Lightning Lesson: Dmitrig01 turns a PSD into a Drupal Theme (part 1 of 2)

Posted by joshk on March 29, 2007 at 5:20am

In a new format, dmitrig01 offered to share his screen while he turned a PSD into a Theme. This is part 1, in which the theme is translated into Drupal-friendly HTML. Part 2 will cover the final process: making it into a theme.

Grab it here (alternate mp4 link here)

There is no audio, but simplymenotu asks a number of helpful questions in the always-visible IRC log.

It's an experimental format, but it was very easy to produce on the fly. I'm very curious what people think of this format.

This is also my first screencap using iShowU (which is not Free Software, but is more current than SnapZ and an affordable $20), and using blip.tv as a source file host (a suggestion from Markus Sandy at the drupal-dojo BoF). This could be a good repeatable process.

Comments

notes

Posted by joshk on March 29, 2007 at 5:30am

I just checked the clock and this whole thing took about three hours to do, including uploading the video and making the posts. Dmitrig01 obviously put more time into preparation, but it the lesson event really did happen "just like that."

It would be nice to have a narration, and also a source screen-cap, but I think this was a worthwhile experiment, and I think once we have Part 2, they'll be of some use to those wanting to learn how to theme.

http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com

https://pantheon.io | http://www.chapterthree.com | https://www.outlandishjosh.com

Actually...

Posted by dmitrig01 on April 1, 2007 at 11:42pm

I did almost no preparation.

Licensing...

Posted by joshk on March 29, 2007 at 6:26am

This is probably a thread into itself, but I realized when posting content that was mos def authored by someone else that I suddenly started to care about what license it was under. This is in contrast to my general indifference toward law in general, and copyright in particular. In fact, I got a little prickly when asked about this during my session. But I felt different when it wasn't my work being posted, and I think if we're establishing a process, coming up with a licensing standard is good.

This went up as "public domain," but I think probably by-attribution is best. I'm personally fine with people trying to repurpose our work for whatever remix, even in a commercial context. In fact, if someone could add value to these screencasts to the point that they could make money, it would probably be awesome. However, in any case, it would be good to have the dojo credited.

http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com

https://pantheon.io | http://www.chapterthree.com | https://www.outlandishjosh.com

"standard" drupal licenses

Posted by greggles on March 29, 2007 at 1:34pm

There are two licenses used by the durpal project so far - gpl (for everything in CVS) and the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike (cc-by-sa) which is on all of the handbook and a few other items (such as the current dojo screencasts).

I think we should stick with those licenses. Certainly if we want the movies hosted on drupal.org then we need that. And if there needs to be discussion about different licenses then the webmasters or infrastructure lists are the appropriate places.

Greg

--
Knaddisons Denver Life | mmm Free Range Burritos

knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation

cc-by-sa it is!

Posted by joshk on March 29, 2007 at 4:24pm

I love that this was an easy choice. ;)

http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com

https://pantheon.io | http://www.chapterthree.com | https://www.outlandishjosh.com

Give it back to Drupal.org

Posted by add1sun on March 29, 2007 at 11:13am

This is awesome! Let's also remember to give these things directly back to drupal.org. There is a videocasts section in the handbook and this one should be made as a child page to the Modules and Theming section. We've added a few new bits on contributing vids as well, but essentially, we'd like folks to create a new page that gives a brief summary of the vid and then provides a link to a place to watch (like blip.tv) and if possible also a way to download directly (like a torrent). Shouldn't take but 5 minutes to create a new page and link it up and its an easy way to get Dojo material back to the larger community.

Thanks!

Learn Drupal online at Drupalize.me

And this is open season?

Posted by joshk on March 29, 2007 at 4:24pm

Am I correct in assuming that people should error on the side of "just put it here" and let the doc team/community sort things out? This is good to know.

Also, FWIW, we're not really pursuing blip.tv as a "viewer." Their flash-widgets compress the data poorly. However, they provide permalinks to source files, and apparently don't mind if we use that as a non-torrent option for file storage.

http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com

https://pantheon.io | http://www.chapterthree.com | https://www.outlandishjosh.com

Drupal.org should be the default

Posted by add1sun on March 29, 2007 at 5:05pm

Well actually yes, we are looking at using blip.tv as a "viewer" since you can link directly to the source for viewing. This info is now on the Contribute your own videocast handbook page. This is what I've done with the Rolling Patches in Drupal vid.

As for erring on the side of anything, I think it makes more sense to put it on d.o in the videocasts section and then post a story here linking to that. D.o really should be the default for all vids and docs that are generated by the Dojo, not the other way around. If this was Dojo-specific subject material I might see another argument but this is useful to all of Drupal. Anyone with a d.o account can create a new page for their videos or docs. There are very few people involved in docs in all of Drupal and even fewer here in the Dojo. Please don't lay the burden on us, but instead get involved with the greater Drupal community. </rant>

Learn Drupal online at Drupalize.me

Fair enough

Posted by joshk on March 29, 2007 at 9:21pm

I don't think there's really much debate in terms of where things "live." Everything should be in the handbook. I've already added this lesson, and I will add the other lessons as we go until someone else wants to start doing it.

http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com

https://pantheon.io | http://www.chapterthree.com | https://www.outlandishjosh.com

No worries

Posted by dmitrig01 on March 29, 2007 at 3:03pm

This theme will be GPL'd, contributed to Drupal, etc.

Can't watch it :(

Posted by magdelaine on March 29, 2007 at 8:07pm

I have tried to watch this movie both in Firefox and IE and by downloading it but I have had no luck. Quicktime claims it doesn't have the right compression settings to view it. Do you have any suggestions of what else I might try? Thank you, this is just what I need to see!

learn one, teach one, do one

See at blip.tv

Posted by glendac on March 29, 2007 at 8:58pm

I was also having problems viewing it from Josh's link so I went directly to blip.tv and searched for the video (http://blip.tv/file/182798/). I had trouble viewing it in Quicktime so I viewed it as a Flash video. As was noted, there's no audio so it doesn't look like anything's happening at first so just wait a bit.

Thats odd!

Posted by joshk on March 29, 2007 at 9:10pm

What are your system specs? This is compressed with H.264, which should be pretty widely useful.... However, I did deveate from our standard of MPEG-4, set here. I'll see about transcoding.

http://www.chapterthreellc.com | http://www.outlandishjosh.com

https://pantheon.io | http://www.chapterthree.com | https://www.outlandishjosh.com

Viewing the file

Posted by magdelaine on April 2, 2007 at 10:06pm

Thank you for this link...it is the only one that I could view. I tried downloading Josh's updated mp4 file and I still couldn't play it. I'm on Windows XP with random free players like WMP, Winamp, Quicktime player, and I have the WinDVD codec for playing movies.

I'm looking forward to part 2!

learn one, teach one, do one