By bgoosman on

I would like to convert, as practice, a dynamic, php website I have already made (http://halogendesigns.com) into one with a Drupal back end and custom theme. I know what my tools are: modules, Zen theme, CCK, Views, etc. and I have even read a book on Drupal development, but given my lack of real experience with Drupal I am finding it hard to see the when, how, and the why behind applying those tools.

Take this page as an example: http://halogendesigns.com/portfolio.php. It is a portfolio page with three vertical tabs on the left which map to three divs containing the Web, Print, and Identity portfolio items. Each div contains a list of portfolio items, and the lists are database driven. It also utilizes JavaScript to provide image (lightbox) and site (greybox) popups. I have already created a custom content type called Web Item with a caption, link, and thumbnail image upload. Now the problem is pulling that data into a page exactly like the one I have already created. This is where I am stuck. What should my approach be to recreate this page? Should I edit the Zen theme I have copied? Should I create a module that fits into the theme somehow? Something else?

I would appreciate any advice/guidance on this. Thanks!

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

matt2000’s picture

matt2000 commented

There are about 10 ways to do it, and 6 or 7 of them can reasonably be considered 'correct.'

Here's one to try that should match well to your prior experience, while giving you an opportunity to embrace the power of Views:

Use Views module to create an unstyled view that contains all of the nodes & fields you want. Then use Views' theme info link to get a sample tpl.php file that you can modify and put into your theme. You can even add your JS, etc in there, although general best practice is to keep tpl's as clean HTML as much as possible. But if you're the only one working on the site, it probably doesn't matter much.

Hope that helps,

Matt

bgoosman’s picture

bgoosman commented

Another question. How should I go about implementing the index (http://halogendesigns.com), about (http://halogendesigns.com/about.php), and contact us (http://halogendesigns.com/contactus.php) pages? The only layout they have in common is the header. Everything else has custom layout. How do these pages fit into a theme?