By Mike@frazierhome.net on

Ok, This may not be a big deal to all of you, but I just wanted to say I finally finished my conversion of FrazierHome.net to Drupal 4.3.0 and from the Interlaced Theme to the Xtemplate theme. I've modified the Xtemplate css file so that it looks quite a bit like the Blue Interlaced theme (style 1) which I really liked, but it has the functionality of the Xtemplate theme.

This is my first time at really hacking into a CSS file, so I'm pretty happy with being able to figure this all out... ;)

Comments

mwexler’s picture

mwexler commented

Perhaps you can either post your changes, share them with the developer list, or put them on your site? Your site look looks very smooth, and I know others could benefit from seeing how you achieved this...

Michael

kennysto’s picture

kennysto commented

At the risk of getting slated by the drupal community it dosent really look a lot different to the standard theme does it.? Why do drupal sites look so similar.? I apologise to the owner of this site for using his as an example because I really mean it as a general observation. I thought the eastoftheweb site had done something nice until I realised i was not actually looking at the drupal version. The only visually interesting application I have found is urlgreyhot.

Is this because the main user base are web developers? Development of functionality will be a never ending quest and is of course important for someone like me who cannot program, but at the same time I feel I am being left behind because I am unable to effectively control what is already there.

robert castelo’s picture

robert castelo commented

I agree that most Drupal sites could do with a little more design flair.

Here's some that do look distinct:

Brainstorm
Tigers For Tomorrow
XTCP
Cortext Communications (my site!)

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Drupal Specialists: Consulting, Development & Training

Robert Castelo, CTO
Code Positive
London, United Kingdom
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nolageek’s picture

nolageek commented

I'm in the middle of moving my site from postnuke to drupal. You can see the old one here. The new one is here. There's still some more things I'm trying to figure out.

Does XStory work with taxonomy?

Vincent

boris mann’s picture

boris mann commented

Unless you actually go in and edit the base .xtmpl file, all the sites will look basically identical.

However, you pretty much have maximum flexibility by editing the .xtmpl, which can even be edited in something like Dreamweaver.

My site looks a little different, or at least it's hard to tell that it's using Xtemplate underneath. I'm looking forward to 4.4, where the Xtemplate theme will have support for selecting the .xtmpl file to use, making it even easier to play around with different layouts.

Don't despair -- we're getting there! (hah -- sounds like a slogan...)

Mike@frazierhome.net’s picture

Mike@frazierhome.net commented

I've posted my modified XTemplate CSS if anyone wants to look at it or use it: frazierhome_xtemplate.css

kbahey’s picture

kbahey commented

MegaGrunt listed some Drupal sites that do look different.

This all shows the power of CSS when used properly.

Check this web site which dynamically changes its look by just selecting a new CSS file, keeping the content exactly the same.

CSS Zen Garden (select different designs and see how the site will look radically different)

xtemplate has the potential of doing the same thing.

Drupal is now the domain of developers. Once the visual design people jump on the bandwagon, we will see all sort of visually different web sites, running the same code, from ugly to plain to nice to stunning.

It will happen, just give it some time.

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