Theme development

I am very new to Drupal (meaning I'm still learning the teminology and have almost no knowledge of editing themes), and I want to use a drupal theme with a Javascript menu. The code I want to use is very similar to this: http://dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/switchmenu.htm

Hello,

I'm new to Drupal, but it looks promising as it is very small and effecient.

My current project before switching to Drupal as my primary CMS is to figure out several things. The first is:
How do I modify a theme for a module?

Example: Instead of the navigation bar for the book module belonging to the bottom of a page, I want to have it at the top of the page. How do I modify the layout to reflect this change?

Or for a forum I'd like to include the information output of a custom SQL statement to show the current number of posted articles, etc.

Hello fellow drupallers,

Hi,
I'm having one heck of a time figuring out how to install, configure, and use the Civicspace theme. In case it matters, I'm using a Mac OS 10.2.8. I’ve downloaded Civicspace to my desktop, then went to my Drupal directory, under themes, and uploaded all of the components of Civicspace (it wouldn’t load as a whole folder, so I clicked on each element in the folder and uploaded it). It seemed to upload fine, and then was shown as existing in the themes directory.

I am starting a new site, and I am not graphically gifted.

In turn, I am seeking someone who is willing to make a theme for my site.

Here is what I need:

Three column site
Nice menu buttons on top such as the Leaf-smarty theme
Professional look, but not boring

Does anybody know if we have done away with search_url template variable in 4.7. If so, what are the search box variables now?

I noticed that search_box now outputs html instead of 1 or 0. What is the function to theme this?