One of the things that came out of the Boston Drupalcamp was the need for a site with tools/highlights to meet the needs of designers/themers. Developers have tools like cvs.drupal.org, api.drupal.org, the automated testing framework, and more. Designer/themers have tool needs of their own.
This document is meant to be a rough function spec for such a site. The focus here is on the feature set and not what site(s) they end up on.
This is a 'living document'. Please feel free to edit/change/add to it.
Note: Some of the things listed here are already on drupal.org. Most of the time they are sections of the handbook. Here we want them to be called out as separate parts of the info architecture and made more feature rich.
Theme Project Pages
Because creating and submitting a theme from start to finish is a complicated process that could often be aided by community assistance, themers should be able to create project pages for themes that they're currently working on so that designers, javascript gurus and more experienced themers can contribute to the themes that catch their attention. This would add incentive for making a theme available to the community.
Showcase
Most of the designs and themes generated cannot be contributed back to the Drupal community. They contain branding for clients that cannot be diluted. A showcase would highlight Drupal sites, the designer, the themer(s), the people who wrote the cool JavaScript for the theme, etc. The goal is not to just showcase the site but give credit to the people who created it.
Snippets
Themers tend to keep and reuse snippets of code/css/other stuff. A place where they can share then (with syntax highlighting), describe them, comment on them, categorise them, rate them, etc.
Theme Uploader
Themers/Designers don't tend to use CVS. Version Control Systems are great (and themes should be in them). We need a tool to lower the barrier to entry to contribute and maintain a theme. A web based tool to contribute themes by uploading a zip or something like that.
Tutorials
I think tutorials is pretty self descriptive. A place where they can be and be rated, commented on, etc. The author would also get a link to his/her blog or website.
Drupal Development Dashboard
We need more designers and themers to be involved in Drupal to ensure it's continued rise in popularity and use. A dashboard where designers can see the issues relevant to them, where they can get to quick tutorials and information on how they can give back (in language they can understand).
Comments
enabled comments
Seems like a nice page for brainstorming things. Opened comments to help get the discussion going. People is reluctant to directly edit wikis sometimes, no? :-)
A place for themers to meet and showcase their work
I have built a site that would fit this bill very nicely and in addition to providing a showcase for themers and their work, would help develop a "leadership board" of themers who would actually choose which themes to showcase.
This structure would help themers give cred to other themers, providing a foundation for a leadership layer of a "Drupal Themers Guild."
With the endorsement of the "guild", it's leaders would have greater credibility when approaching core developers with requests.
The site I am offering uses Userpoints to help track cred numerically and Vote Power to give greater weight to the votes of those who have earned higher cred on the site.
Thoughts?
Drupal Themers Guild
I think that we should think in terms of having this type of structure exist organically. Meaning: when you give a tutorial or teach some one, you have / are holding a Guild Meeting. When one "takes on an apprentice", well that communicates that I am helping this person out in a Big Brother/Sister kinda way.
We don't have to formalize it ... as that might be too much. But at the next NYC meetup, I proposed that I take a group of newbies and answer questions. I could say, "Drupal Themers Guild" is meeting over here. When we say "BOF" we know what that means. Just like "Code Sprint" ... In my mind, "Themers Guild" is that.
Why do I say this?
Well at Boston D4D, the question was raised: how do designers/ themers gain Drupal Street cred. And the answer is really obvious: PARTICIPATION! You become a leader because you lead: no voting. Like Jane's Addiction said: "No talking, just all action!"
We don't need a foundation. We don't need to vote on the best themes. We need to participate and lead... and all that stuff will take care of it self (without the bureaucracy!)
My two sense :)
http://boston.design4drupal.org/session/themers-guild
8)~
johnvsc@gmail.com
917.676.0677
oh, i still think we should wear Viking Helmets, though
Oh and
wildfeed.... it was GREAT seeing you at the D4D session... although I wish it was more sharing and less me just talking ...
8)~
johnvsc@gmail.com
917.676.0677
...
Yes, I totally agree 100% that we should wear Viking helmets.
...
Snippets - well many of us publish these on our blogs - there are thousands of them all over the web, I would tend to think a smart way of aggregating them could be a better idea. Additionally there are thousands right there in the d.o forums already, where they lay hidden.
Tutorials - again, aggregating this content seems smarter, although a base set of tutorials covering the rudimentary basics, with no holes, in language everyone can understand, would be very good.
Dashboard, not sure I grasp what is meant by this.
The site should link to the themer's blog
Putting up a link to a themer's blog that includes a snippet is a far better process than simply categorizing snippets. Let's give themers an opportunity to earn cred. Linking to their blog provides them with a bit of incentive to post a link. By doing so, the community is exposed to their techniques as well as the person behind them.
Why not a feed aggregator,
Why not a feed aggregator, similar to Drupal Planet?
...
I think some sort of aggregation with categories, title + teaser gets saved forever and we have lists of categorised snippets and tutorials.
Frankly I am way more likely to spend a couple of hours writing a decent tutorial for my own blog, less so for another site (I have myself contributed over 30 documentation pages to d.o), however when its on my blog I get credit for it, whereas when its on a 3rd party site no one really gives a rats ass who wrote it. No one on d.o ever thanked me for any of those 30 pages, yet I get comments and thanks all the time for stuff on my own site.
My other reasoning is that I think the web has, or rather needs to, evolve past just regurgitating what is already out there, lets leverage what we have as much as possible (think OpenAmplify), or even building our own "Drupalsphere" search engine:)
Designers who don't Blog
Good point, but I think "the site" would need to be able to aggregate designers blogs as well as have people publish directly to it. Not all themers have there own blogs. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that design in Photoshop, and code in HTML/CSS and don't blog.
Re-Thinking Online Documentation
Pet peeve # 178398320 about the web: Stuff ain't organized that well and you can't find sh-t.
About 5 months ago, right after DC/DC I bought the domain developmentfordesigners.com with the hope of having a section that aggregated content. Now that has changed. I was having a conversation with robbiethegeek to day at lunch. He was saying that it is not d.o's job to teach people how to write PHP/HTML/jQuery or any of the essentials that we use to authour anything in / by Drupal. (so, i thought that that domain would be better for that job)
However, there are the many ideas concerning the WAY that information is aggregated and assembled that would make sense for us (and I offer them up here with the intention of using them also on developmentfordesigners)
My two sense. I told add1sun that I was focused on documentation this year ... and this is a part of that. Documentation is one of the big keys that will make us grow larger and better ... and attract more people to our community :)
johnvsc@gmail.com
917.676.0677
Theme Uploader
This looks promising: http://drupal.org/project/simple_committer
--
Nicolas
In addition
Tomorrow at the NYC Drupal meetup ... if there is anyone who would like to talk about those topics above ... track down me or winstond. If you are planning to talk about it and/organise something, please include me
johnvsc@gmail.com
917.676.0677
I own a domain:
I own a domain: drupaldesigners.org and I am planing to make there a designers showcase/blog/portfolio/tutorials place. But I am also willing to let it be used for this initiative, as bringing more designers to drupal and making something for designers already working with drupal is something that I really want to do...
twitter: @jojototh
drupal.org user: mogdesign
my blog: www.mogdesign.eu/blog
twitter: @jojototh
drupal.org user: mogdesign
CEO http://mogdesign.eu