Genesis
Genesis is an standards compliant, accessible and semantically rich starter theme for Drupal 6. Genesis is easy to theme yet extremely flexible, giving you endless theming possibilities. Genesis makes building a standards compliant accessible theme easier than starting from scratch.
A few sites seen using Genesis:
http://design.acquia.com
http://www.myappleguide.com
http://laptopblog.gr
http://adaptivethemes.com
http://www.drupalcampireland.org
http://www.calthorpe.com
Key Features
- Standards compliant—XHTML Strict, CSS3
- Modular CSS
- Flexible layout options
- Built in support for theming site sections
- Gpanels - multi-column, fluid grid micro-panels
- Content source ordered for SEO
- Choice of 3 starter subthemes (including a dark starter theme)
- No complex logic in templates
- Advanced dynamic CSS classes
- Conditional Styles module included
Additional Features
- Skip to main content link included
- Work-around for IE Max 30 stylesheets issue
- Equal Height Columns using jQuery (optional)
- Preload CSS images jQuery plugin (optional)
- WAI ARIA roles and other accessibility features
- Clean admin styles, formatted tables, form elements & messages
- Supports two microformats: rel="home" and rel="bookmark"
- OpenID icon CSS fix
Validation and Accessibility
Gensis validates XHTML Strict, CSS3 and is WCAG AAA and WAVE compliant.

Included Starter Subthemes
Genesis now includes three starter subthemes; genesis_SUBTHEME, genesis_ULTRALITE and genesis_DARK.
- Genesis SUBTHEME:
- No holds barred, this subtheme offers endless theming potential and is the starter theme of choice for complex designs and advanced layouts. Uses fully pseudo-namespaced class naming for easier theming and CSS management.
- Genesis ULTRALITE:
- A bare bones semantically rich starter theme for advanced themers or for basic themes that don't need the additional wrapper and inner div's of the standard subtheme.
See a more in depth comparison of Genesis SUBTHEME, Genesis ULTRALITE and Genesis DARK.
Genesis Concept
Genesis employs the top-down approach. The idea is to start with too much, add even more, and then prune what you don't need. This is similar to Views, CCK, Panels and many other Drupal projects—ultimately this approach offers endless theme potential without compromise. Firebug will speed up your development process and help you understand how the CSS works and how you can modify it. The Genesis modular stylesheets include many CSS selectors—these show up in Firebug where you can quickly add properties and prototype styles.

Documentation
Versions
- 6.x-2.x
- This is stable and the recommended version to use.
- 6.x-1.2
- Deprecated. No feature updates, will be maintained (bug fixes only) until Drupal 7 is released.
Upgrading
Upgrading between stable 6.x-2.x versions is no problem, there have been no major HTML or structural changes since 6.x-2.0. You can simply overwrite the old base theme with the later version.
Upgrading from a 6.x-2 beta is more work, there were many changes and you will just have to work through them as its not possible for me to know what you have changed in your subtheme.
Upgrading directly from 6.x-1.x will break your theme. When I have ported some of the pre-styled themes to Genesis2 I will makes notes and post them in the Genesis docs.
NOTE: ALL the pre-styled subthemes are only compatible with 6.x-1.2! This includes Cold Day, Darkmatter, Typo 1, Webify, WebX and Zine. Over the next few weeks I will be releasing new versions for Genesis 6.x-2.x..
Genesis is built and maintained by AdaptiveThemes - Premium Themes for Drupal.
#D7CX: I pledge that Genesis will have a full Drupal 7 release on the day that Drupal 7 is released.
Releases
| Official releases | Date | Size | Links | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.x-2.4 | 2009-Jun-12 | 154.6 KB | Download · Release notes | Recommended for 6.x | |
| 6.x-1.2 | 2008-Nov-18 | 97.46 KB | Download · Release notes | Supported for 6.x | |
| Development snapshots | Date | Size | Links | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.x-2.x-dev | 2009-Jun-13 | 154.61 KB | Download · Release notes | Development snapshot | |
