Theme development

I just submitted a session proposal for 'Drupal for Education' session for Drupalcon Paris: http://paris2009.drupalcon.org/session/drupal-education. Any suggestions on what should be included are welcome.

At the moment Robert Castelo and I will be putting it together. Anybody interested in collaborating please get in touch.

This week I re-launched AdaptiveThemes as the first site to crowd source commercial Drupal themes. Sounds like a radical idea and it probably is. I seen crowdsourcing work for a number of other high profile design projects and I believe these crowd sourced themes can be a huge win for Drupal users and the Drupal designer and themer communities.

The concept is strait forward:

1. Designers upload designs
2. Themers convert the designs into beautiful Drupal themes
3. We sell them and split the profits 50/50, designer gets half, themer gets half

I attended Open Web Vancouver session on Thursday, June 11, 2009 with Angie Byron. We were talking about the lack of good looking themes for Drupal. So Angie encouraged designers to create and submit themes to Drupal.org.

I asked about a checklist or guidelines to developing custom themes for Drupal. How do you know when your theme is complete? Some themes on Drupal.org say RC1, alpha, beta, dev. What do these versions mean if anything?

We've been working on a new app and just opened up the process to beta testers. It's a real-time web presentation tool - allows a presenter to control display of images via URL. Really simple. Really effective.

And it's built with drupal.

The third article in my Drupal series for Adobe.com is out now. This article covers Drupal Zen Sub-Themes, including Dreamweaver tip(s) when working with Drupal themes.

"When asked why I would recommend the Zen theme versus a core theme such as Garland, I answer, Zen was built to be a seed for your tree—you plant the seed, water it, and watch it grow! Garland looks nice, but is not documented well and has custom page template code that should not appear elsewhere. In short, Garland is just not right as the basis for a theme; the Zen theme is."

Read the article now at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/drupal_zen_subthemes.ht...

Modis is currently seeking Senior Web Developer for an exciting contract to hire opportunity with our client in the Chicago area.

Qualified and local candidates are invited to apply for immediate consideration.

Please note that candidates must be eligible to convert to full-time employee status after a minimum 6 months without the need for sponsorship

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The Senior Web Developer will be working in a team environment to create templates, themes and custom modules for the PHP-based Drupal Content Management system.

The second article in my Drupal series for Adobe.com is out now. This article covers Drupal Themes, Dreamweaver tip(s) when working with Drupal, and shows off the Drupal Theme Starter desktop software.

"Understand the fundamentals of a Drupal theme and how Dreamweaver CS4 helps designers produce these themes."

Read the article now at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/drupal_themes_with_dwcs...

As you might have noticed, there's a new 2.x-dev branch out of Acquia Marina that includes layouts and styles for Panels 3 among other things: http://drupal.org/node/472094

We'd particularly love to hear from anyone who has tried out this new feature.

For those in the Bay Area who are interested in this topic, we'll be discussing Panels 3 theming at BADCamp this Saturday afternoon: http://badcamp.net/session/theming-panels-3

This isn't strictly speaking about a theme, but it is about CSS code in my module that may be broken by conflicting layout in custom themes.

In DHTML Menu, I am developing a new feature that will make bullet icons clickable by positioning an invisible anchor element over the list icon. It's important to get the position exactly right no matter how the list is styled by the theme, so I'll need some help testing the CSS with different themes (or some advice from a CSS expert on potential problems).

For over a year LA Drupal has been recording our meetings and many of our events. View the videos online... http://drupal-la.blip.tv

Subscribe to our video podcast... http://drupal-la.blip.tv/rss (available directly on iTunes too)

We provide these videos for free for people to learn Drupal of course. Over the next handful of weeks you will see us release videos from our meetings and DrupalCampLA '08. Learn the basics of Drupal, theme design, module development, advanced views, Services module (Flash + Drupal), and many, many more topics all relating to Drupal.

Follow us on twitter... www.twitter.com/ladrupal

I have a current upgrade to Advanced Forums that has optimized images in it, the ticket is http://drupal.org/node/436084 However I post this here because there seems to be very little resources for people who need and/or optimize images for Drupal Themes and Modules. Last I knew Panels 3 needed some icons for various functions, and the developer (like me) is not a person to develop images.

Maybe Im missing a resource, or maybe this group should deal with such topics!

The sprint will be held at One Shoe http://www.oneshoe.nl/ in downtown utrecht which is one of the largest Drupal developing companies in holland. We have space for 20+ people in their nice and spacious office. Utrecht has lots of opportunities to go out in the evening, and with the Drupal Jam on Friday, this is bound to rock for all attendants.

Starting time will be at 10:00 in the morning on both days.

All people that care for UX are welcome. We can use: Graphic Designers, Coders, Copy Writers, Themers and CSS Ninjas

Confirmed Participants so far:

I take pride to post my first discussion. I am new to drupal.

My concern as mentioned by the title of this discussion is such that if there exists any forum where you can get feedback for your theme work, regarding its quality and best practices followed etc.

If there is none then can we group together to make such a forum etc.

Please give feedback about this idea. I am very anxious to hear from others. Thanks.

Regards,
Asif

I'm interested in making Acquia Marina theme recolorable. Please follow the link and discuss there. I'd like to collect resources to collaborate on this.

Hi guys,

Just read the Table Layouts vs. Div Layouts: From Hell to… Hell? article over at Smashing Magazine. Excellent read for anyone who want to understand how to both mess it up and how to properly implement a semantic layout.

Drupal Design Camp Boston is a free, two-day Drupal conference on June 13-14, 2009, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is being organized by members of the Boston Drupal group as part of the growing Design 4 Drupal initiative that launched when designers and themers took DrupalCon DC by storm this past March.

This camp also coincides with the drupal.org redesign sprint at the MIT Media Lab on Friday, June 12. The sprint picks up where the San Francisco redesign sprint left off and participants at the Boston sprint will be learning how to contribute to theming drupal.org as well as implement the redesign.

One of our sites is not functioning in IE 6.0.2900.2180 version!

It throws up a Runtime error

Runtime Error!
Program C:\PROGRAM FILES\INTERNET EXPLORER\IEXPLORE.EXE
R6025

The site works perfectly in other versions of IE 6 , IE 7, and Firefox.

I'm having a designer design a theme for me for Drupal. What are the deliverables a Theme developer needs to receive from this designer?

If you are developing a theme, what are the optimal things you want from a designer to make that happen?

thank you

Ben

Finally after several weeks of preparation the Drupal Security Module Packages are available.

About the Security Package:

Displaying fields in tpl files, like the node.tpl.php files, is a common desire to designers/themers. After conversations in IRC, at drupalcon, and in the parking lots of the Internet the common thought is that you need to make calls to something like $node->content['field_FOO']['#XXX']; to get to the information.

I've recently learned that there is an easier way to get to it. According to yched, on of the gurus of CCK and fields, you can use $FIELD_NAME_rendered in your .tpl files where fields are attached. This is true in Drupal 6 CCK and Drupal 7 fields.

I'm looking for someone that has a theme for this site, we would like http://www.fantabook.org something fantasy because the theme of the characters are cartoons and manga. those interested and contact me in private.

The Acquia Marina theme uses icons in blocks, which presented an interesting challenge for contributing on drupal.org, since all files must be GPL licensed (PS. the PSD files for Marina are now available for download in our group). Creative Commons licenses don't cut it, which tends to be what icon designers go with when they decide to make free icons available.

Note: This proposal envolved for discussion over http://groups.drupal.org/node/19817. Go there to get the background and continue the discussion.

This proposal is designed with following goals in mind:

• Minimal amount of code changed, most of implementation is just reorganization of existing files
• Better visibility for Drupal core templates and CSS
• Clearer separation of functional and aesthetic parts of the theme layer
• Offering several flexible and clear starting points for themers to build their work on

Planet-SoC will be aggregating content from SoC contributers all over the world in a centralized location. Screencast demonstrations, articles, commits, you name it!

Are you a Drupal designer interested in getting some exposure?

Planet-SoC is looking for a unique theme to make Drupal stand out!

If you think you can help us with a design, please leave a comment or contact me or Alex UA!

This is a proposal for a contest to promote Drupal theming and design.

Goals

• Get more beautiful themes into Drupal
• Get the designer and theming community involved
• Showcase Drupal theming done right
• Increase awareness of Drupal

What to call it:

The Drupal 2009...

• Theming and Design Contributions
• Theming and Design Initiative
• Design Contest
• Theming Contest
• Design Challenge
• Theming Challenge

Phases

South Central Media is seeking 8-10 theme developers to work approximately 15-25 projects a month starting the first half of April. If you are an experienced themer or even just starting out as a themer and you are interested in doing low complexity theme implementations from fully comped PSD files, please contact me immediately!

At Drupalcon 2009 in Washington, the Drupal design community were asked to become active participants in contributing feedback to the Drupal project.

mfer was kind enough to give members of the Design for Drupal (D4D) Group a tour of how we could provide feedback through the Issue Queue. As a matter of fact, we were shown a version of the issue queue in which any project could be flagged as "needs design review".

We need a theme contest. It's been talked about many times over the past few years. I give you the previous attempts...

http://drupal.org/node/17876, http://drupal.org/node/25312, http://drupal.org/node/55460, http://drupal.org/node/6247#comment-9358

I think these attempts have failed due to lack of funding, support and clear organization. I want to get the ball rolling on this. Please reply with your ideas and comments. Here are my ideas I'm tossing around.

DrupalCamp copenhagen in may is gonna be a blast!

Planned Higlights for the weekend:
* Friday night install party - so come by and get you laptop tuned up, and party with the geeks nerds & designers
* Code Development
* Nerdy presentations
* geeky presentations
* Frontend presentations
* Documentation & Drupal Understanding
* Noobs & übergeeks united!
* ----------------------
* Theming & design in drupal - will carry on the d4d momentum from DC/DC
* Why do front end html lovin geeks hate drupal?
* carry on the d7 discussion - how should drupal work

I posted a preliminary patch over issue queue http://drupal.org/node/395116 to stir a discussion whenever we need CSS reset in core and how core CSS setup -- file structure, rulesets etc -- should look like in D7. reset.css proposal is could be the first step in having decent CSS framework in core -- or if that is not gonna happen, just enforce some sensible CSS practices.

We need your input here!

Do you think color.module should be apart of core? If so, should it be upgraded from its current state?

Do you find the color.module is tedious or complex? Do you find it beneficial to simple themes? To advanced ones?

Also, for D7, I'm proposing the idea of an open styling system in addition or replacement to color.module. This styling system would allow themers to create prerendered skins and also accept skins from the files layer (meaning it can use color.module schemes).

Looking for a German speaking Drupal developer. The selected candidate will be required to travel onsite and train a group of people.

The developer will be supported by a team of other developers to create and build a website in V 6.x.

More details to the right candidate. Please ping me if interested and we can discuss more details.

Victor Kane & Chris Charlton teach Advanced Drupal Views in Venice, CA.

LA Drupal resident members get a special $50 off (email for bulk ticket pricing).

Learn all the new concepts in the Views 2 module for Drupal, inside and out, even some object oriented design details to take back to work.

Learn about the new architecture in Views 2, learn Relationships, the new user interface, and become a master of the new multiple Display configurations.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW. Hurry, tickets will go fast! http://drupal-la-training-2009-march-15.eventbrite.com/

This workshop shows how you'll get the most out of display options like blocks and pages, plus how to theme your views with PHP templates. Take away masterful tips like how to embed views (meaning views within views), and some magical views that only a developer can love.

Does anyone know if there is a drupal theme that can replicate the look in the intuit website:

http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/marketing-tools/small-business-mark...

I'm just talking about breadcrumbs up: the simple, unostentatious way primary and secondary menus are presented. Yet the color contrast between the two and the use of tabs to highlight the active menu improves usability.

Also a lot of stuff is packed into the header and yet content area starts from relatively high up -- again a plus for usability on small screen.

Agent16 is looking for a Drupal Themer to work on site at Agent16 in New York City.

This is an immediate need.

The person should truly understand how to theme Drupal 6 and not just know CSS.

please email all resumes to

dfinnerty --at-- agnet16 --dot-- com

We ware looking to bring someone on board asap and it is a very public facing project.

We are a direct employer and are not looking for agencies.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks
Dave Finnerty
Director IT
Agent16

Looking for some feedback to what others fight most when developing a new site's theme. Do you spend a majority of time tweaking CSS or PHP with your new theme?

When we develop new sites, all of our theme is built via CSS. I know there are some that "theme" with PHP Hooks etc. My thoughts are there is a grey area to themeing. Meaning, some "theme the output/display of data/fields" and others affect the look and feel of the theme via css. Is there a wrong way or a right way?

Your feedback is welcome!

When a page.tpl.php file is generated all of the variables are populated with content. This includes all the regions, the css and javascript, and everything. Some of these are never used in some themes (e.g., $mission) and some are often rebuilt later like $styles and $scripts.

I propose we lazy load the content in these variables when the variables are called the first time which will typically be in the template files. Since lazy loading is a feature of objects it will mean these variables will be attached to objects.

So, in drupal 6 you theme would have:
<?php
print $styles;

Has anyone had the issue of an image appearing on one page node and not on another? I have a case where the image:

http://dev5.playpoi.com/sites/playpoi.com/themes/playpoi_NEXTGEN_v02/ima...

appears here:

http://dev5.playpoi.com/about-poi with:

but not any of the sub nodes such as here:

http://dev5.playpoi.com/about-poi/why-poi
http://dev5.playpoi.com/about-poi/poi-history
etc. with:

We are looking for a strong Drupal theme guru to work on the theme for a Drupal 6.x site. (Major University Site)

We need some one that can hit the ground running and can work on site in NYC (Downtown) with a great team.

If you are a Drupal theme expert and are interested please contact brady (at) proof-nyc.com

Thanks.

I have starting a Drupal theme design company which I hope to launch this upcoming year but I wanted to get some feedback and possible your experiences with buying themes, theme support, quality and so fort. Here are some topics to get our discussion started.

-For professional top quality themes what is the average price you would pay? (per theme and custom theme)
By top quality themes I mean those designs that follow web design procedures (professionally)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_design#Website_Planning

We're looking for a very skilled themer to aid us in developing a large scale social networking website for academics. There's also an opportunity to build up a long term relationship to work on several other websites we're developing.
Candidates must be very proficient in theming and have at least an intermediate understanding of custom module development. Being an independant player who doesn't need much guidance is a very important asset we're looking for.

In short, these are the requirements:
* Perfect understanding of Drupal 5's theming layer

Is anyone aware of a good guide for creative agencies with regard to creating user interfaces/web site designs that are easly implemented with drupal?

As a preface, this discussion goes along with this wiki page over at the Drupal Redesign Group: Improve Theme Categorization

I've been pondering a voting and a review system for the themes for a while now. For many reasons really, but here is my quick conclusion: it won't work the way most voting systems work. Here is why...

Simply put the reason a voting and review system won't work easily is because of change.

I recently posted over here http://drupal.org/node/337797, about a different approach to themeing in Drupal. I wanted to get the opinion of this group, because it is comprised of everybody that would potential be using this concept.

I vote for really hammering out all the ideas, before beginning and not rushing this if you think this is a good idea, or at least the beginning of a good idea. So long story short, I'm thinking Drupal 8.

http://drupal.org/node/333060 is the perfect example of something completely tweaky that is likely to get broken in the future when some well-meaning person goes through here trying to "optimize" the flow of things. AKA, something we really ought to have automated tests for.

In order to write a proper test, we would need the following:
a) The ability to make hidden themes like we have hidden modules.
b) The ability to enable those themes even though they're not in the UI.

Hi there,

I have built my first site with Drupal and now need to select a theme. The site is an online community around social media and community management. Can anyone recommend me a few good themes that would be suitable for my site?

Thanks in advance,

Greg

This post is related to the project plan to get in a few new themes into Drupal 7 core. It will list some of the pros and cons of using the 960 Grid System. If you didn't know, it's what most might define as a "CSS framework". This specific framework was created by Nathan Smith. He states that it was started before Blueprint. I have mistaken it myself as a Blueprint derivative since it is a very similar system. But they both were inspired I believe by the same sources.