How to modify Multiflex theme
aspk - July 9, 2009 - 14:29
I am a newbie in drupal. I am wondering how to modify Multiflex3 theme.
my site looks like this now www.aspk.com.tw
(1)I would like to change the header to a different color or replace it with a photo. How do I do it? Should I modify it on Style.css?
(2)To be safe, I would like to do some testing before having it rendered. Is there a way I could see the changes I made before bringing it up on my site? How do I do it on dreamweaver, or is there other application I could use.
(3)Is there any application I could use that would add theme modification. Non-scripting based. more visual based maybe?
thanks so much for your help
WTF
Jesus, your not new to Drupal, your new to web design/developement! In answer to your question, learn XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Image editing software, and Best practice Web Development work flows like development, staging, live testing environments... oh, and versioning repos to, like svn!
Seriously though, setup a web dev environment on your local machine with xampp, wampp or what ever your posion is. That way you can develope locally on your machine, not live.
To make the changes you want to the theme, you'll have to either pay someone to do it, or learn CSS and Drupal themeing.
Apologies
I'm having a tuff day and felt bad at my quick response.
So, looking at your site. Heres some help.
1). The style you require to change the background image of the header is line 749 in your themes style.css file
background: transparent url(images/bg-header.png) repeat-x scroll left topchange bg-header.png to what ever you like. To create graphics use software like Adobe Photoshop if you have it, or alternatively, Gimp is a opensource graphics application you can download for free http://www.gimp.org/
2). This is a tuffy for an unexperienced person. you need a local or remote test environment that has an up-to-date version of your drupal install and database. This way you have your site, and you can break it, develope it as much as you like. To do this, you require a webserver and php. Follow this tutorial and it should get you there. http://drupal.org/node/161975
Once you've got your local site ready, you have to replace your LIVE site with the local files and export your local database as sql, flush the live database and import the sql file. This is only one simple way of doing it and there are many pitfalls to it. but it'll work for small drupal sites.
Dreamweaver cant allow you to "Preview" your druapl/php as it doesnt come with a webserver like Apache built in.
3). In short. No. Dreamweaver is one of the best for visually minded designers and is a lot better than the days of hand coding or Microsoft Front page (Urghhh, shudder)
Most professional designers will use a combination of graphical packages to designer there site from scratch. Then, taking this visual layout, use css, xhtml, javascript in Dreamwearer / Eclipse to create the layout that the graphic shows. If you can do this to high accuracy and cross compatibile to all browsers, then you can call yourself a Web Designer!
In General, Drupal is a double edged sword. It's an amazing product that caters very well for just about anything a website would wont, and done (imho) the best way. BUT, due to it's "pseudo simplicity" and well thought out GUI it tricks people into thinking "Hey, I made a website, I'm a web design/developer expert". Not the case. Drupal is an advanced tool that weilds "basic" components very well. These components (PHP, XHTML, CSS, XML, Javascript, jQuery etc) are it's basic building blocks and without know how to control them to a degree of compitence, then you're going to hit the problems your having now as soon as you delve below the surface.
If I can help you out with some steer, respond! Otherwise, good luck.
test site msql database import
ISSUE solved
well I never pretend I have knoweldge in web design. I don't need to as I am not a web designer. What I am trying to do is to try to take advantage of Drupal and see if I can come up with something and learn as much as I can.
I am using bluehost.com for webhosting. I created a test site www.testsite.aspk.com.tw I installed Drupal to the test site for a fresh start and imported files to site/default/files
Now the problem is I need to get data from my life site to the test site. I backed up the msql database through PHPadmin provided by bluehost. created a new database named aspkcomt_ASPK and import the old databse to it. Created username and password for the database. And then next I made modification on Setting.PHP, following the instructions from Drupal site. But then now I am getting an error message, as shown on www. Can you tell me what I did wrong, or if anyone else could help.
Thanks
still getting errors?
A quick looks at www.testsite.aspk.com.tw doesn't reveal any problems. Are you still experiencing problems?
theme modification
I think the issues are solved now. what I did was I created a new database for the test site and then imported msql database from live site to the new database. Then I changed perssions on setting.php to allow myself make modification, then modified scripts on setting.php as instructed by the document. I looks like it worked.
Now with theme modification I suppose I need to go to the theme and find page.php and made CSS changes accordingly? also when it comes to msql database, what does this action "flush" mean?
thanks
theme modification
To modify the theme, you might need to make changes to
page.tpl.php, but it really depends on what you're changing. If you're just going to change the background of the header (which is currently a green image), i-sibbot was right in pointing out that you'll just need to change line 749 in the theme'sstyle.css. In other words, you won't need to touchpage.tpl.php.As for MySQL's
flushcommand, it's used to clear and reload internal caches used my the database. A common use would be toflush privilegesafter you have created a new database and/or user.Hope it helps.