LA Drupal Camp 2012: Beginner Best Practices

Level Up: For Beginning Themers and Site Builders

Meghan Sweet (@meghsweet)

28 July, 2012

LA Drupal Camp 2012

Welcome!How do you learn

Drupal?

Sometimes things are really easy..

Sometimes things are really hard.

Standing on the Shoulders of GiantsLeveraging Contributed Modules-17,318 Modules on Drupal.org

- Assess the project page

- Read the README file

- Put all contrib modules in ../sites/all/modules/

-Views, admin_menu, ctools, webform, wysiwyg, panels, context.

http://drupal.org/project/views/

What do you need in your toolbox?HTMLCSS / JavascriptWillingness to build rapport with PHPFirebug or Chrome Inspector

Basics of the Command LineDrushVersion ControlDev > Test > Live

Drupal Community

You can leverage a lot of skills you already have.

The “Drupal Way”?

Site Development Plan

Typical Drupal Site

Gall's Law

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked...

Build features zoomed in, then pull back and

see how it all fits together.

Structure Content

Break up your content into the pieces you want control over.

Important in mobile theming- content first

Consider your admins and your visitors.

Good content is user-centeredAdopt the cognitive frameworks of your users- E R I N K I S S A N E

Skew, The Frontend Engineer's Misery

Slow Site?

Common Client-side Performance Pitfalls- Cache Settings

- Image Optimization

- Image Handling

- CSS Images

- Size of pages, libraries, CSS.

Theming!

Where everything can be overridden.

There is no "best" theme.

-@rupl

Where to startDevelop a theming strategy and find a theme to match

- ‘Starter’ themes- Base Themes- Responsive Theming- Click-to-Config

Control your layout through configurationPanels, Panelizer, Panopoly

Context, Omega

Display Suite

Advancing Theming

Its all about Overriding

Configuration -> CSS -> PHP

You can give back to the community.

Coding Standards- Indent of 2 spaces

- No trailing white space

- CSS properties in alphabetical order

Learn MoreBooks

Training

Documentation

Blogs

Videos

Meetups

Camps and Cons

IRC

Spirit of willingness, giving back and helping each other

Thank You!@meghsweet

@chapter_three