I'm terribly new to web development. I'm trying to make a pretty simple site with a friend. My friend has taken the time to design the layout for our site, and we have things looking how we want in a static HTML page.
What I'd like to do now is move over to a Content Management System like Drupal but keep the same design that we have all ready laid out.
Since I'm completely new to this field, I'm looking for some best-practices advice as to how to make this leap.
It's apparent to me that I could probably edit some existing Drupal Theme to make it give me the layout that I want, but is that the path I should go down?
Thanks!
Update: Also, is it more than just replacing my style.css with their style.css?
Update 2: The end goal is for people to be able to log in and create news entries, very similar to a blog that will then appear on the front page. There will be other items on the left- and right- but they don't need to be directly accessed by anyone, really. They'll stay pretty static.
The Zen theme is sort of a meta-theme that's designed to be fully standards compliant and make pretty much every aspect of theming readily customizable, with lots of informative commenting. It's the best place to start if you want to develop your own theme. Even if you find a theme that looks a lot like the one you want to create, it's probably still better to start with zen because it's extremely well laid out and instructive. That being said, I've never built a theme from scratch, but it sure looks like a lot of work.
Update
In general the best approach will likely end up being to use your designer's HTML and CSS as a reference, and to edit the Zen-based templates and CSS files to recreate that appearance. It's a bit magical.
You will end up breaking the styles used in your designer's layout into chunks that are part of various template files. The mostly-static stuff on the side columns will become what Drupal calls "blocks"; you'll likely use the top part of the page to refine the HTML for the header section of the main page template; and you'll use the central part to add any necessary tags to the content section of the main page template.
I tend to make liberal use of the Firebug extension for Firefox, or the developer tools built into Chrome. These tools let you quickly locate a given CSS element that you want to change, and edit it to see how the change will look. At first though it's probably better to just read through the whole CSS file to get a feel for how it works. Again, Zen's CSS is very easy to digest.
Pour your heart and soul into the Drupal Theming Guide for the next few days. Theming, like most things, is best done if followed by a gratuitous amount of time in the documentation.
Start with either Zen or Framework themes. They provide good starting points for working with the CSS to adapt to your design.
This helps too:
http://drupal.org/theme-guide
Whatever you do, don't take Garland theme as how a good drupal theme is done. I went down that path when I first started Drupal...
Related
Im working on a wordpress site and right now a lot of elements has the same id which makes it difficult to customize.
Right now my solution is to add changes to all of the elements which isn't feasible, the difficult part is I am unsure of how to add an ID to the specific element.
Do I do this in the css file or do I edit in php somehow?
Or is it possible to add an ID with some plugin or similar?
There is no short or easy answer to this.
The best way to figure out what's broken in your theme is by looking into the files it contains and how it works. I could not find the Cherry theme that you mentioned in your comment so that I could take a look.
Of course, to understand what's going on you're going to have to know a good amount about how themes are written. I can't suggest a better place to start than the Codex article on theme development. You may get better results (depending on how you learn best) from a web search for something like wp building a theme. I did and I got this and this but I learn best by reading; maybe videos will help you more. Unfortunately, you really won't be able to eliminate this step and it takes time.
Your theme most likely -- if it has been built in the WordPress way -- uses a series of included templates with the get_template() call. As you're looking, this is probably what you want to look for. I remember the first time I dissected a WP theme it was a daunting task and I had already been a very experienced developer for a long time at that point. Don't be discouraged.
Some themes and plugins use actions and filters to allow modification of their content. If your theme does this, modification could be as easy as hooking on a few of the right ones. This will still require figuring out which hooks to attach to.
I may be able to update this answer with something more specific if you point the first 5 or 10 hierarchical children directly below the <body> element in a typical page, like your home page or your blog page.
If this seems too complicated, you're probably best to consider hiring someone who is more familiar with WordPress theme modification to help you out.
I run a design firm and have frequent need for Drupal development. I'm looking for a bit of guidance on a Drupal workflow that will work best for my company.
My experience working with Drupal developers in the past has been great for back-end development, and chaotic for front-end development. Projects end up with multiple and inconsistent CSS styles, and doing quality control on the visual aspect is very time-consuming.
Moreover, I'm a front-end coder, and use HMTL/CSS/JS prototypes for all phases of projects. I would prefer if the front-end coding I do to was used by the developer instead of going to waste.
However, this workflow hasn't been compatible with Drupal dev partners so far. Because they use themes, and retro-fit them to the design I give them, they aren't able to use the HTML/CSS/JS work I do. Moreover, I have a responsive framework that I like (Foundation), and my developers want to work with the standard responsive Drupal theme (Omega). I don't like Omega because it isn't fluid.
Then there's things like my developer telling me they can't do a carrousel that uses CSS (background-image), because the available Drupal carrousel modules are all based on using the HTML img tag. Does everything have to be based on modules?
Going back to the HTML/CSS inconsistencies and the time-consuming design QA, I think this comes from trying to retrofit a theme. The code is very messy and it makes it hard to target elements for styling. It also makes it impossible for me to do my own CSS changes if I want.
So, in short, I'm looking for a completely different design workflow, and I'm looking for feedback on whether it's workable in Drupal without inflating costs.
Is it possible in Drupal to use front-end code (provided by me), throw in some PHP tags, and end up with cleanly-coded pages, instead of relying on themes? Would this reduce costs (because the HTML/CSS/JS is provided), or would it inflate costs (because it's easier to use a theme)? Are there any security issues involved? Are there update issues involved? In short, what's the big advantage with working with pre-fab themes?
I really, truly appreciate your comments.
We usually develop from the backend to the front end. Modules like Views add many div tags, classes and tags so the theme developer can make better use of them and fine tune the design.
I do not think that is a "messy" code unless you are doing all of the work in tpl.php files.
Modules simply processed the data. It should not heavily theme the output. For a better understanding, see the image below (from drupal.org):
If you want to do any database intensive work in the template level, you will have to load many stuff again that you could simply do in a module.
In my opinion, if your developer is not hardcoding the HTML stuff, he is doing it right.
Keep in mind that you can override most of the theme functions so you already have the flexibility if you want.
Is it possible in Drupal to use front-end code (provided by me), throw
in some PHP tags, and end up with cleanly-coded pages, instead of
relying on themes?
Yes. But you can't simply use slider-image.php like files for that. You will have to add necessary theme functions to and pass the variables to it. IMO, it's relatively more work if you need to completely rewrite the theming functions.
Would this reduce costs (because the HTML/CSS/JS is provided), or
would it inflate costs (because it's easier to use a theme)?
I do not think so. If you have multiple backend developers working on code, ask the theming team to make changes to HTML/CSS. CSS can make your site look worse, and a security bug can ruin your business, expose all your user information or even worse.
Are there any security issues involved?
Most likely. Default theme functions tend to come with much better security. Even though few bugs come out, they will get fixed soon by the community.
Are there update issues involved? In short, what's the big advantage
with working with pre-fab themes?
Because there is a whole lot of work that you can simply adopt. That will also block you from adopting others' CSS work though.
I work somewhere with highly stylized well thought out front end builds which are almost not compatible with the way Drupal theming is handled currently. Having front end developers track down bugs is also very problematic. It looks like there's some acknowledgement of this in Drupal 8 at least. At this point we frequently rework Drupal to work as an API and then build a lightweight PHP Framework app on top to pull content when we need it which gives us total flexibility to do anything we want with the frontend. Another alternative is to checkout Expression Engine where you are explicitly telling it what markup you want outputted and how you want your content to be placed in the markup.
The holy grail would be a very lightweight layer that was part of Drupal where we could use Twig to pull the content the way we want it and all HTML output was defined in Twig.
I have lots of fantastic PSD, CSS and HTML design resources from places like CodeCanyon, CoDrops, multiple designer bundles, etc. I'd like to incorporate some of them into a WordPress site, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to do it and I've looked everywhere I can think of, from CSS-Tricks.com and the Codex to For-Dummies books :)
I'm familiar with HTML, basic CSS and WordPress, but I'm (obviously) not a designer. I do know how to call an external stylesheet using #import or within tags, but how do I pull in the rest of the files?
For instance, I have an item called CSS3Accordion and it contains several index.html files as well as folders containing css, images and javascript. How should I reference them in my theme and where should I put them?
I'm assuming this is a very elementary question (so much so that these awesome design resources don't typically come with a how-to file), so in advance, let me say I sincerely appreciate any help I might get.
Applying a WP template to a WP site and coding one are two very different things. Those resources you are using, are they WP themes? If so, you should be able to install them quite easily using the control panel. If not, it's a completely new horizon. Templates don't function like "normal" html + css, they need much more things (specially, they need to be read by WP and its modules, widgets, etcetera).
I would suggest you start by downloading and installing themes (plenty of tutorials around), and then modifying some of those themes. They usually come with a custom css sheet to add/change styles (use firebug to find them, use !important to overwrite).
I hope this answers your question. If it's only a matter of loading new css, you can still add all of it to the custom sheet. There are also a lot of free plugins (like the accordion) that you can install in WP. Good luck!
I would recommend starting with a basic wordPress theme and incorporate your ideas as you go with some trial and error. WordPress themes are actually pretty straight forward once you spend some time dissecting a basic one. Most of the time I start with a complete design in Photoshop and use that image as a background to layout the sliced graphics over with CSS.
You can place your files anywhere you want, but I normally put them inside the themes folder and reference them with relative file paths, remember though to take the path into account when linking to the files.
I'd also suggest setting up a locally hosted WordPress install to play around with using something like WAMP, MAMP or LAMP. That way you have instant review without having to expose it to the public or uploading files every time you make a change.
Here are a couple of good starting template themes to explore with.
http://digwp.com/2010/02/blank-wordpress-theme/
http://code.google.com/p/wordpress-naked/
Regards and good luck.
what is the difference in performance between css templates and dreamweaver templates , or are they the same. Need to know which one gets indexed quicker by google.
I want to move my website to one the best templates for quick uploads and ftp linkups with linkmanagement tools
please advise
thanks
This is why I despise Dreamweaver and the alike...
Dreamweaver creates websites, which consist of HTML and CSS code, and maybe some JavaScript.
HTML: the "glue". It's the structure which browsers read.
CSS: the "perty stuff". It's what browsers read to determine how to make your page look (colors, layout, etc.).
Since Dreamweaver makes websites, a Dreamweaver template also helps Dreamweaver to make websites, which implies that it follows the above structure.
Templates just style your site and might provide some basic functionality, so they have nothing to do with uploads. Some might be bloated and cause slow loading times, but that's dependent upon the template.
In the end, Dreamweaver Template is more or less CSS + HTML.
A DW template file helps to isolate parts of your HTML code on a page/page basis. Editable content and "locked" content together (in hopes of making development quicker). If you like DW, and have a template you like - 0use it. But don't expect that to be your silver bullet.
There's no advantage to either template where search engines are concerned (good/bad content withstanding).
Content...(pertinent content) is what Google is after. Having a 1M file of valid content will beat a 200k file of sparse/bait-n-switch content every time (well, it's supposed to, right?).
The answer you are looking for: Every Dreamweaver template is a CSS+HTML template. So it depends on the CSS template you are using. For the most part Dreamweaver is pretty bad about writing optimal CSS and it also uses inline styles which is bad for performance.
The real answer: It is obvious you are a beginner and don't know how silly your question is, it is not even one question, and is open ended and has no answer. There is no such thing as a CSS template, CSS by itself is not enough to create a template and this is just a marketing word to use to sell templates to people looking for such a thing as a better alternative to HTML templates, and etc, there is CSS for a certain type of template or certain Document Object Model, so if that is your definition of a CSS template than every Dreamweaver Template is a CSS template, as Dreamweaver itself is not a web technology or language. Dreamweaver is a WYSIWYG/IDE that helps you to write CSS (and other code) without knowledge of CSS, or in my case I use it because I love the pink/purple syntax highlighting it has for CSS in code view.
*Need to know which one gets indexed quicker by google - FTP Upload - linkmanagement *
This has nothing to do with your question, you can create a website in notepad that gets better SEO results. You are mixing all these different concepts together, SEO, CSS, HTML Templates, google indexing,templates, quick uploads, ftp linkups, linkmanagement tools, these are all different concepts and each require years of experience for you to achieve this. At the end of the day what I am trying to tell you is, building a website as you describe is not a few clicks to create a template with dreamweaver. You first need to learn enough to be able to ask the right questions. And then you will be able to create such a website, not the best and ultimate "templates for quick uploads and ftp linkups with linkmanagement tools" but something that works, even though I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to build.
I Think you should look into a CMS like WordPress and get a nice looking wordpress template for your site and eventually become more familiar with these concepts. WordPress has a really good SEO/(google indexing as you say) that it even gets better results than expensive websites built by professionals. This is definitely what you want! trust me!
http://wordpress.org/
For creating wordpress themes, people usually follow one of these two methods
Design Mockup in photoshop or similar tool and code the HTML & CSS from the scratch
Choose a base theme and design the mockup keeping the base theme in mind and code on the selected base theme.
Which is the better way of these (or anything other than these) on tackling the Wordpress theme creation?
It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I lean and develop using Option 1, with using option 2 as a way to glean ideas from.
The main reason is that the photoshop mock-up, no matter how close you ask the designer to follow a existing template, "usually" is different in some fashion, so that by the time you get into the middle of the theme you find that the existing template you could modify doesn't accomplish everything that the client is asking for (unless the client is a relative, in which case you could say too bad).
The other reason is call scope creep. Meaning that the original scope that was presented has now grown past your theme. You'll then have to ask yourself if you can dive into someone elses code and figure out what they were trying to do and then see if you can hack it up enough to fulfill you clients new requirements or if you're better of developing from scratch and then when scope creep comes up, you know right where to go/do in order to meet their requirements.
Anyways, something to think about.
It really depends on what your company/client requires. If they have specific requirements that cannot easily be met with a theme, you'll probably be better with option #1. If they are asking for a design submission, and are leaving the implementation/design up to you, go with option #2.
Some of the premium wordpress themes out there are quite good. Note that for either tool you'll be doing a mockup in Photoshop, so start with that and see what your company/client thinks.
You'd probably want to use an existing theme as a base for a new theme, or at least as a reference, for knowing which Wordpress Codex functions to call to retrieve data to use in your theme.
The HTML/CSS design is only half the solution - you still need to retrieve the data from WP to show.
Use Sandbox to start your theme with, it is free and it gives you many classes to do a lot of the design tricks you see is great wordpress themes.
http://www.plaintxt.org/themes/sandbox/
Another great theme to start from would be Thesis:
http://diythemes.com/thesis/
I always start from a theme that allows me to do things easier in the long run.
I always start out with a Naked theme (like Starkers, by Elliot Jay Stocks), and otherwise build everything from scratch.
If you want to save time, or are not (and don't care to become) very familiar with Wordpress PHP logic, then I'd start with an existing theme.