This theme set was last updated 27 January 2011.
The basic appearance of a Drupal site -- where the columns are, how many columns there are, what special features there are -- is governed by a "theme", and themes can be either free, or licensed at a price. Drupal.Org lists many such themes, and you are welcome to pick one. For the Oregon Republican Party site, we chose a licensed (one-time charge of $75) theme called "StingRay", available at ThemeShark.Com. For Clackamas County, we were advised to start with the public Drupal theme "Zen", on advice from Amye Scavarda, a Portland-area Drupal guru who's come alongside to help us novices look good. We offer it to you below.
After examining Zen, however, it might pose too high a hurdle for most volunteer web masters who are faced with limited time and experience, and yet still want to create an attractive page. So, since your humble editor certainly falls into the limited time and experience category, and so can respect the constraints on others, we are starting the Clackamas County site on the theme Pixture-Reloaded, instead. We offer that, and several others, below. The criterion for selection was manageable modification without too much programming.
As with modules, we have provided a script to automatically load these themes, so you can load them all at once. We recommend strongly that you use the script, and then play with the themes and decide which to use. The attachment may be found at the end of this page.
Now, a Google search for "Drupal themes" will yield a huge number of themes. Look for ones that have "helps" with them, like "reference cards" and such. You will need these, because customizing the theme a bit for your use still takes a little work. Other than that, observe how many different options there are to make your site look the way you want it to, mostly by allowing for different column profiles and layout. Don't worry: it can all be fixed. You can install multiple themes, and then play with them, before settling on one to use permanently.
While looking for themes, we suggest you bear in mind that although everything can be customized, you might prefer to have the theme perform as close to what you want "out of the box". Pay attention to the column layout the theme allows, the menu bars it allows, the header and footer, and so on. With regard to menu bars, we suggest you look for "Superfish"/"Suckerfish" menus, because that gives you the flexibility that you see on the primary menu bar of the ORP site: the menus that respond to your mouse without clicking. It's up to you, of course. You can use whatever you like and find suitable for your needs.
One of the nice things about Drupal is that it can always be customized, as the ORP site is. That generally takes more skill, and patience, to do, but it's definitely rewarding. If you do customize your Drupal site, tell us about it, so we can share it with everyone else, and give everyone who follows a better chance at creating the perfect site.
An important note: don't forget that any theme you select must have a VERSION COMPATIBILE with the Drupal version you installed. As with modules, we will show the download commands for Drupal 6.
Themes are loaded into the folder "~/public_html/sites/all/themes". You should have already created that folder after installing the Drupal core. If not, go do it now.
So, let's install themes the same way we installed modules.
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Theme: Aboutpeople (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/aboutpeople-6.x-1.1.tar.gz
tar -xf aboutpeople-6.x-1.1.tar.gz
mv aboutpeople-6.x-1.1.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "About" and "Aboutpeople". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Amadou (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/amadou-6.x-1.1.tar.gz
tar -xf amadou-6.x-1.1.tar.gz
mv amadou-6.x-1.1.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Amadou". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Giordani, Gnifetti & Marinelli (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/marinelli-6.x-2.96.tar.gz
tar -xf marinelli-6.x-2.96.tar.gz
mv marinelli-6.x-2.96.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Giordani", "Gnifetti" & "Marinelli". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Pixture Reloaded (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/pixture_reloaded-6.x-3.2.tar.gz
tar -xf pixture_reloaded-6.x-3.2.tar.gz
mv pixture_reloaded-6.x-3.2.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Pixture Reloaded". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Pluralism (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/pluralism-6.x-1.0.tar.gz
tar -xf pluralism-6.x-1.0.tar.gz
mv pluralism-6.x-1.0.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Pluralism". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Plutado (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/plutado-6.x-1.5.tar.gz
tar -xf plutado-6.x-1.5.tar.gz
mv plutado-6.x-1.5.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Plutado". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Plutado Grey (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/plutado_grey-6.x-1.7.tar.gz
tar -xf plutado_grey-6.x-1.7.tar.gz
mv plutado_grey-6.x-1.7.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Plutado Grey". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Sky (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/sky-6.x-3.9.tar.gz
tar -xf sky-6.x-3.9.tar.gz
mv sky-6.x-3.9.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Sky". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Summertime (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/summertime-6.x-1.2.tar.gz
tar -xf summertime-6.x-1.2.tar.gz
mv summertime-6.x-1.2.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Summertime". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Twilight (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/twilight-6.x-1.1.tar.gz
tar -xf twilight-6.x-1.1.tar.gz
mv twilight-6.x-1.1.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Twilight". Click -> Save configuration.
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Theme: Zen (Link)
Commands:
cd ~/public_html/sites/all/themes
wget ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/zen-6.x-1.0.tar.gz
tar -xf zen-6.x-1.0.tar.gz
mv zen-6.x-1.0.tar.gz ./uploads
Navigate -> Administer -> Site building -> Themes. Enable "Zen", "Zen Classic", and "Zen Themer's Starter Kit". Click -> Save configuration.
There are tutorial tools for Zen. Bending Zen is one of them.
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That should give you plenty to choose from. Enjoy the variety. Now, to making things work....
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| theme.loader | 5.84 KB |