Part 4 of a series: Building out a full Drupal site in a weekend.
Well, after having a successful launch day, ironing out a few small bugs in the CSS of the layout, and patting myself on the back, I decided to push the initial release of the 'Airy Blue' theme created for Open Source Catholic out to Drupal's Theme repository. It turns out working with CVS isn't the hell-on-earth I thought it would be, but it's still a heckuva lot to expect from a guy who logs less than an hour a day in a command-line interface!
I applied for a CVS account, then read through the plentitude of CVS documentation for themers on drupal.org, making a few notes here and there. After having my CVS account approved, I finally had some time to fire up Terminal, and go through the process of first 'checking in' to CVS, then uploading my theme directory, and finally 'committing' and 'tagging' it for release on my project page.
>> It's a lot easier to zip up the files and link to them, let me tell 'ya! <<
Anyways, enough about that process (if you ever need help, jump into the #drupal IRC channel and see if webchick's around. If she is, she'll help you in no time!); here's the description of Drupal's newest contrib theme, Airy Blue:
Airy Blue
Airy Blue is a blog-style Zen sub-theme created for Open Source Catholic in 2009. The theme validates as XHTML 1.0 strict, uses some beautiful CSS3 features (currently supported more in FireFox, Safari and Chrome than other browsers), and includes styling for most of Drupal's default markup. It has a 'light' and 'airy' feel to it, and matches well with Drupal's default shades of blue.
Included in the theme is the PSD (Photoshop) file for the header; you can re-color it and adjust the shading/styling of it if you'd like, and make your own header. Also, be sure to read the README.txt file inside the theme folder so you can take full advantage of the theme's features/customizations.
Theme Features
- Web 2.0 styling - light and easy on the eyes
- Valid XHTML 1.0 - Tested in IE 6/7, FF, Safari
- Example of progressive enhancement - some CSS3 included
- Up to three columns - small left sidebar, wide right sidebar
- Based on popular Zen theme, so lots of documentation for modification
- Styling for comments, user pictures, signatures, etc.
- Custom Maintenance Page
Do you use Drupal? Give Airy Blue a try!
Comments
You should consider adding your theme to the list of contributed Zen subthemes.
Also, instead of making the user move files and hack CSS in order to add a logo, you should try to work within Zen's built-in logo features. I know most experienced web designers will likely have a knee-jerk reaction to it, but it's much easier for end users to handle.
I'd also suggest not making the "you must add this line to settings.php" part on the project page seem less dire. It's only necessary if we also want to use Airy Blue as the maintenance theme, right? So it's really just optional, so let's give the user the option of not opening up a code file if they don't have to.
All that aside, I like the theme; good work! I'm working on a personal site which will go live (hopefully) in a couple of weeks and I haven't been able to build up a nice clean theme for it myself, but now I'm considering just nabbing this one.
Thanks for the suggestions, Garrett - I'll take that nasty 'must' word out of the project page. That whole thing was written at about 1:30 a.m., and could use a read over ;-)
Also, I'll work on the logo implementation (for now/1.0, it's gonna stay that way :-)
Be sure to send a link when you're finished on the personal site, if appropriate!