By ThatOtherGuy on

i wasn't sure how to title this thread, so its probably not very clear.

thus, allow me to explain.

my site has (or will have) a series of sections run by different artists. One of the most important issues is that each of their sections has a unique visual design all to itself. So, essentially, i need a CMS that will allow for a series of differently designed 'sites', unified under a single community (forum, frontpage blog, etc).

I had actually planned on designing something myself, but after brushing up on the topic, i've decided to see if there's any way to accomplish this with a 3rd party system. So, what i'd like to know, is whether there's any particular way anyone can think of accomplishing what i've outlined above.

I'm not too picky. I'd be thankful to anyone who could recommend a means of even approaching this.

I'm sorry if my question seems ill-informed or obtuse, but after playing with Drupal (and some other CMS) for a while, it seems something that i'll have to 'learn' a little more before making a real decision. If this isnt something that could be accomplished with Drupal, i'd certainly be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction.

Thanks, and here's to hoping this has made sense.

Comments

Hutchison’s picture

Hutchison commented

Let me preface all this by saying I'm relatively new to Drupal, but I'll try to help.

Firstly, its not clear what content you want the artists sites to have. Drupal has built-in capability for user blogs. It also has a great hook system when customizing modules, including a _header hook which is great for adding css files. This is key.

Of course, a different css file can create an entirely different look. You could extend the blog module by adding a _header hook that adds the user's unique css file, perhaps using their UID (e.g. "/misc/css/artist_$uid.css"). Each artist then can upload their own css files (more mods needed there if you want that inside Drupal I think).

If you're good enough to think you could do it from scratch, you definitely can do this with Drupal imho, and gain from the robustness of Drupal's core.

ThatOtherGuy’s picture

ThatOtherGuy commented

thanks very much for your reply. this is exactly the sort of functionality i'm looking for (well, pending a mite of research and source-code perusal).

matt westgate’s picture

matt westgate commented

Drupal doesn't do this out of the box, but it would pretty easy to add this functionality and, as Hutchison mentions, allow users to create their own css files. i haven't used it, but i think the style module is trying to perform a similar task.

If that doesn't work and you have the gumption to create your own module, then you'll want to study the head hook and user hooks (i can't find documentation for these, see the blog module and profile module in the Drupal core for user hook examples).

Your job would also be easier using the latest CVS HEAD code since a new file upload and management API was recently added, making css file upload even easier.

cat ivan’s picture

cat ivan commented

happy new year all!

I'm trying to have one site with a different theme for some "sections" (my taxonomy).

I hope that style.module can help me filter nodes (some static, some stories) and apply a different theme as required.

I think to avoid doing it via including different style sheets since my users are liable to use a variety of browser versions. I can make the two themes similar, but at this point they have different layout.

Any suggestions are appreciated; at this point I wonder what is "style module support"; is that in a theme or a module?

my level: I've developed a small module for managing a site-specific database. I don't know enough about themes, and find little clear info about them. PHP is no problem; dev time is :(

ThatOtherGuy’s picture

ThatOtherGuy commented

the readme specifies that the polder and basic files support the style module. I'm still researching myself.

Thank you all for your replies.

cat ivan’s picture

cat ivan commented

in style.module, function style_filter_sets() I added in the first 'foreach':

if (is_array($sets)) {
    foreach ($sets as $key => $value) {
      if ($theme == $value['theme'] && $value['link'] == "agent") {
        if (ereg($value['link_id'], $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])) $agent_link = $key;
      }
      // filter by taxonomy
      if ($theme == $value['theme'] && $value['link'] == "taxo") // check pages, or taxonomies
        switch ( arg(0) ) {
          case 'node':
            if (is_numeric(arg(2)) && taxonomy_node_in_hierarchy(arg(2), $value['link_id']))
              $output[0] = $key;
            break;
          case 'taxonomy':
            if (is_numeric(arg(3)) && taxonomy_term_in_hierarchy(arg(3), $value['link_id']))
              $output[0] = $key;
        }
    }
  }

then added the new option to the menu:

// add option for filter by taxonomy
  $link_presets = array("none" => "-- none --", 
"default" => "Default", 
"agent" => "User Agent", 
"user" => "User ID", 
"url" => "Request URL", 
"taxo" => "Taxonomy");

and created these in taxonomy.module to simplify code:

function taxonomy_node_in_term($nid, $tid) {
  return db_result(db_query("SELECT COUNT(nid) FROM {term_node} WHERE nid = %d AND tid = %d", $nid, $tid));
}

function taxonomy_node_in_hierarchy($nid, $tid) { // meaning in given term or its children
  if (taxonomy_node_in_term($nid, $tid))
    return True;
  else {
    $children = taxonomy_get_children($tid);
    foreach (taxonomy_node_get_terms($nid) as $term)
      if (array_key_exists($term->tid, $children))
        return True;
  }
  return False;
}

Now you can have styles applied to any URL that matches:

  • a node or
  • a (taxonomy) list of nodes

and matches:

  • the given taxonomy term (by id) or
  • one of the taxonomy term's children.

comments and suggestions are very welcome,
good luck