By dcoder on

Is there something like http://www.rockettheme.com/ - RocketTheme (for Joomla) but more Drupal-oriented?
something like RT in the Drupal 'realm' will be really *great* --there's a idea for a good business! any designers take the lead?-.

I'm not the first saying that the poor theme base for Drupal is one of the things that keeps this great CMS from total-world-domination (at least the world of web developers/designers). Sometimes the themes in RT are too "webbishTwoPointOhh" but they're functional (using ajax and more reactive interfaces among transparency, etc) and beautiful, at least once in a while. People like me doesn't want to re-make the wheel --and starting from a good template (xhtml/css, w3c-validated) is something that really helps in the process..
You can see the themes I'm talking about at http://demo.rockettheme.com/

Thanks for reading, any help with suggestions of Drupal related sites/templates will be greatly appreciated..

Comments

hsalazar’s picture

hsalazar commented

RocketThemes are good, save for the fact that many use tables in the core content part of the page, but they sure are well built. They are also commercial themes, which means you buy them for a price that to be honest, is low considering the design value they have. I'm not sure if the license allows you to port them to Drupal. If that's the case, then it won't be hard to translate some of the themes to Drupal. It will be a matter of replacing Joomla's variables for Drupal variables.

So this means there's a 2-step road ahead: the first includes checking to see if the license allows the modification of the templates. The second includes buying a template in behalf of a designer and give it to him/her to make the translation. Sounds ok?

Cheers.

8manj-dupe’s picture

8manj-dupe commented

Sure the Rocket Themes are nice design, if you like that whole 2.0 look (curved edges, reflections etc). But I don't see them as being massively complicated to build, whether from scratch or using an existing theme for foundations. I am sure there are lots of hungry theme developers out there willing to offer the helping hand of Drupal (might charge a £ or two for their services) but you can generate your own Rocket-esq theme without fear of infringement on layout. I may be wrong but I am sure you cannot possibly declare a layout with a header, right side, content and footer as being a unique web theme and charge somebody ££'s for its use. Although the Rocket theme are fairly cheap to buy for starters, I'm with hsalazar on this, buy the theme and Drupalise it!

spectre101’s picture

spectre101 commented

Sorry for the double post, but Andy at RocketThemes in a thread there similar to this one said they had no issues with that, but he did ask if the poster were able to make it work, he'd like to see it.

Hsalazar:

I do know a little about CSS and I have a template I'd like to modify. I guess what I need is a translation of Joomla terms to Drupal terms and what works and what will break a site. As I alluded to, I'm in the middle of a site revamp and if I can keep my RocketTheme look and functionality and add it to my in-process Joomla site, then not only will I be as sound as a pound, but I think Drupal will be more attractive to the users I spoke about above/ uh I mean below. Still not used to threaded discussions.

hsalazar’s picture

hsalazar commented

spectre101:

If you take a look at www.periodismocientifico.com, you'll see an evolution of a former Joomla template. This has been taken further to a simple boxy theme you can download from www.drupalmex.com. I'm working on a more complete solution for an intranet, and maybe will release a variation in a theme. These aren't jazzy or web-two-point-oh-ish themes, but rather simple structures to pour content on, but I've found them useful and somewhat clean. If I were a better designer, maybe I could optimize them a lot, but for the moment, that's it.

Cheers

themegarden.org’s picture

themegarden.org commented

Most of drupal themes from http://drupal.org/project/Themes, you can see live at Drupal Theme Garden

Do you think that themes from RocketTheme are good looking or good templates from technical view (web standards, trends ...)?
IMHO, they are looking really nice, but they are made using nested tables ...
I don't call such themes good.
But, yes, they are very nice.
---
Drupal Themes Live Preview - themegarden.org

8manj-dupe’s picture

8manj-dupe commented

So what do we Drupalers really think of the Rocket theme?

Well it is a case of making use of a popular current design culture, that being using reflections, boxed icons and gradient BG's. (all its missing is a drop shadow on the logo and some curved edges to make it stereotypical 2.0 design!). I think it will appeal to a lot of users, depending on the nature of the content. I wouldn't think most of my clients would go for that kind of look, they prefer a more clean and professional approach.

So design wise... OK, but nothing original and a little graphic hungry.

Standards wise, the coding either doesn't make good use of best practice (thats my best practice, CSS & XHTML table-less design, ***opinion***, so please do not take it I am preaching to those people still designing with tables to get with the times!), or the code has been sacrificed to accommodate some of the design features. I didn't write the template so I cannot say either way.

Conclusion, nice looking, poor coding, unfortunately an outcome all too common to the web.

To help the poor chap (or charming lady) who started the thread, consider your options before being blinded by the design, is the site being built suited to this style, will it appeal to the targeted audience and are you prepared to put in either some work or £££ to make it Drupal friendly?

AainaalyaA’s picture

AainaalyaA commented

I personally use of their themes on my other site - www.AainaA.com . As for the Society, I'm looking around for a good template designer.

AsidrA Society | www.AsidrA.com

Steven_NC’s picture

Steven_NC commented

You might want to look at the liteJazz theme ( http://demo.roopletheme.com/ ) for a multi-region template. I am new to Drupal and am using the Zen theme ( http://drupal.org/project/zen ) as a learning tool. It is very well documented and validates.

I am comfortable with html/css and can usually figure out where to cut and paste the php code to move things, but I'm no programmer. As long as the boxed designs have consistent and adequate div's and id's, I'm pretty happy. Presentation is important.

I want php code that works as advertised. If I have installed a module, I just want it to work - every time. I wish there were a number of added functions, but I'll wait. So, yes, solid code is important.

spectre101’s picture

spectre101 commented

I'll check it out. I tried Lite Jazz and though that didn't quite work for me, they seem to want to be the RocketTheme equivalent in Drupal. It will be interesting to see how it progresses.

Thanks for the Zen tip and look at it tomorrow, or later today as the case may be. Really appreciate it! Your description of your skill set seems about equal to mine.

Clarification...I don't believe I said good code isn't important. If the app isn't fast, crashing all of the time, etc., that's worse than having ugly software. My point was the short shrift some give to usability and aesthetics and not thinking of things from user-centric point of view. Good design ans simplicity are afterthoughts, or in some cases, not thought of at all.

Steven_NC’s picture

Steven_NC commented

From your post I felt we were on par. I understand your frustration. Try working with Zen for a bit. The code and css are very thorough and well documented.

I have been playing with Drupal/Zen for about a month, have ported my website and blog into one site and pretty much have it looking the way I want. I don't think I had to add any new classes or ids and was able to put a lot of style into it. It isn't live yet as I keep adding modules and inset dummy content. Its hard to do much testing with exactly one user. It would be nice if somebody who knew what they were doing could supply a development database that was fully populated for download.

Its taking awhile, but more of the Drupalesque methods make sense every day. The flexibility is there when you want it. I did find the Pro Drupal book very helpful in explaining how things work. I'll never be a programmer, but I can cut and paste with the best of them.

I think we are very near the critical mass needed for a theme boom. Everyone points to Wordpress and Joomla for having the most templates, but they also have the largest number of junk templates. Drupal is on the path.

I think in the short term we are going to have to get our css inspirations wherever we can and translate them. (Does that put me on the cutting edge? LOL)

Best wishes

chadchandler’s picture

chadchandler commented

You should definitely look into the "Devel" module. It creates "x" number of dummy users & content along with a heap of other things.

Steven_NC’s picture

Steven_NC commented

The node generation sounds like what I am looking for. I'm having trouble installing the module. I will keep working on it.

spectre101’s picture

spectre101 commented

Right now, I'm rolling out Drupal to my test users of my new site. When (or if) I get a chance I'll see if I can do enough damage on of the the RT templates I have to make it work. I need to get a better idea of how Drupal skinning works and then try to map Joomla declarations to what Drupal calls it and add/delete what is needed. In other words, something similar to a database map when transferring data between two different schema.

I saw a post on the RT site that someone (not sure if it was you) first did what we're trying and realized there was a simpler way. I'll see if I can decipher that. ;-)

pengi’s picture

pengi commented

My only real issue with drupal is that there are few themes that I would consider using. There are tons of great joomla themes, often offered for a fee. But I wouldn't mind spending some money on a theme. I wonder why there are so many companies vending joomla themes and so few attempting to do so for drupal?

rockettheme, joomlashack, joomladesigns, all make great looking and versatile themes.

A real issue with drupal themes seems to be weak support. One theme I had great hopes for was multiflex. But the original dev does not seem to have time to finish it. That happens a lot...long lists of bugs with no one dealing with them. I don't have time to get into drupal theme building/repairing.

Drupal is quite popular, not sure how it compares to joomla but they have to be two of the most widely used. A company that earns it's living from themes can afford to take care of the, perfect them...anyways I'm curious if anyone knows what the difference is. I've written to one j theme shop to see if they'd consider.

pengi’s picture

pengi commented

No one has any comment on this topic???

solipsist’s picture

solipsist commented

I believe commercial themes will be more common as Drupal gains popularity. However, the real bottleneck is that the license conditions regarding themes is somewhat unclear since Drupal is GPL'd. Joomla is also open source but has until recently ignored license violations and it the Joomla developers attempt at homogenizing licenses and enforce a strict policy has caused a lot of controversy.

Until there's an accepted policy regarding and look upon non-open source (in this case most importantly limited right to distribute) themes, I doubt few professional designers consider it worth the risk.

--
Jakob Persson
Drupal developer, web designer and usability consultant
http://www.jakob-persson.com

--
Jakob Persson - blog
Leancept – Digital effect and innovation agency

sepeck’s picture

sepeck commented

When developing a 'generic' theme, you have to make any number of assumptions about the content. Drupal in general doesn't really make to many assumptions about how you are going to display your content. This means that if you are building this 'generic' theme, you are like going to have to include a number of caveats about how / what is displayed where.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

Steven_NC’s picture

Steven_NC commented

When developing a 'generic' theme, you have to make any number of assumptions about the content.

This is a big problem as Drupal sites can be very complex depending on the panels, regions, and modules used. I have seen a number of excellent sites, but they were very purpose built for one client/application. They would be almost impossible to make generic for general use.

Rather than have the Elite Drupalers make complete themes, I would rather have tutorials on the pieces. That way we could pick and choose how to build our own sites. No two will be identical.

florian’s picture

florian commented

How about Salamander theme? I have ported Rocket Theme entirely, plus some more extras. Salamander validates HTML Strict and CSS2 and it is cross browser compatible. Take a look at www.radut.net and www.radut.net/drupal/ to play a bit with all Rocket Theme color variations plus 4 new layouts.

I am preparing to port other Joomla templates. Just let me know which one :)

------
Florian
Dr.Radut | Puzzle IT | EU Copyright Office | STReight

Florian

Steven_NC’s picture

Steven_NC commented

Very Nice.

psipi’s picture

psipi commented

Well it's taken me over a year of hard review, project testing, but I can now truly say that Drupal can have amazing designs.. the catch is you have to be clear what you want. and you have to go for what you believe.

There are some truly wretched drupal themers out there.. and even people with good portfolios.. a lesson.. make sure you can play with an admin panel, and see how sites will be able to be run for you in practice.. and get good real life feedback..

That said..

Take a look at www.BestBabyStuff.co.uk - we've helped craft that with a great design company on the branding, and some amazing Drupal themers.. at www.ProDrupalThemes.co.uk

www.RoopleTheme.com is a good place to start for free themes.
We've also been working with the team at www.ProDrupalThemes.com (site to go live soon) and in the UK!!! www.ProDrupalThemes.co.uk

I know if you have a particular theme you want ported they can definitely do it for you, and can get you up and running more easily than you think..

Bear in mind though.. that the beauty of Drupal is in it's customisation, and it's often about pulling up your sleeves.. create the content first.. then theme.. then content.. then theme..

I've bought wordpress themes, joomla themes in the past.. they are not all they are cracked up to be.. often hacked.. and when they aren't be aware.. that's not always easy to get the same look and feel with just a logo change.. as it may alter the whole feeling

Making the Difference - Creativity Through Technology
Powerful Stimulating Ideas Pure Imagination
www.psipi.com - www.thesimpleidea.com - www.opensourcemadesimple.com

sounds’s picture

sounds commented

I think a lot of people want more designer looking themes, and most people can't design that good.
If anybody sees those themes at rocket themes for example, i'm sure they'd be thinking about dropping drupal
Drupal is one of the best open source cms out there, but we're not all highly skilled theamers or developers
I'm not lazy, i just find it difficult to learn such a vast amount of work to get the design and layout i want from cms
Most of us want something that looks amazing and is not too difficult to customize and is affordable or preferably free
There's a great selection of free drupal themes, but you'll be picking from a lot of not so great themes also to find one or two nice ones.
I think all rocketthemes should be make compatable with drupal, big market there also.
If something looks really good it's more inclined to grab people's attention, functionality is a different thing.
We need more good looking drupal themes

UnitedVision’s picture

UnitedVision commented

I think hands down that ThemeShark is the best place for commercial drupal themes.

Rob the main guy over there does a hell of a job at maintaining his themes.

Everytime I have ever asked for support, he responds within a few hours.

ThemeShark is the closest thing to Rocketheme for drupal.

http://www.themeshark.com

lies’s picture

lies commented

Rocket theme now has drupal themes http://www.rockettheme.com/drupal

Jeff Burnz’s picture

Jeff Burnz commented

Am I seeing what I think I am seeing - Rocket Theme appear to be selling modules? If so that is illegal and in contravention of Drupals GPL license.

I looked at a couple of their club themes and they come with modules, now if those modules are GPL then they must be available for download (redistribution), of course they can charge a fee but they must also be availble afaik.

I did download their drokblockclass module and this is being distributed without a GPL licence, again, this is, afaik, illegal.

http://drupal.org/licensing/faq

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
solipsist’s picture

solipsist commented

Sounds like an exercise in futility. Rocket Theme can try to sell themes and modules all they like but they cannot stop anyone from redistributing them freely and under the terms of the GPL. Nowhere does the GPL prevent you from charging anyone for distributing what you have created under the terms of the license, but it doesn't stop anyone from redistributing it under the terms of the GPL. That means someone can buy your module and then give it away. There's no point in charging for a module unless you can control the distribution, and restriction of distribution is something the GPL doesn't allow. See question 9:
http://drupal.org/licensing/faq#q9

This applies to all module PHP code as it's dependent on the GPL licensed code in Drupal core. Images, CSS and JavaScript can in some cases be argued not to be dependent on GPL code which means parts of a theme can have restrictions laid upon them. Same can be argued for content distributed along with your module.

Some theme designers release their themes under the GPL, restrict the use of images, JavaScript and CSS and offer a subscription-based model where you get perks, early access and support for a monthly fee.

Joomla has for a long time been dragged down by the failure of its community to wholeheartedly embrace the GPL. Several companies exist that release themes and modules for Joomla that violate the GPL, and it would seem Rocket Theme is one of them. Rocket Theme may try to pull the same trick in the Drupal community. It won't work here though since Drupal has a tradition of transparency and true adherence to the principles of open source.

--
Jakob Persson - blog
Leancept – Digital effect and innovation agency

solipsist’s picture

solipsist commented

Modifications:
You are authorized to make any necessary modification(s) to our products to fit your purposes. You may not however redistribute or release modifications as GPL or otherwise. You must also not change or remove the copyright information in the header of the xml descriptor file. You may however remove our copyright from the footer of the extensions if needed. No use of our trademarks is granted under this Agreement. Please read the FAQ section regarding this if you have further questions. Porting to other platforms and content management systems and redistributing as GPL or otherwise is also strictly prohibited. Please contact us if you have any requirements that are not covered by these terms.

Unauthorized use:
You may not place any of our products, modified or unmodified, on a diskette, CD, website or any other medium and offer them for redistribution or resale of any kind without prior written consent from RocketTheme. Please contact us if you require more clarification.

The text above comes right off the Rocket Theme site and their terms and conditions. Those conditions above are in direct violation of the GPL. Fact is you're free to redistribute template.php, or any tpl.php file from their Drupal themes, with or without modifications, and they can't do yack about it. CSS, images and JavaScript can be covered by a restricting license depending on how dependent they are on GPL'd code and need to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

--
Jakob Persson - blog
Leancept – Digital effect and innovation agency

Jeff Burnz’s picture

Jeff Burnz commented

Thats how I see it, I posted an issue, its not cool at all for such a high profile theme shop to be flouting GPL:

#786908: Possible GPL violation, seeking clarification

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
adam777’s picture

adam777 commented

Rockettheme themes look GREAT, but with Rocketthemes focusing on Joomla, are their themes coded well for Drupal?

picxelplay’s picture

picxelplay commented

I downloaded their free Afterburner theme for Drupal the day it came out. I quickly found two bugs in the backend. It will just take them time to get better at Drupal. RocketTheme, WooThemes, and JoomlArt all just came out with Drupal themes within the past few weeks. I wouldn't use their themes for production for a while until they become more mature in Drupal. I really like JoomlArt's JD Drupal theme, but it is going to be bloated in my opinion. It uses their t3 framework, which I think is extremelyyyy bloated. I just hope these Joomla clubs leave their Joomla bloated coding habits behind. Really, all template clubs themes are bloated usually. They always contain unnecessary crap to make it easier for the "layman" to use. Like style changers, or extra css files for those different styles, Or just other crap to easily change the template without much knowledge. I think the most promising will be WooThemes. I really respect that crew.

I stick with bone-basic framework templates. That is the way to go in my opinion.

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Sudo Kill Cylons

restyler’s picture

restyler commented

I agree that WooThemes are the most promising, their accuracy and feel of style is outstanding.
But I'm talking only about design - I can say nothing good about their frameworks and whole approach to creation of themes.
Here is the code from one of their themes, from block template (!!!):

<h3><?php print $block->subject ?></h3>
		
	    <ul>
	    <?php 
			$result = db_query("SELECT node.nid AS nid, node.title AS node_title, node.created AS node_created FROM {node} node  INNER JOIN {term_node} term_node ON node.vid = term_node.vid WHERE term_node.tid =" .$block->featured_term. " ORDER BY node_created DESC");
			
			while ($row = db_fetch_array($result)) {
					$node = node_load(array('nid' => $row['nid']));
					$text = $node->body;
					$url = base_path().'node/'.$node->nid;
		?> 
	
		<li>
			<span class="thumb">
				<?php if (module_exists('woo')) if ($node->files) { $img_path = image_resizer(get_image($node->files), '70', '70'); print $img = '<a href="'.$url.'" title="'.$node->title.'"><img width="70" height="70" class="thumbnail" alt="'.$node->title.'" src="'.$img_path.'" /></a>'; }  ?>
			</span>
			<div class="right">
				<h4><a href="<?php print $url; ?>" title="<?php print $node->title; ?>"><?php print $node->title; ?></a></h4>
				<p><?php print get_the_excerpt($text); ?></p>
			</div>
		</li>

So, you can see how they are creating mess with application logic and theme logic, doing raw sql queries from tpl, just to get some more features in their themes.
They also have 'woo' module that does, guess what, thumbnail resizing! (code above: $img_path = image_resizer(get_image($node->files), '70', '70')).
I'm not trying to be offensive, but that really smells like Wordpress/Joomla style to me.

picxelplay’s picture

picxelplay commented

Thanks for pointing that out; and that does suck. Makes me pretty sad actually.

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Sudo Kill Cylons

heine’s picture

heine commented

Do you know the name of the theme? Such code has serious issues and I'd like to contact WooThemes about it.

picxelplay’s picture

picxelplay commented

Ya, it's WooThemes first Drupal template called Bueno, which is free.
http://www.woothemes.com/2009/11/bueno/?cms=drupal

----
Sudo Kill Cylons

Jeff Burnz’s picture

Jeff Burnz commented

yes, thats some bad ass practice alright, lets hope they do some serious work to fix these issues.

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
picxelplay’s picture

picxelplay commented

This is exactly why I am a little scared of template clubs (namely Joomla & Wordpress) coming over into Drupal land. I am afraid they are going to bring their bad practices over here. I just don't want them to make a mess out of our system. But that is a topic for another time. Thanks Heine for contacting them about their theme.

----
Sudo Kill Cylons

ddorian’s picture

ddorian commented

Dont be scared : http://imgur.com/IcCmb.png (check it)
good old days of tables...

Jeff Burnz’s picture

Jeff Burnz commented

Given em hell, using tables is just lame, someone tell them its 2010. Sheesh...

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
ddorian’s picture

ddorian commented

another example: we all use views in our 99% of sites
so if i look at sooperthemes or themesnap templates i find they're build with views in mind
and when i look at this frontpage: http://demo.rockettheme.com/drupal/d_mynxx/
i see that the listing is not a view, or a normal homepage but a NODE , yes check it http://imgur.com/neCDl.png
it also includes inline javascript http://imgur.com/wShFG.png
also when i tried their free theme i couldnt see the admin_menu (it didnt print $closure i think the variable is named) and lots of bugs
thats all i could find but i bet there is more stuff
EDIT:
look at this page:
at first look youll think that is a panel or maybe 2 views and the images are imagecache presets so the top one is a big preset and the other ones small presets but if you click read more youll find that there is no imagecache,
i've worked with joomla before and every joomla template had a table with class:contentpaneopen and this has too http://imgur.com/mYj82.png
so an advice from a guy who likes to buy his templates a little production ready dont bother going with rockettheme or woothemes. I have jet to study joomlart but they have not indexed their nodes in the demo and i cant see the how the searched nodes would look.
they dont have any value even if you rapidshare them

drupal-beuvema’s picture

drupal-beuvema commented

I am planning on implementing a http://www.joomlart.nl drupal template, anyone with testing experience? good or bad?

Regards
beuvema

ddorian’s picture

ddorian commented

i tested some minutes their free theme. i suppose all are build the same way. in drupal there are many engines to make drupal themes. the one almost all of us use (i think 100% of us) is the phptemplate theme that i bundled with drupal itself. joomlart uses their own engine (t3 framework callled i think). i dont know much about engines but i think it is a bad thing. sample: admin_menu will not work out of the box(you need to insert 1 line in the template) and i think many snipets of code and tutorials are for phptemplate engines. I don't know if modules are too(like they dont work with other engines) but you should try their free theme before bying. Myself i prefere only phptemplate themes cause there is more documentation snipets modules everything and everyone is using it.
maybe some1 else can tell you more.

docelder’s picture

docelder commented

I hadn't seen these drupal club templates yet. I am building a first drupal site now. I worked a several hours on it over the weekend loading up drupal and locating modules. Most of the work was locating and figuring out which modules to get and actually how to get pictures to post in the articles. I eventually figured out to turn off filtered text in the ckeditor and there it was. But, it took me a couple of hours to think to try that. First I tried other editors and other image modules thinking there was some conflict. So, from my experience in this so far, admittedly limited, I don't know that drupal will lend itself well to the people who want to buy club templates. Just a first impression.

themes mania’s picture

themes mania commented

Now a days many of the Top Drupal themers are looking to earn by freelance, Theme forest.net is providing them the platform, you dont you contact with them directly? or check out some of the premium Drupal themes like this City Magazine a premium theme which should cost about 250$ but its just for 40$ as per themeforest price, check this out: - http://themeforest.net/item/city-magazine-the-most-advanced-drupal-theme/full_screen_preview/112873

Dont forget to read the comments, they will satisfy you that yes its the right product for your money.

enjoy! :)

Bubb1egum’s picture

Bubb1egum commented

I really wouldn't say "City Magazine" should cost $250 or is a very good example but I guess you must be the author of that one, no offence.
Seriously, it's got nothing on this:
http://themeforest.net/item/cooolzine-magazine-theme-with-drupal-power/f...

On the other hand I agree that http://ThemeForest.net has some really cool looking Drupal themes. My first few templates were made by http://Themeshark.com but ever since I found ThemeForest it was all over.

vfxMaster’s picture

vfxMaster commented

...Rock. Make no mistake.

Drupal themes generally suck.

TY, RocketThemes for showing me how.

bruiseviolet’s picture

bruiseviolet commented

That's how they get around it- they aren't selling the drupal themes. Instead they are selling a "subscription" to their site for x amount of days to be able to access the "free" drupal themes.