Artisteer - Wysiwyg Drupal Theme Creator

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cjdavis's picture

I've been evaluating Artisteer, a wysiwyg theme building program that runs on Windows, and I am impressed. With no theme or even HTML/CSS knowledge, you can build a usable design for Drupal, as well as WordPress, Joomla, or just a straight HTML/CSS site very quickly.

One feature I found particularly useful is the 'Ideas' menu, which will suggest random designs for you at the push of a button - either the entire theme, or just portions of it like blocks or header. Very useful to get started with, and then you can start tweaking the details.

The themes are a bit static - you get the standard 1 2 or 3 columns layouts, and you cannot define new regions (yet?). It also appears to have problems with some Drupal features like panels. But it could save a LOT of time on design iterations. And for many sites, it may be all you need.

I'd really like to know what real themers think of the code it generates. It looks reasonably good to me - no tables, all div based at least. Would it be a good starting place for theme work? Can it be extended easily by hand, or does it look like something FrontPage would have produced?

I'm building a new site for my sister's studio in Drupal, and I sat her down with Artisteer to play with designs for it. Here's the current one she built herself. Three hours later she comes up for air, "That thing is like crack! Why did you do this to me?"

Comments

I too would like to hear

elvis2's picture

I too would like to hear some feedback from themers. I did look through the software but I didn't see any examples on their site, of the html / css output.

Something for Linux?

cmccullough's picture

I checked it out and definitely looks nice. Looks pretty easy to learn how to use, too. As a Linux user of more than 10 years, I wonder if there's anything like this out there for us Linux geeks? I'll look into the Open Source stuff to see what I can find.

-Chad

From a themer...

stephthegeek's picture

http://drupal.org/node/402772

Also see the comments in the blog post linked in the thread above.

It has its issues -- they're not exactly brilliantly Drupal-savvy themes and have a cookie cutter look... but the UI for building them is great and if anything it just puts another potential option out there for quick prototypes, putting a personal touch on a blog, etc. The code is good from a standards point of view but not a very flexible implementation in Drupal. But they're better than TemplateMonster's ;)

~~~
{ Drupal Themes from TopNotchThemes }

Interesting -- I might

OldAccount's picture

Interesting -- I might download the demo and see what I can come up with. I'm challenged in the creativity department but am okay with tweaking a basic foundation. People's reviews seem to conclude that it's best-fitting for basic blog-type sites, so I won't hold any expectations of coming out with a finished and ready-to-use theme, but it def. seems like a promising for a brainstorming tool.

Artisteer

vidichannel's picture

It looks amazingly effective to me. If any of this code works this is amazing. It provides a true bridge from designer (themers) to coder.

My only problem, no fluid frame designs. Either way this is a brilliant program. Kudos to the designers. 95% of the Drupal sites should give it an instant spin.

Artisteer is a great

kevster111@drupal.org's picture

Artisteer is a great program, especially for beginners. I also don't know why more advanced users wouldn't love the program as well. It makes it very easy to get a theme up and going, once its finished an adanced user can easily delete change and modify the css or code it generates to make it suit their needs.

The only real issues I find are the integration with panels. I think its more of the way panels works than a problem with artisteer but obviously the problems should be fixed on the aristeer side. Oh and their 2.1 version has added a lot of improvements like some bug fixes and extra regions, of course a good themer can remove the extra regions if not needed.

Bring your themes to the public http://www.drupalthemesonly.com

Bring your themes to the public or get your own free drupal themes http://www.drupalthemesonly.com

i used it to bang out my

osmorphyus's picture

i used it to bang out my sites look after i scratched it on paper first. it really made light work of creating a "classic" looking site, if you will. http://www.squamoussupport.info/

i tried for hours to break down all the rigmarole of the zen theme. after i found artisteer, i was a happy guy. i like it's built in options for adding flare to images (reflections, etc.) as i have neevr been good with advanced imaging. my best imaging work comes in from font work. if you want an actual picture, i can give you a stick man, but even doing that much in gimp/ps will take me a few days!

Zen

mantisae's picture

I agree with you on zen. I find that without a basic layout showing you where things are just printing everything out on a white page and expecting everyone to be able to find what they want to change is easy makes it that much harder i find it easier to start with a theme like marinelli and make my changes from there.

I have been working on a

cmcintosh's picture

I have been working on a Theme builder tool for d6 similar to what is available on Drupal Gardens and Squarespace. Im now starting to move more towards something like a Photoshop on the web.

Like lrobeson, I was not

ttamniwdoog's picture

Like lrobeson, I was not blessed with the creative gene. But this tool has helped me create a few themes and I've overcome my genetic disadvantage. Also it's now available for you Mac users http://www.artisteer.com/?p=news
Although you won't get any Webby awards for the best design, this tool will help you create professional looking sites.
It's a great tool to turn out a working design quickly.
I have not had any issues modifying the CSS as the design needs of my project have changed many times since implementation.
hth

Briliant program

sounds's picture

I tryed the demo, i was looking for exactly what artisteer does,
Allow anyone to create professional looking themes for drupal etc.
Without having to do any coding.
Briliant program.

Other than code bloat and NO FLUIDITY, nice program!

opegasus's picture

I made the mistake of bringing up Artisteer in a local meetup. The almost snarling replies (okay, wasn't anywhere near that bad) were about the code generated by Artisteer was bloated. Using Artisteer was doing a disservice to our clients and a greener web. A fairly quick run through the CSS showed them (real coders) to be accurate.

Artisteer does indeed have a fair amount of dead ended CSS just hanging around doing nothing. Trade off for having to be a one size fits all possible CSS options template generating program I guess.

Next item is the templates are not fluid (expand or contract depending on USERS monitor and Web Browser size) so it takes someone with a steady coding CSS hand to 'hack' the code so it will. Others have posted (Old posts-last year?) that Artisteer template code does not play well with Panels. Perhaps this has been remedied since?

As I am very new to this Dev and Drupal (I'm edgumicated in Joomla!) and coding, I found that in spite of the code not being web tidy nor offering fluid templates, it does do all the heavy lifting. I use it because it saves a huge amount of time building primary and secondary templates. I am learning coding by reading about the hacks needed for this-or-that so it provides a great (for me) learning environment.

Oh and on top of being design challenged I can't run a decent color palette so in order to have a more polished look (color flow throughout the site) I use Kuler Colors by Adobe (free on the web) to help organize matching or complimentary colors. THAT would be a nice feature in Artisteer as well.

So according to heavy duty coders it's prudent to learn to code/build one's templates using the most pristine and striped down code possible. In which case, Artisteer ain't it. But for now I will use it because it works ( 97% ) well for me.

Panels? Anyone?

markconroy's picture

Just wondering if there is any update on using Artisteer with Panels? Anyone given it a shot with Artisteer 2.6 or 3.0?

My daughter loves it

pfisher's picture

I own an older version of this app and my daughter has it installed on her netbook. I agree with cjdavis' crack analogy. It keeps her more entertained than mind numbing kids videos and games. Her site theme is a form of content to her. It is to her website what a little sparkly tiara is to her outfits.

I've also used it for those free "favor" sites. You know, the one that is so easy to setup, but then you drown in "if it's not a big deal?" type design requests. Set a family member loose on that thing and they will own their design, typically constantly changing it, leaving you free to do the stuff that actually makes the site useful.

I like how the same design is transferable to other packages almost seamlessly. The blogger stuff will upload and install right from the app.

I've used it most frequently to get something started, normally using the random feature to try out color schemes.