Help Dox for SASS implementation in subthemes

What missing most for me is some sense of how to organize sub theme files.

As a non ruby/commandline designer/themer, with a bit of dev help, I've spent quite a bit of time and getting through various roadblocks to be able to get to the point of being able to work with zurb and compass at a static level.

Chiefly I had to come to terms with the way that foundation and compass style code is actually stored mysteriously 'elsewhere' (ruby framework libraries) and not within the theme where I could see it. Though that isn't explained (adequately to the likes of me( in compass, zurb or third party documentation, I now get that, and it makes a lot of sense. The way in which the @imports and partials work is also confusing, but I'm getting there on that

Given the 'frameworkness' approach of zurb and compass , i'm less clear of the value of having a separate sub theme. In the past I've been a big practitioner of sub theming, but here it strikes me that compass and zurb really are the master theme.

Specifically, it appears sub theme style is to completely replace the master theme styling, and this seems to make much of the mast theme redundant. Am I right here?

Either way, it would still help enormously to have a sample sub theme as part of the package. Any chance of that soon?

And if I can get my head around that.. the offer still stand to help with dox to help non devs like myself get to grips with this easier

(Apologies re the previous 'urgency' - have been somewhat dependent on getting this sussed for all my d7 theming, and in that sense 'mission critical' for my project, but in the end it all just had to go on hold. now back at the coalface)

Another thing that I think will be helpful is to have documented is some clarity on how this theme differentiates from the static foundation package. For instance the static version has a 'central' app.scss importing _settings.scss etc

but this theme has screen.scss importing "compass/reset";

Is there any clear advantage in implementing stylesheets so differently from the zurb static version? And if so can we have it clearly documented what those differences are and why they are there?

Additionally - following up my earlier comments, in screen.scss we have:
* In this file you should write your main styles. (or centralize your imports)

However, if I remember right, the readme says to not do anything to the parent theme and do all styling in the subtheme. So I'm mighty confused about where to do what here. For now, I'm figuring i should flag the sub theme and just do everything an a forked main theme, until I can understand how these are supposed to relate to each other.

I'm coming back to this after some months.

Firstly thanks for the detailed responses above. But I had to put this aside for a while- I was simply stuck getting my little designer brain around the intangibility of importables that are located 'somewhere' that isn't in the theme, had issues with missing mixins, and had to just move on and do the best I could with SASS and a bit of foundation hackery on my projects. I have taken some comfort that css guru Chris Coyer had a similar experience - just had to put off Compass and make the most of sass in the meantime.

Re documentation - I am developing cheatsheets which may ultimately have some value - starting with abroad overview of how compass, zurb (and FWIW bourbon) framework elements complement each other. I just need to be a bit more confident about my own understanding before any of my dox will be worth sharing. And once I do have a better conceptual understanding I'll be sure to put some more effort into making the path easier for other non-developers, by way of guides or whatever.

And now it's the new year, and I'm more determined to do this thing properly, though despite buying books and watching videos and dissecting files and code, some key things remain very opaque. Particularly as the theme readme is strong on tpl customisation - (it's standard theming info really), but there's nothing on stylesheet management:

Mainly it's still not clear to me how the 'in-theme' foundation scss files relate to the 'in-GEM' foundation and compass files. There is some correlation between [theme]/sass/foundation-style/*.scss and my /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/zurb-foundation-3.2.3/scss/foundation/components/modules/*.scss, but also some notable differences.

Do I understand this correctly: That with the current implementation, the [theme]/sass/foundation-style files are essentially overrides (bypassing the GEM files) in order to play nicely within drupal, and that outside of these files, all foundation (and compass) imports are from the GEM?

Thanks again.

I've also been thinking ahead to what overall documentation would help designers, or non GEM savvy developers be able to easily get on top of a Foundation / Compass based theme. Specifically I'd suggest the following components:

• Instructions that clearly delineate CSS and SASS based usage, including avoiding potential confusion between app.css and foundation.min.css
• A rundown of the theme based stylesheets and their purpose
• A rundown of the GEM based stylesheets and their purpose
• A rundown of the files included
• Sample 'developed' workflow subthemes for both CSS and SASS workflows (STARTER, while a good foundational subtheme, isn't adequate as a guide as to what to do with it). Need not be pretty
• Cheatsheet of (gem-based) foundation and compass importables. To be non-theme specific, ie of potential value to non-drupal foundation users - there have been many requests for this across the boards
• Contextual information on the foundation/compass philosophical approach in comparison with bootstrap, bourbon, susy etc.

These different components could be available a a zipped kit, and/or inline content within drupal.org. Best to keep thse out of the theme codebase (don't want parent theme updates adding a bunch of dox cruft to production sites). However the readme.txt should be updated to include some basic info on the stylesheets as well as the current tpl info, and refer to the fuller dox online.

Strong documentation has been a big part of Zen's popularity (thogh FWIW, I've never been so found of the theme itself) and I do think that if comparable resources, or more were were available for this Foundation theme, then it would see far greater take up by the people who will be able to do most with it: designers.

As above, I'm now in a situation were I can contribute to this, as long as I personally have a baseline of understanding in some key areas. If, as has been indicated, the maintainers are receptive to this, a possible way forward is that I simply get on with drafting parts of the above, and submit it to the maintainers for correction. Even if I get a lot wrong, it will at least be documentation developed and structured from the POV of the kind of user who needs it most and can easily be knocked into shape with minimal effort from the maintainers. Of course I'd prefer to not do this completely in the dark, so some communication upfront would be helpful.

As I say, this is finally a good time for me to be working on this, before project demands escalate, so please let me know if this is agreeable. And if so, perhaps Priority/Status could be changed to Normal/Active :) ?