Dojo Lesson #41: Theme Template Files in Drupal 6.0

As part of my deal with dmitrig01 to get him to cover Drupal 6.0's actions and triggers support, I am going to do a lesson covering the advances in Drupal 6.0's handling of theme templates (those tpl.php files we all know and love).

In short, Drupal 6 brings a lot of the best practices that developed around template files in 5.0, and puts support for them into Drupal Core, as well as implementing a new standard in the core modules that contrib/custom developers can aspire to and emulate. The new omnipresence of template files radically simplifies the process of overriding the output of theme_functions, as well as making things more hospitable to designers.

My objectives for this lesson are to create a good introductory screencast to this concept, and then talk about some advanced functions/use-cases.

Outline

Part 1: Getting Started w/Drupal 6.0's Theme Layer

• Creating a Custom Theme
• Preprocess Functions
• Template Files
• Theme Registry
• Q&A
• Useful Links:
  • Update guide

Part 2: Template File and Preprocess Overrides

• forum-topic-list.tpl.php
• user-picture.tpl.php
• user-profile.tpl.php
• Q&A

Part 3: Advanced: Templates for Forms

• Josh will try and figure this out on the fly
• Maybe the group will help?