also like to suggest a project to do a theme makeover for a non-profit organization in France.
I was approached yesterday by an acquaintance who manages the site. This is just a suggestion.
We can do just a very basic sketch or a full-blown theme or not address it at all.
I will send a rough spec via pem to everyone signed up for this PlayDay.
Some background info for theme makeover project
The French organization is part of a larger, decentralized, grass-roots movement present in Europe, the U.S., Canada, South America, Africa and parts of Asia. The main idea is to relocalize and rehumanize the economy through various tools that inherently require the 'small-scaleness' and intimacy of a community such as Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS), HOURS, TimeDollars, community currency, mutual credit systems, or metacurrencies.
Specific projects
I am currently working on the redesign of revcom.us, moving it from HTML to Drupal, using panels to set up the pages. One thing I would like to get done Saturday is making the views slideshow work on the home page. The overall theming project is just underway, and there are lots of elements to work through - images in menus, slightly different looks for four different channels of information and more.
This is project driven by volunteers around the country working together on different aspects, most of them learning about Drupal as they go.
Extension cords and power strips
will be needed for Saturday.
Extension cords and Power strips
I'm pretty sure that I've got a power strip in my basement that I can bring. Will check later, if I do it's yours for the day.
BTW, Thanks for pulling this together!!!
Request for 'Publishable' Work
A request has been made from another community-based group on skype (CC The Open Collective -- Hard Core Discussions of Platforms for Open Exchange -- Drupal (PHP), Java, C++, etc.) that I publish in the skype chatroom any publishable material from our PlayDay.
I suggest therefore that we publish said material here in groups.drupal.org. I can then point others to this site.
Thanks,
Tom
Backseat passenger
I just want to soak in information. Stand over other peoples shoulders and see what they are doing on their screens. I learn really well like that in addition to the occasional question.
I have some scenarios I am struggling with but don't think it is necessary to focus on them.
I will bring 2 ext. cords and 2 strips. See you guys tomorrow!
Print graphic design to web graphic design
I come to learn and share, redesign of revcom.us website is my first foray from print to the web. Big differences and subtle nuances.
Themer Resources
Here are some themer resources I've come across:
Theming Guide
How to build your own sub-theme
Theme Pre-Process Functions (video presentation)
Accelerated Grid Theming Using NineSixty (video presentation)
Advanced Theming for Drupal (video product)
Fusion Theme
24 Ways
Stuff and Nonsense
Designing with CSS (video product)
CSS Tricks
Eric Meyer on CSS (video presentations)
CSS Reset
Thanks Everyone
Thank you all for coming to the first NJ Themers PlayDay!
It was a success by all accounts.
Thanks to all our experts (johvsc, robbiethegeek, lolascorpio, did i miss anyone?) for assisting and answering questions!
Thanks to EMdash for helping to post signage.
Thanks to Richard (who i was calling Baldwin) for bringing his own cup'o joe and donuts.
Thank you every one for bringing extension cords and power strips.
And thank you to everyone for coming, for asking questions and for learning!
johnvsc showed a few things and i worked on something briefly with Elijah.
Dinner
Several us went for dinner and drinks afterwards and had some good conversations about tatoos, no wheat, community currency and moneyless economies among other things.
Share and Share Alike
I would be great if we could all share what we learned. I'll review my notes and share in the next few days what I've learned.
Again
We could do another themers playday in the future if your interested. No guarantee however, there will be any themer experts among us.
We'll need to coordinate with johnvsc and his Brooklyn --- i mean, NY Themers Playday.
Not sure about location either. I will look a the local private college, the local community college and Panera as possible location.
Other PlayDays?
We should also consider doing PlayDays for other aspects of Drupal including Views, CCK, OG, features, Aegir, Drush, modules, etc.
Tom
I think that this was a super
I think that this was a super successful day. People showed up, people learned, people shared, connections were made. More of these types of events would be a great takeaway, instead of tagging them as Themer's playdays maybe just Drupal Playday's and pick a subject, find a person (or people) that are knowledgeable on that subject and lead (present, show & tell, answer questions). In the NY community I am starting to push for Dojo / Hackfest days, I think these would be good and successful in any area NY or NJ.
Robbie
Thank You
First, thank you so much Tom for putting this together. It was a pleasure meeting and learning from everyone! One word... Stylizer! John! Thank you so much for introducing this program to me! You ROCK! Robbie is was really nice to finally meet "The Geek", Goguen is correct you are a Drupal Guru! Looking forward to seeing and learning everyone again in the near future.
Coco aka Tracei
Praying to the Drupal Gods!
Great to meet you
I am happy to have lived up to Steve's description, it was great to meet you hope to see you again in the future.
Robbie
Was Awesome
It was awesome indeed. Good job for putting this together Tom, awesome venue and good time. Props to to robbiethegeek and johnvsc for helping me out with my issue, the panels-context thing worked perfectly for what I was trying to do and is blowing my mind away now in terms of what can be done with it further.
Graphic and Web Design, Drupal CMS, Photography
My Drupal Photoblog
bsmirnov, any chance you
bsmirnov, any chance you could give us a little more detail on the panels-context thing you help with?
Awesome, Awesome day
I think that the measure of how good something is can be measured by how fast it goes by ... unfortunately :) robbbiethegeek has a great suggestion in just having Drupal Playdays! I think that that is appropriate. (The reason why "Themers" is in there is because Developers had "Hack-a-thon" and themers had nothing ... also, in the Arts, the concept of "Play" is defined as serious concentrated freedom ... so it fit)
I was really happy to get back into Jersey and help out in any way that I could...
Looking for the next one next month in BROOKLYN!
Please see discussion on new location for Northern NJ Meetups
If you attended the NJ Themers PlayDay please see the discussion on a new location for the Northern NJ Meetups.
This event was awesome. Great
This event was awesome. Great to share with everyone and meet people and pick up tips! Thanks to the organizers and those who brought in the goodies and all who came out. Can't wait for the next meetup and playday. :)
-Lynnette
~lolascorpio
Thumbs Up
/@ \ \ ___> \ (__O) \ (____@) \ (____@) \ (__o)_ \ \ \ Good stuff!Summary and things learned
Since the playday was about theming, must discussions revolved around CCS. However there was also discussion regarding Views 2.0, Panels and Context.
Views pulls data from the database and provides you with three or four default ways of presenting the data without having to delve into PHP or CSS. Panels is all about layout. Context is used to determine what content to display and which modules to use.
In terms of CSS we used stylizer and firebug to view and edit CSS on live websites. Changes are not saved to the website but are viewable in the browser until it is shut down.
Specifically, I learned how to 'restack' or 're-lay' (as in layout, using tominology here) a photo. I had placed an image in the wrong container (I will post exact CSS for this). I also learned how to 'space apart' text by use of block margins and padding and how to add a bottom border.
Finally I learned that by using the frontpage View you can immediately get rid of the default text that shows after an initial install of Drupal. And I learned how to center text both horizontally and vertically (sort of). Look at First-Draft.info to see what I mean. Nothing spectacular.
I would be great if everyone else shared what they learned from this Themers PlayDay. You're welcome to correct anything above found incorrect.
960
I discovered the NineSixty (960 Grid System), thanks to Lynnette!
http://drupal.org/project/ninesixty
It was a great event, and I am looking forward to next!
Themer's PlayDay take aways
Thanks Kyle!
One of the great take aways aside from Stylizer (when will they have a mac version?) was the Adobe Browser Lab for cross-browser testing:
https://browserlab.adobe.com/en-us/index.html
I also shared an IE6 fixer for any one who has had issues with IE6 and whose clients insist on testing for IE6 (although I mentioned letting clients know up front that designs/sites are created for IE7 and above as IE6 is very old and nearly deprecated). I ran into this IE6 fixer that helped me troubleshoot my css for IE6:
http://www.onderhond.com/tools/ie6fixer/
Hope it's helpful!
thanks,
Lynnette
960gs, working with local hosts, views
This was very interesting, and I'm looking forward to the next one.
Listened in some on the 960gs discussion to learn more about it, John helped set up my local host to work on sites, and I solved some issues with creating views. The spirit of people working together to solve problems is great.
Dee