New training to help you learn how to build Drupal themes is available online from Lynda.com. Drupal: Creating and Editing Custom Themes shows how a Drupal theme can alter the look and feel of a web site. Drupal evangelist and author Chris Charlton introduces the core themes that ship with Drupal, how to install and administer new themes, change color schemes, and add sub-themes. Also demonstrated is how to build a custom theme from scratch, what templates are possible in Drupal themes; integrate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; and how to theme specific nodes, pages, and blocks by building a theme step-by-step for a fictitious online flower shop.

Videos include:

  • How to build new Drupal themes
  • Setting themes and theme permissions
  • Using the Color Module to change color schemes
  • Building sub-themes
  • Adding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to themes
  • Understanding templates
  • Applying themes to pages, nodes, and blocks

View the trailer, free samples, or the entire course online now at Lynda.com

About the author

Chris Charlton is the manager of the Los Angeles Drupal User Group and co-author of the first book to cover Drupal with Adobe Flex. Chris is also responsible for the software provided by XTND.US, which has released (free) Drupal related software (Adobe Dreamweaver extension, and the Drupal Theme Starter desktop application).

Drupal: Creating and Editing Custom Themes is an Online Training Library® exclusive from Lynda.com; this title is not available on disc.

Videos are available in both Quicktime and Flash formats. Closed captioning is available.

There are now a few Drupal video training titles on Lynda.com - check them all out.

Comments

Chris Pergantis’s picture

Just a great bunch of lessons related to Drupal PHP and much more. I looked at their content about a year ago and was not as impressed as I was last month. I joined and have benefited from the considerable and straight forward education videos. If you are new to Drupal or need to gain a better insight just go there.

Chris Pergantis
Founder/Chairman/President
Accelerated Design Inc

mike stewart’s picture

Chris, you're a gifted communicator and instructor. Awesome to see your latest contribution to the community via lynda!

OpenChimp’s picture

This should help a lot with the initial learning curve that many people struggle against when they first get exposed to drupal.

Way to go, Chris. This is a great contribution to the community.

Senpai’s picture

Wow, Chris, this is awesome stuff! Thanks for taking the time to do it, and do it right. You rock.

****
Joel "Senpai" Farris | certified to rock score

napounet’s picture

Nice videos based on what I saw on the previews. Now I find the full version a bit expensive for my liking.

Chris Charlton’s picture

Lynda.com only charges $25/mo. Any Drupal training you go to in person would start at hundreds of dollars per day. I personally like to be able to rewind, learn more, or learn something new through Lynda.com.

Chris Charlton
Manager
LA Drupal
Drupal Author
Published since 2007
shiva7663’s picture

Too expensive. In addition, some of the courses have non-free exercise files, for which you have to pay extra for a premium membership.

Let me amend that: too expensive for me.

mike stewart’s picture

Really? Too expensive? $25/month with No long term commitment. Versus $75 for something like a lullabot video (also a valuable learning tool) or hundreds of dollars for an instructor led course?

In a market where jobs are hard to come by and Drupal talent is in demand, I can think of few ways to better invest $25 if you're trying to learn an in-demand skill to land you a job.

shiva7663’s picture

As I said, too expensive for me. I would prefer to buy $25 worth of subsistence food than pay for video training. If that traps me forever in a morass of ignorance, so be it.

chriscalo123’s picture

I love the Lynda videos, it's a great way to get up to speed!

backwardgraphics’s picture

I wish that when I started developing for Drupal that there would have been a series like that. Keep it coming Chris.

robbin.zhao’s picture

Aha, great.
I like beautiful themes.

thompson’s picture

very useful, thanks for that work.

Rajan M’s picture

Its really nice guide for theme developer.

Chris Charlton’s picture

I made a nice tinyurl for my Drupal Themes video course on Lynda.com, to help make it easier to remember: http://tinyurl.com/theme-drupal

Learn how to theme Nodes.
Learn how to theme Pages.
Learn how to theme Blocks.
Learn about all possible theme templates in Drupal core.

Chris Charlton
Manager
LA Drupal
Drupal Author
Published since 2007
scawa1952’s picture

I had been beating my head against the wall, reading books, looking at the on-line documentation. The stuff that's out there is good, but didn't seem to present it in a coherent way.

Your Lynda.com video on Creating Themes opened up the whole thing for me. I had one of those Satori moments and now the other documentation out there isn't so overwhelming.

The fact that there are literally thousands of videos on Lynda.com, and you can access them all for $25.00/month will reduce my Amazon.com habit tremendously.

Thanks for putting out such an outstanding product.

Stephen McConnell

spelzmane’s picture

Maybe this will give the theming community in Drupal a kick in the butt lol

nodiac’s picture

Lynda's very very lucky to have you. Your reassuring confidence and style will be a gift to those of us who learn visually.

Yay Chris! You ROCK!

tinem’s picture

Great videos explaining a lot of things about theming, thanks.

But am I the only one having problems making page.tpl.php in themes hanselandpetal look like the video? It's important this file is perfect because I'm going to make the other files from this one.

edited 19:48: I got it to functioning.

devmobdev’s picture

After searching for a good starter training video, I think this one fits my needs. It looks like it will provide a good learning foundation without overwhelming us Dummies. Thanks