Design To Theme:A Beginners Guide

By Danté R. TaylorMediacurrent Senior Drupal Designer

Drupal Camp AtlantaOctober 2, 2010

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

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

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

Presentation Format

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

Topic 1:

`Use The Right Tools

The right tools

` Photoshop Illustrator Fireworks Gimp Firefox Chrome Safari Internet Explorer MAMP

Staging Site Colorzilla (Firefox Plug-in)

DigitalColor Meter FireBug (Firefox Plug-in)

Web Developer (Firefox Plug-in)

Text Editor (Dreamweaver, BBEdit, gEdit, notepad, etc)

Theme Developer Module

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topic 2:

`Design-to-Theme Concepts

Drupal Theme Terms

• Hooks• Preprocess Functions• Theme Functions• Template Files• Regions• Nodes• Blocks

`• Content Types• Taxonomy• Settings.php• Template.php• Views• CCK • Menu System

Drupal Theme Anatomy 101

`

Garland Theme

`

Drupal Theme: AutoTrader

`

Drupal Theme: University of Georgia:

`

Drupal Theme: AdGiants

How to Design For Drupal?• 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.

`

Main considerations in a Drupal design?

`• What HTML/CSS does Drupal produce by 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.

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

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)

`

Image Preparationtype-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 HTMLExamples: header, body, content, sidebar, footer, etc

• Element: Describe what the image object is in the HTMLExamples: gradient, shadow, search, book, etc

• State: (Optional) Describe the condition the image object is being used as in the HTMLExamples: rest, active, focus, etc

Good Image Name

bg-header-trim-active.png

Bad Image Name

header_trim.png

Ugly Image Name

headerTrim_01.png

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)

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

CSS Considerationsprefix-(location)-element-(state) {

– Rarely place on one line– Always use shorthand– Always indent code– Place in alphabetical order

}

Good CSS

Bad CSS

Ugly CSS

Topic 3:

Common Theme Techniques

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

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

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

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

`

Thank you!