Where to download theme derivative styles?

By freyquency on 9 Feb 2006 at 00:56 UTC

I've been thinking about the difference between say Wordpress themes and Drupal themes and the way they are spread. This isn't about which is better, easier, etc.

I've noticed that Wordpress themes are hosted all over the place, compared to Drupal, where most themes are centrally located. I think the major difference here is that Wordpress themes are often meant to be final products, where Drupal themes are actually more complicated. With Drupal you have Engine>>Theme>>Style; Most times a theme's style ends with the default style.css, but Theme engines allow someone to just add a folder with a style.css to a theme and voila! New design.

But these aren't themes per se.

I do a lot of this type of design. I create a base and I use it for many designs. For one thing it's a lot easier to maintain than a bunch of templates. For another it forces me to be very engaged in what is going on in the structural part of the theme. Any CSS Zen Garden fan will realize the re-usability of a good template.

So my questions are these:

What would be the best way to distribute these designs?
Where should these designs be located?
Is a decentralized approach better in this situation?
Will there be GPL issues? (hot button question to liven this up :P )

For example, wouldn't it be really confusing if there were themes, styles, and engines in the drupal download section? It's already frustrating to get questions about why ___xyz___ theme doesn't work (A: because phptemplate isn't installed) and adding another ingredient would be confusing. But is that better than including them with the Theme itself? Does that respect what is essentially a totally different design that someone could use?

What do you think?

Comments

bump.

freyquency commented 14 February 2006 at 01:44

Just curious if anyone is interested in this topic...

We have three choices

sepeck commented 14 February 2006 at 02:18

We have three choices here:

You host them. Downside is that hard to find.
Upload them as theme's, sounds like they arn't actually theme's.
Add it to the Customization and themeing section as an approach to how to theme for people to leverage and learn from.

I favor the last approach. The part that really helped folks understand some power and flexibility of Drupal was the php Snippets section so why cannot a page.tpl.php or node.tpl.php with some verbage and explantion not do the same. Not a complete theme but elements of a theme that people can build off of.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
_{Drupal Best Practices Guide}

sort of...

freyquency commented 15 February 2006 at 01:04

I like the idea of adding to the customization and theming section, but I do think there is a distinction between a complete style, a theme, and a grouping of snippets that can be combined into a theme. The great thing about wordpress themes (like wallpapers, winamp/xmms skins, etc) is the visual pop. It's something that doesn't take much mental effort to browse and when you find one that is cool it's exciting, inspirational even.

hmmm.... maybe the theme garden would be a good vehicle. After thinking about it for a while I think it would be best for a decentralized approach (#1) -- which is organic, grassroots, and generally a good thermometer for what CMS designers are making templates for. Encouraging people to do so in this manner is another matter; setting up a site like deviantart (or a category on devart!), or a css gallery would be nice...

I realized after I posted this that I didn't really make the subject very clear, which could be why there isn't a lot of interest. Or it's just not that interesting. ;)

You realize that we have

sepeck commented 15 February 2006 at 01:34

You realize that we have such a site that people can contribute themes to? http://themes.drupal.org/ It contains both available and themes that are not available.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
_{Drupal Best Practices Guide}

yup

freyquency commented 15 February 2006 at 23:52

Yeah, I did mention theme garden might be the best choice. I wasn't aware that it was back up and running though. Last time I checked it was still having some troubles.