theming

One of our clients has a large world-wide user base, in many locations where Internet access is limited. In addition to developing for mobile browsers, they also wanted a “low bandwidth” version of the site, optimized for older computers and dial-up connections. Using a handy module and some theming tricks, this was very easy to implement in Drupal.

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UPDATE: Due to recent changes to our website the code snippet (the valuable part of this blog post) got accidentally lost. If you read this already, please come back to see the sample code. Thanks!

Often you want to add CSS files, scripts, feed icons or even set Drupal's page title from the theme layer. The most obvious place to call Drupal's functions for these tasks is probably in a page preprocess function. However calling the following Drupal API functions from a theme or module's NAME_preprocess_page() function often doesn't work;

• drupal_add_css()
• drupal_add_js()
• drupal_add_feed()
• drupal_add_link()
• drupal_set_html_head()
• drupal_set_title()
• drupal_set_message() (or devel.module's dpm()).

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Cross-browser theme development for multilingual websites, like Amnesty International, is a lengthy process. Not only must the site look great in 7 or more browsers (IE 6/7/8,Firefox , Safari, Opera, Chrome) but all that work is multiplied by each language. Translated text changes length, forms get messy, and you would not believe the bizarre voodoo invoked by right-to-left layouts, like Hebrew or Arabic, in IE6.

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While there were many great presentations at DrupalCon DC, Young Hahn's Limitations of the Drupal Theme Layer was the only one that blew me away. Most of the session attendees and readers of the related blog post seem to miss his main point; a proposal for a rule-based theme layer.

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The Advanced Theming Techniques presentation that Bevan and I gave was very well received. Thanks to everyone in the room for helping keep me comfortable. Don't know if you noticed, but I was pretty nervous at the beginning. It was my first DrupalCon and my first time presenting in front of such a large group. Because the Drupal community ROCKS, I soon felt quite comfortable.

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This Saturday the Seattle DUG is hosting a one day DrupalCamp. We are calling it a MiniCamp, because we usually manage two day events. This one is a little different. In true BarCamp style, we are not specifying speakers or topics. Heck, a schedule barely exists. The intent is to bring people together, to cooperate and learn more about Drupal. I am really excited about this, because there is more opportunity for everyone to participate.

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Theming is one of the aspects of Drupal development that Drupalers most want to get better at, according to Dries' last survey.

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Drupal 6 Themes by Ric Shreeves on Packt Publishing is a great resource for newbie Drupal themers. Themers who are not from a programming background will find it especially useful since it starts with the basics and builds up to more complex yet powerful techniques such as hook_form_alter().

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UPDATE: Buddhika Amila Sampath created the Light Fantastic theme, not Joshua Brauer. Joshua is the maintainer. I recently searched on Themebot for a great contributed Drupal flexible-width theme for DrupalSouth.net.nz and found Light Fantastic. Joshua Brauer maintains the awesome Light Fantastic theme, which was created by Buddhika Amila Sampath as part of the Google Summer of Code 2007. Screenshot of Light Fantastic on the DrupalSouth website: See a larger image.

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If you're a themer, you know you want it. You crave for it every day. It's a hunger, never relenting, pushing you closer each day towards the brink. You'd consider doing just about anything -- legal or otherwise -- to end the agony of using Internet Explorer 6.

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