Want something like Epicurious...I understand basics, but I'm missing something...
I've seen chugging around on the Drupal site for a couple weeks now, plus took a short Drupal class. They were all helpful, but I'm still missing a fundamental understanding of content and page layout. Hopefully this doesn't come off as a "Help me run before I learn to crawl!" post...
Let's use a concrete example: I want to make a recipe site like Epicurious. I want a 3 column layout on the front page (http://www.epicurious.com/), a 3-col category page with a different module layout/header (http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/howtocook), and an end-content page that removes a sidebar in favor of a more readable article (http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/howtocook/cuisines/mexicocarnit...).
Before anybody tells me I'm trying to bite off more than I can chew, I'm NOT looking to make something as complex as the site above - other than managing layout in a similar way. What I _am_ looking for is some guidance and advice that will break me away from a "static page mindset" into something that fits into the Drupal way of doing things. In this case, I just want to learn how to control region/module layouts based on where I am navigationally or on the content I'm selecting.
I have a simple theme (3 column Zen). I'm unclear if I'm supposed to create a separate subtheme (2-column Zen) for an "endpoint" content page and switch to that, or if I should be doing some kind of magic "turn off things" approach for specific nodes or...well...or what? Should I be driving everything in a mindset that each category (like the "howtocook" one on Epicurious) is a taxonomy entry with its own theme?
I feel awkward asking for this help, as this SEEMS like it should be obvious. I have several Drupal books, which seem fine if I want to learn to write a new module, or create some awesome theme to sell, but none (that I have) seem really focused on the art of publishing polished content. They all seem to be aimed at simple, single-user (or small group) sites. Looks like I bought the wrong books, eh? :-)
A big part of what you are
A big part of what you are talking about is organizing you site into "sections" and determining which parts of the theme show when.
You seem to have two issues, the first being 2 vs 3 column layout. Since you can control the visibility of blocks and therefor the whole region I would use a three column layout and control the visibility of the blocks on the right.
The other part, changing the look by section depends on the level and types of differences. In general having only one theme will make the site easier to maintain. There are ways to control the look based on the current path and other approaches that use css classes and css to vary to visual look and even the html structure. If the difference are major though you may want to maintain multiple themes
Hints and Pointers
Lullabot has some really good primers and their theming videos are good
For:
http://store.lullabot.com/collections/lullabot-learning-series
The Understanding Drupal video will get you over major concepts.
For:
Other Places
Also the Book "CSS Mastery" by Andy Budd is indispensable.
Also the book "Using Drupal" by the Lullabot people has good site building recipes.
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596515805/
"Pro Drupal Development" by by John K. VanDyk was helpful to me for some advanced management concepts. He tended to include more server side stuff. How to install Drupal from the command line and that kind of thing.
For quicker more specific tutorials.
Drupal Therapy has some good videos.
http://www.drupaltherapy.com/
Drupal Dojo
http://drupaldojo.com/
The Lullabot videos are totally worth it if you have time. Set up a local server with MAMP or XAMP or WAMP and start playing around. It'll take a few months for everything to start really coming together.