Web Design Tools (Pre-Drupal Admin)
Hello gang. I am new to web development (although I am an applications programmer for over a decade, so the learning curve is not that great). As a newbie to web development, I'm not familiar with all the developer/designer tools available and what each one offers (pros/cons).
Today, I am mainly interested in finding out how many of you begin your website design and implement that into a Drupal Theme (i.e. concept, mock-up, and then into reality). Essentially, I would like to know which development tools do you guys/gals use to mock up a website and then implement XHTML and CSS for the theming? Any other information is appreciated.
I am beginning to understand theming, thanks in part to the excellent book Pro Drupal Development and many of the great posts and documentation on this community website.
I've found a great tutorial on using Illustrator, splicing the images, creating the XHTML/CSS, and importing into Drupal, however, I feel this might be the long way around to getting a theme up and running (from concept to reality).
I think I might like to use an Adobe product (i.e. Fireworks, GoLive, CS3, et al), but am not sure at this point. Please, if any of you might like to share your design development tools and some pros and cons of each, that would be superb. I feel many new Drupal developers like myself could benefit.
Regards,
~K
OS?
Apple or Windows? You'll get two different sets of answers.
I use Apple for my theme development. I have an old copy of Fireworks that I use for graphics (it really goes get the job done!) and TextMate for creating the theme. (Here's an article about theme tools for apple.
On my windows machine I use Crimson Editor for the coding. (Could use Notepad++.)
~silverwing
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Land of Midnight | MisguidedThoughts | showcaseCMS
I've got all OS types
I've got all OS types available to me, but I would prefer to work on Windows for theme/web design development. My Mac I use mainly for my music needs. My unix/linux OS I use for developmental needs (application devel).
Whilst I haven't made my own
Whilst I haven't made my own themes I do modify the ones I use, usually totally modified & a few things added.
(at some point I'll really have to get into theming & learning enough php to get it right, I'm fine with graphics, colour concepts but the php stuff make my brain go treacle)
My work tools are photoshop (no problems for slicing if you like that sort of thing), dreamweaver (although since using drupal I only use it to set up small things & experimenting things like gallery layouts) & notepad++ for coding.
There are also some useful css tools around.
TopStyle (does a free version called TopStyleLite) : http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/tslite/
CSSVista (live previews) : http://litmusapp.com/labs
SimpleCSS (mac + windows versions) : http://www.hostm.com/css/
The program I think that could be really good for theming, especially if you are a programmer, is Aptana Studio : http://www.aptana.com/
they also have some excellent reference guides for CSS, HTML & Javascript : http://support.aptana.com/
(I captured the whole css & html guides into scrapbook as they are so useful to have around).
The other essential tools are the Firebug extension & Web Develloper Toolbar extension in Firefox.
Firebug is the more powerful but Web Devellopper Toolbar has some nice tools especially the display tools which will outline or show all the different regions, blocks etc.
Finally I guess this must be the perfect tool for drupal theming : Devel : http://drupal.org/project/devel
And for the epilogue a few good sites about html & css -
HTML Dog Very clear & well written docs on html & css : http://www.htmldog.com/
CSSPlay Interesting experiments & work using css. http://www.cssplay.co.uk/
CSS Help Pile The scribble page is a real resource on everything css : http://www.artypapers.com/csshelppile/scribble.php
Not sure if any of this helps you but perhaps it'll help someone ?
Hmmm, Aptana looks pretty
Hmmm, Aptana looks pretty awesome. Is there any way to configure Aptana to play nice with Drupal?
I don't know how to do this,
I don't know how to do this, as I said, php & programming is beyond me, but when I tried aptana it made me wish to dig a bit more deeply.
But as a programmer, you should be able to work it out.
I couldn't find much info on setting it up to work with drupal but people do use it.
Found this : http://tarnaeluin.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/drupal-6-theme-positioning/
I just looked & as it's an Eclipse based app possibly this guide in drupal dojo could be of use :
How to Succesfully Incorporate Eclipse IDE into a Drupal Workflow
also there's a good guide here : Development tools
Has a good explanation one for Eclipse & drupal
I think I've got them playing together nicely
I've posted this else where but here it is as well. A screen cast for setting up a drupal project in Aptana.
Jing Aptana Screen Cast
All comments welcome.
Code Assist?
Hi Phil,
Nice screencast.
Have you gotten the Code Assist functions working for PHP and Drupal based PHP libraries?
beren erchamion
http://tarnaeluin.wordpress.com/
Hi Beren
I think I've got the code assist working fro the core PHP and JScript libraries, but I don't think the Drupal libraries. If anyone has any tips that would be great.
Ok - that's where I'm at
Ok - that's where I'm at too. I have JQuery stuff working too.
To me aptana is definitely the way to go; I know alot of PHP guru's would disagree and instead use textpad or emacs. What would be great is for these guys to realize that to drive adoption they should move over and use these tools that the "new guys" use so that their expertise can be added in and drive everyone forward.
beren erchamion
http://tarnaeluin.wordpress.com/