By edenb on

Hey everybody,

I want to build a community site.
I have technical and programming skills, and I really like Drupal :)

My question is where to start?

Should I first design a mock-up, implement this mock-up on ZEN sub theme (html & css files), and then build the site on top of the theme?

OR, first I need to build the site on Drupal (using which theme?), and design it?

please, I will really appreciate it if you can answer my question and explain me what/why, because I am pretty stuck right now.

Thanks,

Eden

⋅ Categories: Drupal 7.x, Drupal 8.x

Comments

andyguzman’s picture

andyguzman commented

Mock-ups certainly aren't going to hurt to do first, as it will give you some direction as you are building out a site.

That being said, I would go from mock-up to functionality, and then worry about the theme last. Get Drupal installed and start setting up all the modules/content types/etc. that will make the site do what you intend it to. Drop in some real or dummy content, and then get to work making work the way you want it to. The default theme that comes with Drupal 7 will do a good job of letting you see how everything works and should get the job done until you're ready to tackle the custom design.

Once everything is in place, functionality wise, you can get to work on a sub-theme or your own from scratch theme to make the site look the way you want, and you'll have everything in place to style properly. If you start with the theme/design, you're going to be writing a lot of CSS for stuff that doesn't exist yet, which means you're going to be re-visiting the design after you've built the functionality anyway.

bander2’s picture

bander2 commented

I agree with everything andyguzman said and just want to emphasize how important it is to start with a mockup. They help keep you on track.

- Brendan

joseonate’s picture

joseonate commented

Thumbs up as well. I would say that the theme goes last for the obvious reason that CSS styling is best performed on elements that are already on the page. Order of things:
1. Mockups - at least front page and 1 generic internal page
2. Site prototype - start configuring the website and populating with content
3. Theme implementation