By joejoe04 on

I am planning on making a site based on version 6.2. I plan to base it on the Garland Theme, but I am going to modify the CSS quite extensively, and will also be making some changes to the template.php and .tpl.php files to change some of the HTML output. I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for ways to make these modifications so that when Drupal 7 comes out, the upgrade process is as easy as possible.

As an example, in my CSS files, I am considering making all changes below the default code. To clarify, say there is already a rule that says:

div#squeeze{
  margin:0 200px;
  }

...My plan would be that if I wanted to change this, I would not change the rule there, I would just add the following at the bottom of the CSS file:

div#squeeze{
 margin:0 100px;
  }

I know this would bloat the file, but it seems like it would make the upgrade process easier because I could just copy and paste whatever code I added at the end of the old CSS file into the new CSS file when upgrading.

So I'm just looking for anyones thoughts on that, and also any other tips for how to best make changes to CSS, template.php, and .tpl.php files so that those changes complicate the upgrade process as little as possible.

I thank anyone who has some thoughts on this in advance.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

-Anti-’s picture

-Anti- commented

subscribing to the thread.

From what I've read so far, I'd create a 'sub-theme' of Garland which contained all the edits and over-rides.
But what I don't know is, when Garland itself is updated during the upgrade to v7.x, would that be likely to break the sub-theme?

Rudolf-1’s picture

Rudolf-1 commented

To create a custom theme, you might be far better off starting from Zen, which was actually created for the purpose, which is well documented, and which now even comes with a starter kit.

joejoe04’s picture

joejoe04 commented

Thank you guys both for your comments. I have actually just been reading up a little on the sub-themes, and they seem like a really powerful option. I think I will likely be using them. I haven't heard about or tried Zen yet, but I am certainly going to try that as well.

Thanks again guys.