theme development start up
Howdy,
I'm new to Drupal and web development in general, though I've used SQL, PHP, HTML
some in the past. Some of the problems I've had were discovered to be a result of
the theme I was using. IE: (Drupal V-6.12) Logo and Name appear in the header in
theme BASIC, but the logo disappears in theme COLORFULLNESS, while theme WARMY
replaces my logo with it's own unless I replace the logo in the WAMRY directory - all
regardless of the configuration settings, both global and for the theme. I spent quite a
bit of time chasing ghosts before I began to understand the relationship and interactions
of the themes, blocks, permissions, and configurations.
I understand that this is all part of the fexibility of Drupal and that's cool. Here're
my questions:
1. Is there a way to tell what a particular theme is going to do without
actually playing with it?
2. Are there any plans to provide some kind of overall organization
for the themes on Drupal's site to help with this? There are so many that it takes all
day just to page through them. The effort involved in actually testing them to see if
they do what you want is prohibative.
3. Is there any plan in the future to provide a tool to develop or alter themes for the
average developer which doesn't require a lot of expertise in HTML, CSS, PHP, and whatever
else you need to know? I can easily concieve of a GUI shell that would let you place the
regions, configure them, etc., which would then generate the necessary code.
4. Do I have to become an expert in HTML and CSS to develop themes?
Thanks
1. Is there a way to tell
Not really, unless the project owner has made it very clear on the project page or in their documentation.
Yes, the Drupal redesign is making huge changes and it will be much better. You will likley still need to test them, that's just part of the process of theme selection.
This has been somewhat addressed in the commercial world by the Artiseer software. There also exists a bunch of modules in contrib that combined can be used to achieve something pretty close - Panels + Contemplate spring to mind but there are many others to help with site layout and output. Sorry I don't know very many of them because I dont use them.
In short, depends on what you mean by "develop themes". If you mean for others to download and use, then yes, absolutely. However, if you mean modify an existing theme, such as a starter theme like Genesis or the Basic theme, then no, you can get by on rudimentary skills only and get something looking pretty darn good given enough time and effort.
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