1. Design To Theme:
The Drupal Way
By Danté R. Taylor
Mediacurrent Senior Drupal Designer
Atlanta Drupal User Group (ADUG)
@thememaster

2. About Me
• Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Savannah College of
Art and Design
• Worked as a Designer for the past 10 years
• Have worked with Drupal since version 4.7 release
• Biggest project in Drupal is savannahnow.com
• Favorite project in Drupal is ymib.com

3. Who this presentation is for
`
• If you are new to Drupal and need a basic idea
of where to begin
• If you want to understand the process of turning
a design into a Drupal theme
• If you want to make improvements to an existing
theme or design

4. What we will cover
• Common tools to use to turn your design files
into a Drupal theme
• How to look at a design the Drupal way
• Common theme techniques and practices

5. Presentation Format
• Topic 1: Use The Right Tools
• Topic 2: Design-to-Theme Concepts
• Topic 3: Common Theme Techniques

6. Topic 1:
`
Use The Right Tools

7. The right tools

8. Photoshop
• Advanced Image/photo manipulation tool
• Can be used for web design layout
• Used to create bitmap and vector artwork
• Basic image slicing functionality
• Most designers will deliver finial creative
files in a Photoshop format
• Industry standard software

9. Fireworks
• Advanced Image/photo manipulation tool for
web design
• Built-in features for web design professionals
• Advanced image slicing functionality
• Firework is not as commonly used tool for non-
web designers & publishers
• Industry standard software for web designers
• Fireworks works well with Photoshop

10. The GIMP
• Its Open Source and powerful!
• Advanced Image/photo manipulation tool
• Basic image slicing functionality
• Most designers will not deliver final
creative files in a GIMP format
• Not an industry standard software
• Some Photoshop transparencies and
filters will cause issues when working
between tools
• Major differences in UI compared to
Photoshop and Fireworks

11. Illustrator
• Used primary to create vector based
artwork
• Basic image slicing features
• Good for logo and line artwork
• Use this tool for typography work
• Most designers will not deliver final
artwork in an illustrator format.
• This tool is ideally used for custom icon
work and site background artwork

12. Firebug
• Powerful tool and a must have for
anyone building web sites
• Inspect HTML structure
• Dynamically alter site CSS & HTML
inside web browser
• Debug Javascript code
• Easy determine layout (padding,
margin, border and positioning)
• Determine DOM hierarchy

14. Web Developer
• This is a Firefox plug-in that is a
very powerful way to debug
your themes
• This tool has validation tool that
will warn you when your code
does not validate
• Can set tool to resize browser
based on common browser
resolutions

15. Popular Browsers
• Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, and
Chrome are the top four major browser
operating on the Internet
• Learn the quarks and bugs associated
with all major browsers
• All four browsers have some from of
web development toolkit packaged with
browser
• Know your audience and their common
browser of choice

16. Color Pickers
`
• ColorZilla is a Firefox plug-in that will allow you to
pick colors right from a website
• DigitalColor Meter will allow you to pick colors from
anywhere on your OS (This is a Mac app)
• These tools come in handy when you need to
quickly grab colors from a web site design and
don’t have time to open Photoshop or search
through a style sheet

17. Theme Developer Module
• This is contributed module that is
used with Drupal to help
developers and themers identify
Drupal core code variables,
functions, and templates
• This is a great tool that will help
you save time

18. The Staging Site (MAMP)
• This tool will allow you to work locally on
your machine and is set up just like a
common web server
• Use this tool to set up local Drupal sites to
test module functionality
• Use WAMP if you are on a PC

19. Topic 2:
`
Design-to-Theme Concepts

20. Drupal Theme Terms
• Hooks
• Preprocess Functions
• Theme Functions
• Template Files
• Regions
• Nodes
• Blocks
`
• Content Types
• Taxonomy
• Settings.php
• Template.php
• Views
• CCK
• Menu System

21. Drupal Theme Anatomy 101
`

22. Granddaddy Garland
`

23. Drupal Theme: GMC Life

24. Drupal Theme: AutoTrader
`

25. Drupal Theme:
University of Georgia:
`

26. Drupal Theme: AdGiants

27. WARNING:
Stay away from Trends!

28. WARNING:
Stay away from Trends!

29. Getting started
• Install Drupal to experiment and learn how modules UI
functions work together, before you begin your design
project.
• Use built-in features of Drupal and modules to achieve
Design objectives. (Try not to reinvent)
• Think in terms of how your Design elements can be reused or
repeated throughout Web site.
• Work closely with specialist in Drupal Design or
Development to save on time and budget as you plan your
Drupal project.
`

30. Common Themes & Modules

31. Main considerations in a Drupal
design?
`
• What HTML/CSS does Drupal produce natively
• Consider the code that contributed modules will produce
and how that code will interface with your design goals
• Look for repeating elements in your design that can be
reused in your CSS file.

32. See it the Drupal way
• Break the design up into pieces
• Where are elements repeating
• What Drupal modules will
produce the ideal results with
theme work applied
• What will have to be custom built
on this page
• How heavy is this page in terms
of imagery and how can I
optimize it

33. Create a Drupal Theme
the easy way
1. Create Theme Name directory (mytheme) inside “/sites/all/themes/”
(create new directories if they do not exists)
2. Copy Garland theme from “/themes” and move it to “/sites/all/themes/”,
then rename it to mytheme directory.
3. Change the garland.info file to mytheme.info. Open new mytheme.info
file and change all names with garland to mytheme.
4. Change the screenshot.png file to match your new theme.
5. Clear system cache. (/admin/settings/performance)
6. Go to Themes list page and select mytheme, to start using or editing your
new theme. (/admin/build/themes)
`

34. Image Preparation
type-location-element-(state).file-type
• Type: Describe how the image is being used in HTML or CSS.
Examples: bg (background image), icon, button, inline, etc
• Location: Communicates where image is located within HTML
Examples: header, body, content, sidebar, footer, etc
• Element: Describe what the image object is in the HTML
Examples: gradient, shadow, search, book, etc
• State: (Optional) Describe the condition the image object is being used as in the HTML
Examples: rest, active, focus, etc

35. Good Image Name
bg-header-trim-active.png

36. Bad Image Name
header_trim.png

37. Ugly Image Name
headerTrim_01.png

38. Theme Considerations
• Comment where HTML code starts and ends
• Use a prefix for class and id selectors to reduce possible namespace conflicts
• Structure HTML so that elements can be reused (naming conventions)
• Think about what could go wrong and what the next person may need to add later
to support the project
• Use correct Doctype
• Wrap conditional statements around all HTML not just variables, especially for
regions and blocks.
• Use CSS to manage alternate page layouts when possible
• Use transparent (gif/png) for inline images and position images with CSS
• Only use inline CSS with dynamic scripts (jQuery, Javascript, LightBox, etc)

39. CSS Considerations
• CSS should be indented like any other programming language
• Your file should be organized in same workflow of the page that it
corresponds to.
• Each group of declaration blocks should have a brief comment or
description to described the section/page it belongs to
• Files should be named with project prefix
• Use “em” over “px” and “pt” for fonts and spacing
• Set fonts, link colors and shared elements once at top of CSS document
• Always use shorthand and alphabetize CSS attributes

40. CSS Considerations
prefix-(location)-element-(state) {
– Rarely place on one line
– Always use shorthand
– Always indent code
– Place in alphabetical order
}

41. Good CSS

42. Bad CSS

43. Ugly CSS

44. Topic 3:
Common Theme Techniques

45. CSS Reset
• This set all containers and html
attributes to basic standard
• This helps standardize you html/css
across all browsers
• Takeout the vertical-align: baseline
(cause some issues with type)
Reference: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset

46. Sliding Door Method
Reference: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors
• Drupal produces rectangular tabs by
default
• To add rounded corners use the <li>
and <a> tags to apply left and right
rounded background images to each
respectively. Make the left background
image much longer than you make the
right cap piece
• Use CSS to position them in place with
padding and line height
• This technique can be used for block
headers and form button graphics as
well

47. Load Menu Last
• SEO is a very important consideration
in any site development
• Robots crawl your site from top to
bottom and by placing the primary
navigation code at bottom you can
insure that the meta rich content gets
crawled first before the repetitive menu
content
• Place menu html in the code near
footer but absolutely position it at the
top of the page using CSS
• Support.com is a good example. Take
a look at the source code. The menu is
at bottom but appears to viewer at top

48. Where to Find Help?
• Mediacurrent.com/blogs
• Drupal.org
• Api.drupal.org
• Drupal.org/project/Themes
• AListApart.com
• Lynda.com
• Drupal.org/node/39451
• Drupal.org/books
`

49. Thank you!