NYC Drupal Meetups: offer to present theming tutorial; Suggestions re planning; location; etc

Hi Everyone,

Adam has indicated previously that he would like to do a theming tutorial at a meetup. There also has been some talk today on the new Drupal NYC IRC channel about theming.

I took the 2 day Lullabot Drupal theming workshop last July, and could give an overview of theming, based on that workshop. Obviously, it would only be an introductory overview - say 20-30 minutes - but it shoud be helpful to newbies, or to Drupal designers/admins who would like to start learning simple coding for Drupal. This could be complemented by a discussion of Drupal theming from the HTML/CSS side from someone with more of a Drupal design background. Say, for example (picking a random name): Suzi.

I think I can present a good introductory session on theming from the coding side, much like what was presented at the Lullabot theming workshop. This was mostly copying code from previously written themes and understanding what the various PHP variables mean, and how the theming components work together in the Drupal web framework, so that you can create your own custom themes. You can do a lot with theming, just by copying the HTML and CSS of a web site you want to base your theme on, and changing some of the PHP variables and related text in the theme template files. There was very little real PHP coding in the Lullabot workshop, and I dont think that would be very useful for beginner / intermediate Drupalistas.

I think that this also will be a very good way to introduce the Drupal designer/admin folks to coding. It seems clear from the previous meetings that there are a number of people who are very interested in Drupal, and even using it, but who don't know much about coding yet. Starting with theming is probably the best way to get started with practical coding with Drupal.

Suggestions re planning, location, etc.: We should try to arrange to have a regular meeting place, or to set up each meeting well enough in advance for things to work out smoothly.

I also suggest that we briefly plan the next meeting at the end of each meeting.
where to meet
what topics to cover, based on peoples interests and expertise.
who is willing to present

Mike Caudy