Drupal theming from design to development

Alex J. Ventpap & Tom James

Starting on Photoshop

o The scary white canvas on photoshop, get logic. Collect data first o Set the size of the website, guidelines are importanto Backgrounds, keep in mind developers work

Gathering information - Wireframe is the boss

Petro Value project

Background & Guidelines

Petro Value project

Following the wireframe

Petro Value project

Layout and structure

Petro Value project

Vector elements in photoshop - stretching ability

Petro Value project

Fonts - websafe

o http://www.typetester.org

Colors - Adobe kuler

o http://kuler.adobe.com/#links

Fills, layer styles & keyboard shortcuts

Layer Styles - Gradient Overlay + Stroke

 Keyboard shortcuts

MAIN MENU > Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts

Finishing/revisions - Color changes/end of design stage

Petro Value Project

Useful links

More photoshop tricks•  http://all-x.ca/blog/?p=176  More about photoshop + drupal•  http://imagexmedia.com/blog

Designing for Drupal: Photoshop Best Practices

 

The theming bit

Intro• Who’s a developer/themer?• What is a Drupal theme? • Theming isn’t rocket science

Relies on strong CSS/HTML skills rather than PHP • Theming is powerful & flexible

- Module theme overriding (functions & templates)- No need to alter module code

• Every developer has a different approach- Find methods that work for you

Planning the theme• Shouldn’t be any major surprises in the design

by this stage

• Developers with a tight budget hate surprises

• Highlights need for design & development overlap

• Designers & Developers can & should get along

Review the design• Ideally you review the final design before it’s

sent to the client for review

• Layout sizing & structure• Review potential block regions needed

 • Look for possible frontpage variations

 • Any possible module overrides

ie. search form, login block, node type styles

Getting Started• SVN set up• SVN benefits? (rollbacks, easy deployment)

• Drupal & Localhost set up to begin with (quicker)(Acquia or Aegir)

• Create the basic theme structure- Copy a theme from Drupal.org - Make you own template/skeleton theme- Start out with a CSS/HTML layout if needs be

Building out• Start with the basic common structure

ie. Header, content, columns and footer

• Then build out any frontpage variations- drupal_is_front_page function (page.tpl.php)- custom body_class function (PHP & CSS)- Only use 1 page.tpl.php file for easier upgrading

• Next focus on key features & details to theme out ie. Menu style, block styles, search block styling

• Consider the theming of individual node types & Views lists

Principles to consider• Refer back to your brief & mocks to make sure you don’t miss

anything, remember we hate surprises.• Avoid hard coding anything into your theme

ie. Menus should the menu system, column content should be in blocks or modules if complex

• Try not to fill your template.php file with custom code, use a module instead or include files

• Use as fewer .tpl files as possible & keep them free of big chunks of code (use functions).

• Browser check your work on a regular basic Mac & PC, IE6-8, Firefox, Safari

• Make your theme flexible, look ahead but not too far ahead,

Finalizing• Review the mock ups again, yes again. Attention

to detail is important

• Browser check again

• Check all theme functionality like menu drop downs & any Javascript is working, check the error log and Firefox console

• Get QA (Quality Assurance) done by someone else

• Send to client for review :)

This is the endWe were:

Alex J Ventpap (The Designer)http://all-x.ca

Tom James (The other one)http://tomswebstuff.com

http://drupalsn.com

We are both proud to be part of ImageX Media http://imagexmedia.com