By marcdrupal on

I've been following this forum for a while and I guess now is the time for me to make a post.

I'm about to set up my first drupal website. (Just to try it - I'm familiar with other CMS like Joomla and WP but never used drupal).

I want to know the basics in setting up af website using Drupal

Therefore, I'm thinking: What "direction" would be the best?

  • To buy a "premium" Drupal theme?
  • Or to "start from scratch"?

What would you guys recommend? I wanna learn how to set up websites using Drupal. And should I go with Drupal 7 or 8 ?

⋅ Categories: Drupal 8.x

Comments

marcdrupal’s picture

marcdrupal commented

The themes I have been looking at are these ones: https://www.templatemonster.com/drupal-8-themes/

But I have heard that they are not coded really well. Do you think this will really affect the website?

vm’s picture

vm commented

If the themes are poorly coded then they can indeed have an adverse impact on the website itself.

My personal preference is to use a base theme found here on drupal.org, there are many. Generate a subtheme from the base theme to protect your customizations when an update to the base theme is released.

adminMN2023’s picture

adminMN2023 commented

If I can chime in with my two cents as I also was a "want to try Drupal" person.

1 - Drupal isn't easy to learn and, from what I understand, there is a BIG difference between D7 and D8. I started with D8.

2 - I was very comfortable creating themes in Wordpress. Drupal is a very different animal. Depending on your comfort level once you pick a version and start leaning - you should be able to answer that question yourself.

3 - Because I had a soft deadline to both learn Drupal and build a site - I realized my best route was to LEARN drupal, and then BUY a template. (OS Training has a great set of video tutorials)

4 - Having said that- I read theme developer reviews carefully then picked a Gavias Theme. Considering the level of support I received, and that I was a beginner - I can tell you Gavias was a HUGE help. Prompt replies (overnight considering the locale difference), always friendly. I am sure there are probably others (Jeff Burnz) who are just as good, but Gavias was a big help to me. Highly recommend.

Hope this helps.

Sunkissedsoul’s picture

Sunkissedsoul commented

I get it now.. This is informative.

Thanks.

Sunkissed

sunkissedsoulvirtualassistance.wordpress.com

marcdrupal’s picture

marcdrupal commented

Thank you for your detailed replies. Appreciate that!

I will have a look at the Gavias theme.