By drupalem on

Having tried both Joomla and Drupal, the more I use Drupal, the more I fall in love with it. (not to mention coming from the Macintosh background Drupal's elegance, logic, philosophy just "clicks" in my head!). It's remarkable considering that at the beginning of my trial of both Joomla & Drupal, I was brand new to the world of CMS. But one thing that I am flabbergasted and frustrated about is the severe shortage of designer themes for Drupal. In the case of Joomla for example the list of sources is pretty long (Yoothemes, Shape 5, Bonusthemes, Joomlajunkie, Rocketthemes, themelayout... the list goes on). Come to Drupal and one is left to scrounge! (I did find a few sources such as TemplateMonster who recently started converting some of their Joomla templates to Drupal, but there are very few sources like that) I am not a programmer but does anyone know why there is such profusion of themes in the Joomla world but such scarcity of designer themes in the Drupal world? - does it have anything to do with the level of difficulty in creating themes in Drupal Vs. Joomla (I know from reading the docs that Drupal 6 simplified it over past versions)...?

...Which brings me to this: Considering that I am very good at following well written documentation but not a code happy geek :o) how difficult is it to take a modern graphically pleasing CSS/XHTML theme from say http://www.dreamtemplate.com/index.php?action=viewall&Total=15&Start=30 and start converting it to Drupal 6? What does it involve? Can anyone please take the time to kindly explain? (I am sure it would also help others who are in the same quandary as I am - and I know there are quite a few out there :o) )

Also is there a source that anyone knows about where you can take a theme of the calibre available at DreamTemplates or TemplateMonster etc. and have it converted to Drupal 6? What does it cost typically (without breaking the bank, eh, ehe )?

Eventhough I am in love with Drupal, I am considering implementing a client site in Joomla, just because there are hundreds of choices in templates there. I really wish that wasn't the case (I mean I love the fact that theme designers have taken their time, resources and skills to create great themes for Joomla - it's really great that there are so many choices there. But I wish I wasn't driven to Joomla due to lack of Drupal themes!) I hope this situation will change.

Kenneth.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

I know exactly what you mean-- I'm hoping the recent spate of sites adding drupal themes to their offerings is going to continue to grow until drupal has the same type of theming sites that joomla has.

That being said, the conversion is not all that difficult and I'm sure you could probably find some drupalistas willing to do it for payment. However, here's some links for your perusal pleasure:

Specifically about going from PSD or CSS theme to drupal:

About theming in general:

I realize most the links refer to d5, but the basics of the theming system are very similar.

===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Search is your best friend." -- Worldfallz

drupalem’s picture

drupalem commented

I especially liked the PSD to Drupal theme Tutorial series by Alexa. Yep! one of these days when I get some time, I am going going to get my hands dirty! Thanks a lot to Alexa for taking the time to share the knowledge! They are quite easy to follow. The other ones... hmm... still very useful but need more time to sink in!

Well I've got a good head start now, so off I go...

Thanks

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

weird--- dup post.

drupalem’s picture

drupalem commented

I'll be sure to check them out!
What's "Weird--- dup post"? Watcha referring to?!

WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

My post showed up twice--- don't think I double-clicked by accident, but there it was two times. So I edited it and removed the content.

===
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Lao Tzu
"God helps those who help themselves." -- Benjamin Franklin
"Search is your best friend." -- Worldfallz

-Anti-’s picture

-Anti- commented

subscribing

drupalem’s picture

drupalem commented

Come on, it's an important topic:o)

d_l’s picture

d_l commented

o.k. .. as a relative newcomer to Drupal having first played around with Joomla ..

here is what I am attempting ..

to hack an existing baseline theme (in my case Garland) to create "newtheme"

to create custom "flash objects" (to be added as assets in Drupal) using opensource flash IDE

to introduce custom built "flash objects" into "newtheme" menus (top, left, right)

to parse into "flashvars" the menu items and php variables created during content management

to use swfobject.js as my flashobject embedding script

to introduce flash objects into main content

to style the flash objects by imported xml dataset

...

I am part way through this experiment, "newtheme" is now cloned from "Garland" and I can include flashobjects by enabling PHPfilter.

...