Demystifying drupal 7 theming

1
DEMYSTIFYING DRUPAL 7
THEMING
AND FRONT END DEVELOPMENT WITH DRUPAL
Presented by /
Company /
A web, mobile, Drupal design and development services provider based in Lagos, Nigeria,
Phone: 081 7608 4053 Email: info@icelark.com
Tony N. Ogbonna (CEO/Developer Icelark Projects) @togbonna
Icelark Projects (www.icelark.com) @icelarkProjects

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INTRODUCTION
This is a session on the basics of Drupal 7 themeing and front-end customization
of a Drupal 7 website.
This training session is targeted as intermediate to advanced Drupal user. (Sharp
beginners might also benefit)
The objectives of this session are two fold:
First is to impress on you a fundamental knowledge of the Drupal theme system
and an understanding of how it works.
Second is to empower you with a knowledge of how you might start to use the
power and flexibility of the Drupal theme system to easily customize the look and
feel of a Drupal website.

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WHAT IS THEMING?
Simply, it is the act of changing the appearance/look and feel of a Drupal website
to suite your taste, requirements or style.
Theming is made up of different pieces:
1. Designing the appearance of your website: Photoshop, Fireworks, wireframes,
pen and papers, etc
2. Creating the HTML to contro the layout of your website
3. Changing the HTML output of Drupal to fit your design. ie Modifying the HTML
outputed by Drupal to conform to the HTML you need (The haredst part)
4. Much more...

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OUR ASSUMPTIONS...
Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and PHP

5 . 1
BASICS OF DRUPAL 7 THEMING
The "Drupal Theme Layer" and the theme that uses it are responsible for the look
and feel of a Drupal website.
A good theme consists of all the same elements that you would find on any
respectable website.
This includes standards-compliant HTML markup, CSS, Javascripts, images and
all other components that make the user interface.
How all of these elements are put together into a Drupal website is what makes
the Drupal so flexible and powerful.

5 . 2
BASICS OF DRUPAL 7 THEMING...
A Drupal theme can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.
A Drupal theme has the ultimate control over every aspect of each page of a
website.
So, like Drupal itself, themes are flexible and powerful.
But for you to be able to take full advantage of all that power and flexibility you
have to be able to understand how a theme works under the hood.

5 . 3
THE DRUPAL CORE THEMES
The core theme directory.
The core themes: Batik, Garland, Seven, Stark
Theme Engines.

5 . 4
DRUPAL THEME ADMINISTRATION
Enabling and setting as default
Adminstration theme
Global theme setting
Installing a new theme

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HOW THE DRUPAL THEME SYSTEM WORKS

1. OVERVIEW OF THE THEME STRUCTURES AND THEME FILES

7 . 2
.info file (Required)
template files (.tpl.php files)
Resource files: CSS, Javascripts, images, logo, screenshot

7 . 3
are used for the HTML markup and PHP variables
Each .tpl.php file handles the output of a specific themable chunk of data
This makes it fairly easy for those with little or no PHP experience to make
changes to HTML code.
They are optional, and if none exists in your theme it will fall back to the default
output

7 . 47 . 5
template.php file
are used for the HTML markup and PHP variables
Each .tpl.php file handles the output of a specific themable chunk of data
They are optional, and if none exists in your theme it will fall back to the default
output

7 . 6
Resource files: CSS, Javascripts, images, logo, screenshot

8 . 1
2. TEMPLATE FILES HIERARCHY

9 . 1
3. ANATOMY OF THE .INFO FILE
The .info file is a static text file for defining and configuring a theme
Each line in the .info file is a key-value pair

10 . 1
4. REGIONS
Most of the content found on Drupal pages is output inside a region
Typical regions include the header, footer, sidebars, and content
these regions often play a large part in defining the high-level structure of your
HTML markup
An option appears in the blocks interface at admin/structure/block for each
region, allowing site administrators to control and position the blocks inside them

10 . 311 . 1
5. THEME SETTINGS AND HOW THEY ARE USED
Various page elements output by the theme can be toggled on and off on the
theme's configuration page

13 . 1
7. CREATING A SUB-THEME
Sub-themes are just like any other theme, with one difference: They inherit the
parent theme's resources
Style sheet inheritance: All style sheets defined in the parent theme will be
inherited.
JavaScript inheritance: All JavaScripts defined in the parent theme will be
inherited.
To set Toggle Display of Theme: Overriding or adding features: Specify a new
feature in sub-theme's .info file.
Template.php function inheritance: Anything defined in the parent theme's
template.php file will be inherited.

13 . 2
7. CREATING A SUB-THEME
Page, node, block and other template (.tpl.php) file inheritance: Any .tpl.php files
from the parent theme will be inherited.
Screen shots, logo and favicon inheritance: The parent theme's screen shot will be
inherited. The parent theme's logo (logo.png/logo.jpg) will not be inherited. The
parent theme's favicon (favicon.ico) will not be inherited.
Region inheritance: Sub-themes do not inherit custom regions from a parent
theme,If you are using custom regions, you should copy the region declarations
from the parent theme's .info file

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ADVANCED THEMING (FURTHER EXPLORATION)
Theme layer variables
Preprocess and process functions
Render API
Theming forms
Managing CSS files
Working with base and sub themes
Sustainability and best practices (SASS techniques and tools).

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-
THE END
- |
-
www.drupal.org www.drupal.com
www.DrupalNigeia org
- A Presentation of Icelark Projects
- www.icelark.com
@icelarkProjects

Demystifying drupal 7 theming

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