By KayleL on

hello,
I had made a static web page, and I want to painlessly make it into a drupal theme. I am wondering if I could just take one of my web pages, add some php scripts to tell it where to put the navigation, and the content, etc.

I been reading some tutorials, but most of the tutorials starts web pages from scratch, and a lot of copying/pasting without explaining what it does.

Thanks,
Kayle L

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

Drupal themes are built with XHTML and CSS not simple HTML.

That being said, you can use the page content type and paste your HTML into the content area and submit it using the FULL HTML input format. This will create a static page. With regards to navigation you should create a navigation menu in administer -> blocks.

quixote’s picture

quixote commented

If I understand correctly, you want to convert a static website to a website run on Drupal. A theme is just normal HTML with certain areas of PHP where the content appears. You can move these around anywhere you want in your template file, just experiment with the results. Work with the blocks setting in the admin panel to define what goes in each area. Use DHTML with CSS. Or don't...

Just remember when you see something like:

print $messages

that it's displaying some Drupal content. Copy the code and move it where you want it, then look at the source code in your browser to see what it spits out. Then style the crap out of it.

The main thing is, how complex is your existing layout? You may have to make some choices here and there.

KayleL’s picture

KayleL commented

I am coding with XHTML 1.1 and CSS2, so that shouldn't be a problem.

My website is fairly simple, layout wise. This is my website, http://kaylelang.110mb.com/ (the content isn't complete)

so, I look at the code from some other theme, like garland, and find <?php print ... ?> stuff, like
<?php if ($search_box): ?><div class="block block-theme"><?php print $search_box ?></div><?php endif; ?> then I paste it in my template, and see what would happen?

vm’s picture

vm commented

yes