By mwu on

I see a site with theming that I like. Do I have enough info from the html source and the css files to sort of replicate? Is it fairly easy to copy a site, or is it hard?

⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.7.x

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

you wont be able to do it quite as easy as copying and pasting BUT ....
you can use the webdev module for the firefox browser which allows you to see ALL css and how its being used. you will also have to take into consideration your template.php file and the specific overrides, which cannot be seen.

chx’s picture

chx commented

first, i deleted your second post (which was identical to this) and I am only not deleting this so you could be beaten by the virtual equivalent of a baseball bat.

This is not copy, this is theft. How do you dare to ask such a question on a site where hundreds and thousands share the fruits of their work voluntarily and for free -- but you are such a greedy pig that you need something that's not shared? To add insult to injury, you are lazy enough not to read the handbook from which it would be quite clear that the answer is no, thanks god. You can try to copy HTML and CSS, and the results will be worthy of your attitude.
--
The news is Now Public | Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | please donate

--
Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | A bedroom without a teddy is like a face without a smile.

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

first of all, the duplicate post was by accident. I do not know how it happened. I am not so stupid as to post the identical post twice within 2 seconds of each other where it is plain for absolutely everyone to see, knowing that people will be mad.

secondly, I don't think it is theft. I am also not so stupid as to ask how to do something illegal in a public forum. (And of course I would not ask how to do something illegal any way.) Imitation is flattery. I would not do the same identical theme of course. In colleges, they teach you to write novels by analyzing the structure of existing novels. This is the level at which I meant.

I had gotten an email from someone which I interpreted to mean it was doable. The email was vague. I didn't know if I was interpreting it correctly so I posted a question to try to get more info.

The handbook is not completely comprehensive we know. There are lots of good tips (especially when it's not relevant only to Drupal) there are not either in the handbooks or are not easy to find in the handbooks.

chx, I do not think your violent imagery and strong language is appropriate.

Furthermore, you are well known in the Drupal community. Whatever your legal ties are (or are not) to Drupal, some people will see you as a representative of Drupal.

chx’s picture

chx commented

I think the simplest is to quote someone from the #drupal channel where I asked for opinions (a name is deleted):

my initial reaction was "you tell 'em, chx!"... otoh, i think XXXXX is probably right that it was a little too harsh without more flagrant evidence this was the would-be-stealing-pig he came across as.

So, some assume the best from people until proven otherwise. I, on the other hand, jumped to a conclusion maybe too fast. Sorry.
--
The news is Now Public | Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | please donate

--
Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | A bedroom without a teddy is like a face without a smile.

dries’s picture

dries commented

You need to work on your communication skills, chx. Maybe mwu is trying to Drupalize a theme that he owns, or that a friend of him owns? Maybe he is helping someone to migrate to Drupal? You're treating mwu as a criminal for no apparant reason and without the context to make a proper judgement. Can we try to be a little bit more friendly? I'd also suggest that you let people mind their own business: if someone chooses to steal someone else's theme, it is not your task to shit at him. This kind of comments do more harm than good and damage the public face of Drupal. :(

Bahattee’s picture

Bahattee commented

ahaahahaha allways same shit :D

duntuk’s picture

duntuk commented

whow... no sh*t... must be that time of the month again... :P

Though, it'll be interesting to see chx's reaction if someone actually *did* ask something inappropriate...

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

duntok,
Your remarks seems very sexist to me, if I understand it correctly. (But if you want to defend your remark as not being sexist, let's take it offline. Just leave an email address or better yet, wiki address or other url where I can reach you.)

by the way, chx is a man.

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

I have several points to make, so I'll make break them up into several different comments.

First of all, regarding my intent. My intention is not to make a site that is obviously like the first. I do not want a site that would lead others to say, "ha ha ha, that site is so unoriginal. they simply copied blah." It's the opposite of the excellent site I'm trying to achieve.

What I had wanted was most of all the layout. They have managed to squeeze in more into a Drupal site than anything I've seen. It had a very efficient use of space. Furthermore, unlike 90% of the fancy themes in the Drupal showcase in my experience, It was robust across 5 different browsers. In addition, it used colors layered in a way that I didn't know was possible. I wanted to achieve the same efficiency and robustness, along with some good color techniques.

Since the site has a very different purpose from mine, I would need to use very different modules, blocks, images and colors. It seemed to me that with very different colors, images, and blocks, the theme should look quite different. My intention is to create something that would not look like the original.

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

It had never occurred to me that my question would be construed as doing something illegal, so I had not looked into this angle. Now I have.

I'm looking at my copy of "The Zen of CSS design." (2005) Page 42 is titled "copyright and theft".

To summarize my understanding of this section, the uniqueness of a site is primarily determined by the images. Images are clearly protectable by copyright. The legal basis for determining copyright violations for a theme primarily rests on copyrights related to images.

However, it is possible to reproduce a theme in such a way that even if images are not reused, the original designer feels uncomfortable. In this case, under a Creative Commons license (provided for Zen Garden designs), the designer had no legal recourse. S/he could ask the person to stop, and most people would, but it relies on respectfulness rather than legal threats.

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

A work that has not been released under the Creative Commons license is not addressed directly by the book. Page 43 does say that "[c]reative copyright infringement has long been a gray area. How much of an original work do you need to change before it becomes a new work?...Since these are questions that even the courts struggle with, there were no easy answers."

In my case, I hope to have a site that is not recognizably like the one I like. If someone says they look too much alike, my goal would be to keep modifying mine.

On the other hand, numerous sites have deliberately copied Google's site to be seen as "THE search engine" for their niche. This involves having primary links in blue at the top. A logo of about the same size as Google's logo in Times New Roman (or something) with each letter in a different primary color. Leave the rest white with some secondary links in blue at the bottom. At this level, 2 sites can look nearly identical without any copyright infringement, as far as I know.

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

This is a global and diverse community, which is something I really like about drupal.org. I enjoy knowing I am communicating with people from Europe, Asia, and Australia, as well as the rest of the world.

I recognize the English is not many people's first language, although I speak it fluently.

I recognize there are cultural differences.

But we are diverse in other ways. People come with varying levels of knowledge about programming and design and Drupal. Some people have backgrounds in music, others in biology, others in dance. I know the word "quantitative" means very different things to a historian versus a statistician.

So when I used the word "copy," I'm thinking of the book that teaches you how to write a best-seller that advises you to copy a successful book. The author of Harry Potter, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, some people believe, drew upon well-known formulas (in a very successful and original way). Depending on who you work for, there are very specific guidelines for writing a romance novel (and maybe a science fiction novel) about what should happen on which page number.

So perhaps "copy" means something different to a designer. Maybe it means "steal" or "theft." But I think you should inquire to get more information, give someone you don't know the benefit of the doubt, before you jump on someone so hard, especially in such a diverse, thriving community that has been built up with hard work over years.

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

well, you did say sorry. Thank you for apologizing.

patrickharris’s picture

patrickharris commented

It's extremely easy for misunderstandings like this to occur ... forums are a powerful but also limited form of communication.

SubWolf’s picture

SubWolf commented

... you cannot blame a top member of the community for being protective of standards and laws. It may have been a little OTT, but I've done the same myself before. Comes with the territory a bit. ;-)

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

Perhaps that's the culture you choose to have in your forums. It is not the culture we (I mean the forums I run, not drupal.org) have chosen for our forums.

dvessel’s picture

dvessel commented

I see a site with theming that I like. Do I have enough info from the html source and the css files to sort of replicate? Is it fairly easy to copy a site, or is it hard?

Well, look at your initial post. Didn't sound like you wanted to do anything original. Digging into the html/css and learning from it usually a better way to go about it. More to learn that way so you can implement your own ideas.

Copying then tweaking little details doesn't make it an original, IMO..

–joon

mwu’s picture

mwu commented

I've tried to do the kind of layout I want with Drupal. I haven't succeeded. All the css books I have don't seem to work when I try it with Drupal themes. (I attribute this to my limited understanding of css and theming.) I guess I need to make some kind of adjustment to the instructions and explanations that I haven't figured out how to do, despite reading the handbooks on drupal.org and in Robert Douglass book.

When I saw a Drupal site that actually has the kind of layout I want, I wanted to see if I can copy the layout.

So maybe I didn't explain it well because I didn't know the word "copy" has such strong and negative connotations to some people in this community.

Since I think people want to be original (and seen as creative artists, not as copycats) it didn't really occur to me to explain this point. (In this way, perhaps I am assuming the best of people, not the worst.)

As I wrote above, in the circles I'm in, "copy" is considered a good word, something you are supposed to do, as in "trying to copy the success of Google (the company)." I didn't think I need to explain that I was not trying to do something immoral or illegal.

I wanted to know if it is possible to get the basic structure in place and then work by changing it, because I have not succeeded in getting a Drupal theme to do what I want to do.