Theming Drupal 6 - An Introduction to the Basics

Theming Drupal 6
An Introduction to the Basics
+ some advanced stuff too, but that’s at the end

Before we begin …
What you need to know:
- HTML/XHTML
- It helps to know what content is printed where
- CSS
- Enough to edit rules, changes backgrounds, add images, etc.
- Box Model
- Margin, border & padding and how they work together
-Basic PHP
- An understanding of syntax and how PHP functions operate in general

What you might want to know:
- jQuery
- For that little extra; Flash® is overkill for an image slideshow
- How to setup a Local Development Environment (LAMP)
- Version Control
- Subversion or GIT are commonly used with Drupal
- More PHP?

Presented By: Erik Baldwin 2/12/2013 2

Drupal theme design principles

- Grid System
- 960px or 1024px wide
- 5 core regions
- Header
- Left
- Right
- Content
- Footer
- Text & Image Alignment
- A content layout built for
the web
- Design your theme for the
site’s content, not vice-versa!


Theming Caveats
… ‘cause it can’t always be
easy.
Don’t hack core!

Don’t hack modules!

Don’t hack contrib themes!

The output from all of these is
THEMABLE!

Intercept , Override [template.php] & Sub-Theme [foo.tpl.php]


Where to start…?
“To be Jedi is to face the truth, and choose.”

Mockups

Static HTML/CSS

Write *.info file Copy *.info file, Add “Base Theme”
Custom Theme

Sub-Theme
Create Custom Templates (foo.tpl.php) Override Existing Templates

Create Styles (*.css) Override Styles

Write Custom Scripts (*.js) Extend Scripts


Intro to Theming Drupal 6

Part I: The anatomy of a theme

Part II: Basic build from Static HTML & CSS

Part III: Create a Fusion Sub-Theme (demo)

Part IV: Tools & Tricks (demo)


Part I: Drupal Theme Anatomy

sites/all/themes/foo

.info File

Theming Engine

Template Language

PHP Templates

Styles & Images

Scripts

AT-AT Anatomy


How does Drupal Do It?
“No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”

Browser Theme Engine
Browser
Browser gets checks data Server inserts merges
displays
info from against info into core template files
formated
database Drupal’s templates with
HTML
Output filters template.php


Drupal 6 Theme Stack

PHP Theme PHP Template Theme

Don’t Hack These!


Separating Design & Logic

• .info file defines your theme
• More templates = more control over theme
components
• phptemplate_variables() are your friends
• Theme inheritance makes sub theming and
overriding possible
• Pure CSS themes are absolutely possible.


Drupal’s Theme Engine
PHPTemplate ships with core … no need to install it

PHPTemplate allows themers to insert PHP into
their xHTML markup so that predefined variables
can be rendered in the browser.

Some info about PHPTemplate
• Written for Drupal by Adrian Rossouw
• Uses foo.tpl.php files to theme Drupal’s theme_foo() functions
• Themable functions can be found on api.drupal.org
• You could write an entire theme in PHP, but why?
• PHPTemplate is the most commonly used theming engine for CMS’s

<?php print $primary_links; ?>


How PHP Generates Dynamic
Content
HTML
<?php ?>
Page

Web Browser
Drupal Core

<?php ?>
PHPTemplate HTML
Page
<?php ?>

HTML
<?php ?>
Page

Drupal MySQL Database
(views is essentially a query builder)


Template.php
What am I supposed to do with this?!

• Template.php holds the conditional logic and data processing
required for output

• It is where you create your preprocessors for generating variables
before they merge with *.tpl.php file – each individual template
file (.tpl.php) gets assigned to regions

• This is also where you override existing theme functions and
create other raw output customization (example below)

function theme_name_preprocess_page(&$vars) {
//override for mission statement to appear on every page, not just <front>
$vars['mission'] = filter_xss_admin (theme_get_setting('mission'));
//creates raw output for $foo that can be printed in any *.tpl.php
$vars[‘foo’] = t(‘FooBar’);}


What is a Preprocessor Function
for?
• Setup variables to be placed within the template
(.tpl.php) files. Plain theme functions do not
interact with preprocessors

• Use them whenever overriding CSS and editing
xHTML markup in Template files just isn’t
enough!


Processing Order of Preprocessor
Functions
$theme_preprocess_$hook
Theme
$theme_preprocess()

Theme phptemplate_preprocess_$hook()
Engine phptemplate_preprocess()

$modulename_preprocess_$hook()
Modules
$modulename_preprocess()

$template_preprocess_$hook
Core
$template_preprocess()


So, what do I do to control dynamic
content display?
Template Files Theme Functions
Output is printed with Build a single output $var and return it
<?php print $primary_links; ?> $output = ‘output’;

Easiest to use if you plan on using a lot of Easiest to use if you need to build control
xHTML markup. structures and loops.


Common Template Files


Each Template Handles a
Region… quicker, easier, more seductive

• page.tpl.php – Entire Page

• front-page.tpl.php – Front Page Only

• block.tpl.php – Blocks

• comment.tpl.php – Comments

• forum.tpl.php – Forums

Template Hierarchy
Specific before general

Home Page Nodes
page-front.tpl.php node-type.tpl.php
page.tpl.php node.tpl.php

Pages Comments
comment.tpl.php
page-node-edit.tpl.php
page-node-1.tpl.php
page-node.tpl.php Blocks
page.tpl.php block-module-delta.tpl.php
block-module.tpl.php
block-region.tpl.php
block.tpl.php


Typical .info file
Metadata

name = internal theme name

Description = try to make this short;
no more than 400 characters

Engine = phptemplate

Drupal version = 6.x

Screenshot = theme screenshot

CSS stylesheets

Scripts

Regions

Features


The
Screenshot!
Every theme should have a
screenshot! Even if it isn’t actually a
screenshot of the theme.

• Gives your users/admins a
preview of your theme

• See drupal.org screenshot
guidelines if you want to contribute
your theme.


But what about …

Do I really need all of these files to create a theme?
• No – all you need is .info, the rest overrides
Drupal’s default ($left, $right, $header,
$content, $footer)

Should I hack a contributed theme?
• No – find a suitable theme to inherit from
(sub-theming)


Part II: Building a Theme from Static
xHTML/CSS
Looking at the Mockup to the right,
lets define our regions.
Core Regions Mockup Regions
Available Present
$header $header
$left $content
$content $right
$right $footer
$footer

Most contributed Drupal themes
will utilize the core regions, if not
more. Custom regions are created
in the themes .info file and printed
in the page template.


Head of page.tpl.php
HTML page.tpl.php
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="<?php print
$language->language; ?>" xml:lang="<?php print $language->language;
<head> ?>">
<meta name="Description" content="Information architecture, Web <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
Design, Web Standards." /> <head>
<meta name="Keywords" content="your, keywords" /> <title><?php print $head_title; ?></title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859- <?php print $head; ?>
1" /> <?php print $styles; ?>
<meta name="Distribution" content="Global" /> <?php print $scripts; ?>
<meta name="Author" content="Erwin Aligam - ealigam@gmail.com" /> </head>
<meta name="Robots" content="index,follow" />

<link rel="stylesheet" href="images/NewHorizon.css" type="text/css" />

<title>New Horizon</title>
</head>


Head $variables
• $head_title – a modified version of the head title
for use in the TITLE tag.
• $head – Markup for the head section.
– Meta tags
– Keyword tags
– etc …
• $styles – loads all required CSS stylesheets
specified by module and theme .info files.
• $scripts – Script tags are necessary to load
JavaScript files and settings for the page.


Header Region
HTML Page.tpl.php
 <div id="header-region" class="clear-block"><?php print $header; ?>
<div id="nav“> <div id="wrapper">
<ul> <div id="container" class="clear-block">
<li id="current"><a href="index.html">Home</a></li> <div id="header">
<li><a href="index.html">News</a></li> <div id="logo-floater"><?php if ($logo || $site_title) {
<li><a href="index.html">Downloads</a></li> print '<h1><a href="'. check_url($front_page) .'" title="'. $site_title .'">';
<li><a href="index.html">Support</a></li> if ($logo) {
<li><a href="index.html">About</a></li> print '<img src="'. check_url($logo) .'" alt="'. $site_title .'" id="logo" />';
</ul> }
</div> print $site_name .'</a></h1>';

Header $Variables
$logo: The path to the linked logo image that is defined in the
theme’s configuration.
$site_name: The name of the site. This value will be empty
when display has been disabled in theme settings
(features[] = name).
$front_page: The URL of the front page. Use this instead of
$base_path to link to the front page. This variable includes the
language domain or prefix.
$primary_links (array): An Array containing the primary
navigation links for the site, if they have been configured.
$secondary_links (array): An array containing secondary
navigation links for the site, if they have been configured.


Sidebar Region
HTML Page.tpl.php
<div id="sidebar" > <div id=“right" class=“right sidebar">
<h3>Search Box</h3> <?php if ($search_box): ?>
<form action="#" class="searchform“> <div class=“block_menu”>
<p><input name="search_query" class="textbox" type="text" /><input <h3> Search</h3>
name="search" class="button" value="Search" type="submit" /></p></form> <?php print $search_box ?>
<h3>Sidebar Menu</h3> </div>
<ul class="sidemenu“> <?php if ($right): ?>
<li><a href="index.html">Home</a></li> <?php print $right ?>
<li><a href="#TemplateInfo">TemplateInfo</a></li> <?php endif; ?>
<li><a href="#SampleTags">Sample Tags</a></li> </div> 
<li><a href=“<?php print $base_path ?>">More Templates...</a> </li>
<li><a href=“?aff=ealigam">Premium Templates</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Sponsors</h3>
<ul class="sidemenu“>
<li><a href=“r.cgi?287326">Dreamhost</a></li>
$Variables
<li><a href=“?aff=ealigam">4templates</a></li>
<li><a href=“?aff=ealigam">TemplateMonster</a></li>
$search_box: HTML that displays the search
<li><a href=“partner/114283">Fotolia.com</a></li> box, empty if search has been disabled.
<li><a href=“res338619">Dreamstime.com</a></li>
<li><a href=“3cgv2m">Text-Link-Ads</a></li> $right: contains the HTML for the left
</ul>
</div> sidebar.

You can also use $left to print the HTML for
the left sidebar.

Footer Region
HTML Page.tpl.php
<div id=“footer" > <div id=“footer" class=“footer">
</div> <?php print $footer ?>
</body> </div> 
<?php print $closure ?>
</body>

$Variables
$footer: The footer region
$closure: This variable should ALWAYS be output
last, after all other dynamic content. This ensures
that all modules that have altered the page have
their closing markup. !important

Time to make it look good!
Put your best @font-face forward

• Choose a width; fixed = 960px or 1024px or
fluid = 100%
• Create container div’s to hold all of your
regions. Use floats and margins to clear them.
• Look at existing CSS templates, there are
many that are freely available online.

The details for this are a bit out of this presentations scope.


Building a custom theme - Recap

• We created the page.tpl.php file
• We converted our Mockup’s HTML div structure to Drupal
regions: Header, Sidebar’s & Footer
• Next: Create style.css to style the HTML output of the
page template that was created
• To add more dynamic content we can:
• Add its <?php ?> directly to page.tpl.php
• Create more *.tpl.php files: node.tpl.php,
block.tpl.php, comments.tpl.php, etc…

Now go “roll-your-own” theme!


Isn’t there an Easier method?

Yes, there is; Create a Sub-theme!
• Sub-themes allow you to build on existing
template files, CSS and Scripts
• You can remove what you don’t need without
hacking the base theme
• Create a design from a mockup, just like custom
theming
• You can even convert a ::cough:: WordPress theme


Part III: Creating a Sub-theme
parent

Basetheme child

Sub-theme

child


CSS Only Themes
• Core page.tpl.php theme based on your
choice of contrib/base theme
• The use of well named classes and id’s is
required to identify areas/regions
• A theme that is built with just an .info file
will create an ugly site, but with clean
xHTML that can be manipulated to suit any
needs


Sub-Theming in 7 Steps
“Who's your Jedi master? WHO'S your Jedi Master?”

• Wireframes/Mockups in Photoshop, Illustrator or Fireworks
• Create static CSS files
• Download base theme to sites/all/themes/*base theme
name*
• Create sub theme in sites/all/themes/*sub-theme name*
• Override templates in *foo*.tpl.php
• Add JavaScript and jQuery, if necessary
• Override themable functions in template.php
(sub_theme_name_preprocess_foo{} in template.php)


Theme Override
Layout & Process

Core
A
Modules

B Theme Engine

C Theme

D Sub-theme


Theme Inheritance
Because everything is passed down thru generations

• Unless you already have a great understanding of Drupal Theming, you should start
with an existing theme and modify it

• Sub-themes set their “base theme” in the .info file; the theme which it will directly
inherit it’s templates, styles and scripts from

• All styles, scrips and template.php overrides that are specified in the base theme’s
template.php will be inherited by the sub-theme

• A Sub-theme should NEVER use phptemplate_ functions; instead use
sub_theme_name_

• Building a sub-theme is the safest way to modify an existing theme and still be able
to easily update the base theme that is being modified.


Theme vs. Sub-theme


Sub-theme basics
Need-to-know stuff that you NEED to know!

• Inherits resources from the parent theme

• Name the “base theme” in the .info file

• Sub-themes are not required to be in a sub directory of the parent them (This was
a requirement for Drupal 5)

• Place your sub-theme in sites/all/themes

Sub-themes are granular, just like a family tree. It just depends on
how far you want/need the legacy to go. As of Drupal 6.17, you can
have grandchild themes and so forth


Theming Drupal 6 - An Introduction to the Basics

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