Drupal.org: theme garden released

By Bèr Kessels on 22 Apr 2005 at 08:17 UTC

After a few months of running as beta we are now live! The Drupal Theme Garden lost its beta status. The Theme Garden is a place where you can smell the Drupal themes, wander around in very interesting themes, and enjoy Drupal artwork.

The Drupal Theme Garden has all contributed Drupals themes installed so that you can try before you buy (or well, download...). But it features more: we collect interesting themes and designs that are not contributed to drupal.org so that you can experience the power of Drupal's theming system.

So you like lingering in Drupals Theme Garden? Then consider doing some gardening:

We are in need of garden architects, or better: themers. Contribute your themes to drupal.org so that we can make previews from them.
We need weeders. As in any garden, weed is a problem. Moderators should keep an eye on the weed and occasionally takeout their hoe and kill the weeds.
We need bug repellent. We do have some bugs in the garden that eat our leaves and flowers. They need to be squashed by coders and sysadmins.
And last but not least, we need visitors. Without people having a picknick, lingering the shade, or strolling over our paths, the garden has no atmosphere.

Spread the word.

Comments

4.5.2 themes only ?

micha_1977 commented 22 April 2005 at 08:41

at least it looks like

-micha
work in progress with Drupal 4.6: langmi.de

not really

silverwing commented 22 April 2005 at 09:00

There really aren't that many 4.6 themes. (If you have some, then submit them!)

There are a few themes in the queue waiting for approval. (And there's still a need for people to get involved...)

silverwing

www.misguidedthoughts.com

upgrade only after mayority of themes is ported

Bèr Kessels commented 22 April 2005 at 11:06

As you all might know a theme garden without themes makes no sense. So untill at least as much themes as we have now (19) are available for installation, we willnot upgrade.

So if you want to see newer themes online, give us a hand and port a theme to 4.6.

---
If this solved you

problem, please report back. This will help others whom are looking for the same solution.
Next time, please consider to file a support request.

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

Login error

Duplika commented 22 April 2005 at 09:03

I've been checking the site for a while now. Great news to have it linked from the homepage.
Well, i tried to login with my Drupal ID with no success. I tried to retrieve my password, and the following error appeared.
"Fatal error: Duplicate entry '' for key 2 query: INSERT INTO users (pass, created, changed, uid, data) VALUES ('33a6f1908cc5dd877544fa1cc4e1f6fc', '1114160613', '1114160613', '251', 'N;') in /home/webschuur/www/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 125"

is known.

Bèr Kessels commented 22 April 2005 at 11:02

this is a known bug. We are hunting this issue, but have not yet found what causes it.
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If this solved you problem, please report back. This will help others whom are looking for the same solution.
Next time, please consider to file a support request.

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

It's a great initiative, but

iraszl commented 22 April 2005 at 10:41

It's a great initiative, but it's full of bugs at he moment... :(
I'd like to design and contribute with themes very soon.
---
http://creativebits.org

full of bugs: A little exaggerated.

Bèr Kessels commented 22 April 2005 at 11:01

we have one. And we spent a lot of time hunting it down, but still did not manage to squash it.

Feel free to help, though ;)

---
If this solved you problem, please report back. This will help others whom are looking for the same solution.
Next time, please consider to file a support request.

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

Bug tracker for theme garden?

omar commented 22 April 2005 at 15:47

Ber,

Where is the bug tracker for this project. There are some features that I'd like to suggest and can't find where to put them. e.g.

- When adding details it may be good to allow users to specify the Drupal and browser versions it has been tested with.

- The difference between a "theme" and a "theme contribution" is not sufficiently clear.

- The theme switcher appears to be empty to me.

- I am getting logged out regularly (BTW, I am using my drupal id to log in).

In any case, thanks for this cool initiative!

Sorry, I didn't mean to be

iraszl commented 22 April 2005 at 20:24

Sorry, I didn't mean to be mean. I was probably exceptionally unlucky because out of 5 clicks I had 2 errors, so I left the site. However when visiting it again now I couldn't reproduce any of those errors.

I'll help where I can. Hopefully sending you themes...
---
http://creativebits.org

Hmmmm... anonymous users cannot view other themes?

Steven Mansour commented 22 April 2005 at 19:13

When I click on http://themes.drupal.org/themeswitcher, I get no content.

Also, wouldn't it just make more sense to have a proper screenshots/demo section in the Drupal theme download area so that visitors don't need to go to another site to view what the theme will look like?

To me, having a theme showcase seperate from the Drupal site comes across as being of dubious value..

To make matters worse, some of the themes there are not being shared and seem to be protected under outrageous copyright rules. What ever happened to the Drupal open-source spirit? :\

Keeping themes secret

Steven commented 23 April 2005 at 01:49

Even Drupal.org's own theme, Bluebeach, is protected.

The fact is, graphic design is not as easily shared as code. When you use Drupal to set up a site, then Drupal is the tool. A template or theme on the other hand is more part of the end-product.

A site's theme is an integral part of its identity. And it's not just about the logo at the top: it's about colors, light, contrast, fonts, spacing and structure. A well-balanced design should feel 'at home'. Returning visitors should feel familiar. If you copy a design like this, then you damage the original site's brand identity.

Furthermore it takes a lot of time to develop a good theme. This is why high-quality open-source themes for Drupal are so hard to find. Theming Drupal is not like WordPress where you create two .html skeleton templates for blog entries and a blog list and have a theme. In Drupal, you need to accomodate tons of different possible content. It's exponentially more work.

Doing all that only to have your design re-used a hundred times is quite disappointing I can tell you. It is much more rewarding when your design makes one particular site look really special, so people always go there. It is also not as fun or inspiring to do a generic theme: recently I designed a theme for a mac-oriented site, and included various subtle Mac references in it. If it was for any other site, it would be an "Apple knock-off". But because it matches the site's subject, it suddenly becomes interesting.

The idea of sharing themes for learning and modification is certainly noble, but experience shows that "for learning purposes only" clauses are rarely respected, while "must be modified significantly" usually means they change the colors a bit. Some people don't want to learn about HTML/CSS, they want something that looks just like "site X" and if they get it, then they're happy. Even with copyright notices, stealing happens (and has happened to drupal.org too).

When you think about it, the most important aspects of a theme (images, html and css) are already public. You are not allowed to copy them (because of copyright), but you can still check out the source to see how a particular theme does something. If you want to learn, everything is there already. If you just want a single package that you can plonk on your site, then you'll be disappointed.

When Bluebeach was installed on drupal.org, many people wanted it to be released so they could learn from it. But almost all questions were about simple CSS things that had nothing to do with Drupal. Every technique used in the theme has been documented somewhere.

I'm personally very happy with those 'outrageous copyright rules'.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

^.^

rivena commented 23 April 2005 at 03:48

Steven is a little biased because he makes most of the beautiful themes you see for Drupal, including the one for Drupal.org. He makes them like a work of art, and certainly, if you consider it that way, you wouldn't want them copied.

I hope that ThemeGarden encourages people to make more themes for everyone to use, however, and perhaps even improving the themeing process itself.

Anisa.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Kindness builds stronger bonds than necessity.

www.animecards.org - 15,000 card scans and counting!
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Huh?

dors commented 24 April 2005 at 20:18

Would anybody care to explain to me why my posting was deleted? I fail to see on what grounds that happend?

theme gallery

bertboerland commented 22 April 2005 at 19:18

FYI: slightly related to the excelent theme garden, the theme gallery. Hmm, do we need to integrate these?
--
groets
bertb

--
groets
bert boerland

Links from theme to theme download...

tatonca commented 22 April 2005 at 20:52

You have a notice about downloading themes, (or not downloading themes ;) ) on theme garden, which I was going to comment on but I thought I would post here instead -

How difficult would it be to just put a link back to the theme's project page on drupal.org? I think this keeps with your mandate of theme garden as showcase, but makes it easy for someone who starts off "browsing" then decides to "buy". I think ultimately it also fulfills the request to have theme previews with the project pages -

Perhaps as well, project owners could use the demonstration link field to point back to theme garden, possibly directly to their themes node?

Just some thoughts...

We now use flexinode.

Bèr Kessels commented 23 April 2005 at 20:52

I added a " download URL" field. We now need moderators to edit the descriptions and add the correct urls to the correct themes...... ;)

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

Ok I'm in...

tatonca commented 24 April 2005 at 16:37

where do I sign up? ;)

Whatever help you need, just let me know...

~Tat~

Not all themes are there

kbahey commented 23 April 2005 at 02:48

Three themes that I helped port from CivicSpace (Drupal 4.4) to both 4.5 and 4.6 are not included.

They are all Chris Messina designs.

Lincoln's Revenge, SpreadFireFox and Democratica.
--
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Personal: Baheyeldin.com

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Personal blog: Ba

Submit them

Steven commented 23 April 2005 at 03:18

Ber is a busy guy ;). If you submit the theme to the site, you take care of assembling all the information + screenshot. Then only approval / installation is needed.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

Actually..

adrian commented 23 April 2005 at 05:32

I think there are more 4.6 themes now than 4.5 ones.
--
The future is so Bryght, I have to wear shades.

No, still only ten

Bèr Kessels commented 24 April 2005 at 13:57

I just checked, and there were only ten released. We have 19 themes online now, so if we get nine more themes, we will upgrade.

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

drupal really needs some

philipk commented 24 April 2005 at 17:03

drupal really needs some classy perfect looking css templates..

how about a competition of some sort, member submit $5, then the contributors have access to 'drupal gold' templates.. the winners of the competition share the money...

need something simple like
http://www.macthemes.net/

Drupal theming

Steven commented 24 April 2005 at 17:10

There are a couple of nice themes arleady out there (e.g. my own FriendsElectric, more on the theme garden).

But the fact is that Drupal theming is a lot more work than theming say WordPress or MovableType: for those systems, you just need to theme two pages (blog list and blog post). In Drupal, there are so much more possibilities. A generic theme needs to deal with all them: tables, forms, fieldsets, forums, etc. Thus is it a lot more work to theme Drupal. Ported templates, like the Kubrick theme, tend to be too rigid and rather unoptimal.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

Kongratulations! I tolya you better be ready for ....\

leblank@cyberocity.com commented 25 April 2005 at 02:42

... lots of traffic. :) And, look at all the healthy debate you have generated!

Around here, we don't use hoes to pull weeds, tho ... whassuuup!

Gimme a shout if you need any help. I think you can contact me by email ...
---------------
LeBlank

RSS on the garden ?

munga commented 25 April 2005 at 02:48

I would have posted this on the garden forum, but it seems
that the auth via drupal.org doesn't work for me...

anyway... It would be nice to have an RSS feed of the themeswitcher
and get a new item for every new theme or update...

There already are RSS feeds.

Bèr Kessels commented 4 May 2005 at 08:41

They are still hard to find, but its on our todolist to make them easier to find. Its quite low on that list, though.

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

check out hacking drupal.org url post

freyquency commented 5 November 2005 at 04:37

I made a forum post linking to specific taxonomies here on drupal.org. Each page has an RSS link at the bottom, something I still find incredibly handy. http://drupal.org/node/16489

A lot of new themes

Bèr Kessels commented 4 May 2005 at 08:46

I just installed about ten more themes. Come in and have a a look!

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

Anyone else having problems connecting?

stardal commented 17 July 2005 at 21:31

Anyone else experiencing problems connecting to that site?

down

sepeck commented 17 July 2005 at 22:26

themes is down for now. seperate issue, but still down.

-sp
---------
Test site...always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

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

still down

Anonymous (not verified) commented 2 November 2005 at 17:34

Wonder what happened. Bers, what's going on?

Still working on the new

sepeck commented 2 November 2005 at 18:49

Dries is still working on the new Infrastructure servers and accounts and permissions for Drupal.org. Prepping to transfer CVS and testing mail in preperation for moving mail servers over. Themes is on the to do list. ;)

-sp
---------
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}

well

drewish commented 13 November 2005 at 05:40

the mailing lists have been moved. hopefully the theme garden will get taken care of soon.

I would like to implement

capmex commented 16 November 2005 at 05:46

I would like to implement this kind of functionality in a drupal project I'm developing. Do someone know if it's possible to get the code behind theme garden?
--
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Me too...

toddgator commented 7 July 2006 at 20:54

Did you ever figure this out, campmex?
Anyone know if there is a module that works?

Thanks,
Todd

My blog | Templates and graphics

Only on cvs

capmex commented 8 July 2006 at 00:58

I find out the themeswitcher module, the one behind drupal's theme garden site, it worked on drupal 4.6.x.

Here's the link:
http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/sandbox/ber/themeswit...

Shame...

toddgator commented 13 July 2006 at 16:30

It's a shame that they aren't making this for 4.7. It is a nice feature that many other CMSs have. Thanks.

Cheers,
Todd

My blog | Unlimited templates and graphics | Web Hosting | Instant PHP websites | Stock Photos

Feel free to contact Ber

sepeck commented 13 July 2006 at 17:26

Feel free to contact Ber with patches to update it to 4.7. Because it would be a shame if no one offered to help. There is no 'they'. It is 'us'. That 'us' includes you and me. If you would like a feature, then please help make that feature a reality. Making comments about how 'they' arn't doing for 'you' doesn't get the work done.

In any case, there are a number of different methods to switch themes depending on how and when you want to accomplish this. Drupal has built in the ability for logged on users to change their theme. This is built in already. In addition you can build a theme switch into your theme itself such as is used in the Meta theme. You can look at the way Micheal did it as well.

-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}

You're right...

toddgator commented 13 July 2006 at 21:05

Sorry. I shouldn't have put my last post in those terms. I have not contributed enough to the project to complain that others aren't updating their contributions regularly. Who has time?

A style switcher isn't ideal for me since I am looking to develop some new Drupal themes and I am looking for an environment to test them out. Perhaps just using the built-in function switching function will be adequate, but I wish I could post a link like example.com/theme/snowboard which would then auto-magically switch to the snowboard theme.

I'll be sure to post the code if I ever figure this one out!

Cheers,
Todd

My blog | Unlimited templates and graphics | Web Hosting | Instant PHP websites | Stock Photos