Theme development

Does a user need shell access to develop and upload themes? Or can they grab them, edit them locally, and transfer them into place with a file manager or FTP/SCP tool?

We require to use two templates at the same time. In detail:

We want to post some nodes inside a web page using template #1 (let's call it that). However, we require another template to a news main site (let's call it drupal.xxx.com) which requires to operate under a template #2. Both instances involve unauthenticated users.

Ive been playing with a theme, all css based. For me its easier than Xtemplate theme. 3 columns no tables etc.. How/Should I submit it?
Its running on my site www.baldy.za.net Have a look and let me know what you guys think.

Cheers
Laurence

Hey,

I have given a spin at creating my first template. It really seems quite simple and I have used my favourite templating engine, namely patTemplate. After some effort, the results show up quite nicely. However, I have found that functions such as theme_blocks("all", $this); are quite inflexible because they print their content instead of returning it and letting the theme developer decide what to do.

Now I am forced to split up my templates in many unrelated segments like:

footer() {
  printSubTemplateFooter1;
  theme_blocks("all", $this);
  printSubTemplateFooter2;
}

Where I could be trivially doing:

footer() {
  $t = theme_blocks("all", $this);
  assignValueToTemplateVariable($t);
  printWholeFooterTemplate;

I have checked all the obvious routes (FAQ, etc.) and I recall seeing some discussion but my knowledge of past implementation is nil. Looking at the calls under 'theme_blocks', the code itself seems pretty unremarkable, hidden in there is a single offending 'print' that does all the damage.

I suppose there might be some good reasons for taking this approach, but I think that -for example- using an optional flag parameter in the block printing routines would provide a great deal of flexibility at minimum cost. Splitting up templates might be a natural for me but my graphic designers will be surely pained. Is there anything I have overlooked?

I am just evaluating Drupal for our purposes and a newbee at this Forum. I have two questions to Drupal community members:

1) Where can I find all the commercially available themes for Drupal 4.3.0 version? I am willing to pay for the right theme $30-$80.

I searched the web over for Drupal themes and could not find much.

Using xtemplate (i dont know if this is the same with all) I have noticed that when the navigation block is disabled the login block also disappears. I cant see a valid reason for it working this way.

I have 4 permissions set up, super admin, moderator, auth user and anonymous.