Adding a theme

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For the purpose of this explanation, I use the Acquia Marina-theme.

By choosing the theme, you make a decision about the colours of your site, what you display, how it displays, etc. A theme doesn't change the content, it changes the way how it is displayed.

Drupal comes with a number of themes. Garland is the best known, because it's Drupals standard theme and is chosen automatically when you open your site for the first time. Adding themes is rather easy. Some of them are simple, others very complex.

Where to find themes

You find lists, download-links and information of a lot of themes on drupal.org.

When you open Themes on drupal.org, you see a list of them, sorted by usage statistics. Interesting, because it tells you something about the quality of and the need for the theme. You're also able to sort them by title, creation date, last release or recent activity by clicking on the links in the 'Sort by' box on the right. You also can search for a theme.

Notice the 'Filter by compatibility'. The 6.x stands for theme which are compatible with Drupal 6.x. Always download a theme that is compatible with the version of Drupal that you have installed!

For most of the themes there's a screenshot that gives you an idea how that theme makes a website look like.

There are also the download-links in the list. Some of them have a green background, other a red. The ones with the green background are stable, the red background shows versions that are in some development-stage.

The themes in detail

In the lists there is a short explanation about the theme, but to see all the details you have to click on the title of the theme. Together with the explanation, you find links to the documentation, usage statistics, pending patches and much more.

How to choose the 'right' theme

Start by looking at the compability. Then look at the preview. Do you like the colors? The fonts? Examine the features. Does it provide the columns you want? Some advice: avoid themes that are build up with tables. Tables are out, CSS is in. And look under support: are there any major problems with the theme?

Installation of the theme

For the purpose of this explanation, I use the Acquia Marina-theme. Read the information and download it. Of course, look for the right verion (the latest stable version of 6.x). Extract the file you got (you can use 7-zip to extract it). You end up with a folder, named after the theme.

Installing a theme in Drupal is very simple: you just drag the extracted folder (not only the content) into the right directory of your Drupal-installation. Drupal will notice that they're there automatically.

The right place is your_site/sites/all/themes (replace your_site with the right path). If the directory 'themes' doesn't exists you have to make it (most propably it won't on this stage. On your computer you probably know how to make an extra directory. On the web you can do it with an FTP-client like FileZilla). So, after you've dragged the folder to the right place, you should see it nicely under your_site/sites/all/themes.

Enable the theme

On your site go to Administer>>Site building>>Themes (make sure WampServer is running if you installed the site on your own computer!) Because several themes come standard with your installation, you'll see a list. Enable the Acquia Marina theme. When you enabling several themes you or your site-users can switch between the themes. Default means that this theme will be shown when going to the site. For the exercise enable Acquia Marine, make it your default and save the configuration

On this point, your site should look different: other colours, things are gone or moved, or just appeared for the first time.

Configure the theme

Setting the permissions is easy, they go for all the themes. In Administer>>User Management>>Permissions (look under system module), you're able to give user-groups permission to change the theme.

For the configuration of the theme itself, go to Administer>>Site building>>Themes: next to the theme, click on configure. On that page, you see global settings. These are the settings when you don't configure the settings of the theme itself. Theme-settings overrule the global settings.

Click on Acquia Marina. Some boxes you can't tick because of previous settings (you might have disabled the use of user pictures for example). Other settings you can enable, disable or change. Also the logo can be changed, the default-logo is the drop on the top-left. Change some of the settings and don't be afraid to experiment: changing the look doesn't change the content!!!

Further help

 

 

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