Developing Drupal Theme

The Drupal theme developer module is the perfect guide for creating new Drupal themes with its easy to follow instructions. The module allows the developer to click on any part of the site and see precise details on how it is built. Drupal has a strong group of developers who act as problem solvers in case any complications or queries arise. Some of the topics currently trending on the platform are:

•          How to create a “comment view”
•          Is it possible to translate Drupal comment section?
•          How to pass same integer value in allowed value list in list (integer) or List (text) field

A Drupal expert in San Francisco can help you design templates for practically any type of website.

Using Drupal

Drupal sites are designed on PHP and MySQL and can be used to create Weblogs, Business websites, government websites and much more. Drupal’s versatility can be attributed primarily to the fact that it is an open source development platform and developers can even amend its source code and add new codes for improvements. Some of the prominent Drupal features that make it a developer’s delight are:

•          Ease in modification
•          Content search
•          Language options
•          Content export
•          Assigned permission
•          User validation
•          Sole database

Theme Developer

Drupal’s theme developer relies on the Devel module as a dependency. Once enabled, the developer can click on any part of the page and a popup display comes up showing which theme or function outputted the HTML and what other files could have done. This helps the theme developer to quickly and accurately override the presentation. All the variables passed into the function or templates are also presented for review.

To start off, the developer will need two modules – the Devel module and the Theme Developer module. Both of these can be downloaded from Drupal’s website and then need to be uploaded to sites/ all/modules/ folder. Once the module has been uploaded, enable the modules by visiting the Site Building option and checking all the 5 Devel boxes and clicking “Save Configuration. You can click on any element to see how the Drupal theme function or template was crated.

Further, you can examine your site and make changes after revising the codes. If you hover over any part of the site, a red box will appear around that particular element with details.

The Recipe for Drupal Module Development

A module is a bundle of PHP code and supporting files that use Drupal’s APIs and architecture to integrate new functional components into the Drupal framework.The Drupal site will have three kinds of modules:

1. Core modules that ship with Drupal and are approved by core developers and the community
2. Contributed module which is written by Drupal community and shared under the same GPL as Drupal
3. Costom modules created by website developers

Drupal Module Architecture

Drupal’s module mechanism is designed to provide a uniform method of extending Drupal’s capabilities. To create a Drupal module, one must first be familiar with Drupal framework and its APIs. The files that make up modules are grouped into specific locations under Drupal’s directory structure. During the Drupal installation on a server’s file system, Drupal modules must reside in a few specific locations. When Drupal needs any information about its modules, it will look into these pre-specified locations.

Each Drupal module contains in its own directory and has at least two files –

1.       One describing module content
2.       One or more files containing code and other supporting material

Once the module has been created, it has to be enabled by the Drupal administrator before it can be used.

Developer Module

The Devel Module on Drupal offers several tools that are extremely useful in Drupal development, including cache management, SQL debugging tools, investigation tools, module reinstaller API reference tool among others.  Devel module provides these tools as items in a block. Once the module has been installed, the developer goes to-

Administer | Site building | Modules and enable the module, and then go to Administer | Site building | Blocks to tell Drupal where to display the new content.

The Devel module also includes tools for building themes, a macro generator to simulate form data entry and a tool to generate testing data. As the module continues to improve, new features will be added.

Coder Module

Drupal developers have to follow rigid conventions in their code and the Coder Module has been designed to locate and fix codes that do not adhere to these conventions.  Coder module also helps in doing some basic security auditing regarding how text is handled which is useful for spotting mistakes before they become security risks.

Coder can also help in developing “Drupalish” code which adheres to coding guidelines and makes use of data structures common in Drupal.

Drupal’s architecture is very rigid and the developers adhere to certain styles, practices and approaches that mesh well with Drupal philosophy.

Few interesting facts about Drupal

Drupal is a popular open source content management system that is being used by a plethora of webmasters for an efficient website control. It is a free to download software with numerous useful functions that make it a powerful database driven system. Features and functionalities that make Drupal so popular and attractive are:

• Drupal is an open source application, so, it is highly flexible and open to customization without extensive code rewriting.
•  Drupal is open to all sorts of customization like appearance, theme, content presentation, color combination, etc. to meet all the user preferences
•  Adding required features is also very easy in Drupal. The basic Drupal system has many modules, building blocks, theme templates, etc. over which customization could be easily conducted for the desired look and feel of your site
•  Managing the roles and authority is also very convenient in Drupal. User groups with desired permission and role could be set so that no any individual without required permission views, edit, upload or manipulate the website content.
• ‘Built-in Search’ features in Drupal application that make it easy for any user to search and locate the content uploaded on the site CMS
• Promoting articles are also very convenient using Drupal CMS. Initializing discussion and comments on published content, voting on items and other such publicity tricks could be easily implemented.
• Tracking of content details like creation, upload, update, edit and any other change is very systematic. Tracing the individual responsible for any particular content related issue is also possible.
• Drupalapplication supports RSS content syndication, so anyone with an RSS reader can visit your site feed
•  Drupal’s permalink feature is very useful in linking other sites from your site. This feature creates a permanent link with each content uploaded to the CMS
•  Drupal is a multi-platform compatible application. It can run on Apache, Microsoft IIS, Unix/Linux, Windows, Mac, and others
•   It is also multi-language platform that can attract international audience and allows by supporting multi-lingual web site
• Drupal has tools for analysis and tracking of information related to your websites. Option of taking printout of vital statistics is also embedded
• It is administered by an assigned administrator who can login and manage the site from any place where internet is available

Code for Technorati : ZE5GRVRDHADZ 

Drupal for Site Management with Web Designing for Small organizations

Increasingly business owners are looking for Drupal developers for web designing assignments for their companies, mostly because Drupal is an easy to use, versatile content management system (CMS). CMS is a tool that is used for content creation, publishing and editing for websites.

Small organizations need a versatile and dynamic platform for their website development since in the initial stages there will be numerous changes that will have to be posted on an on-going basis.  Once the organization enters the growth phase, their needs will increase, so easy expansion is required. These qualities will also help them reduce costs through cutting on maintenance expenses.

Scalable: Mobile to Desktop

The beauty of Drupal is the level of flexibility the platform offers to scale designs for PC screen size to smartphone screen size. This is a feat that is most essential for websites since a major 

Figure 1: Device Share of Website Traffic for the 1st Quarters of 2012 and 2013

Mobile devices are gradually evolving as the device of choice for browsing activities. Though they may never completely take over the laptops or desktops (at least not in the short run), their importance cannot be neglected. In fact, for e-commerce websites having a mobile website is as essential as it is to have a desktop website.

Drupal Theme Development

A Drupal theme includes a few PHP files, a CSS file and an info file, that are used together for creating a unique, customized design theme for the website development. A Drupal developer can make the initial set-up for you and train you in the website maintenance functions thereafter.

Drupal CMS

Drupal’s CMS is very intuitive and can be easily learned and executed even by those who do not have a strong technical background.  So, once your website has been set up, you can get some hands-on training on how to maintain the site, add new content (images, video clips, write something), modify links, insert footers, copyrights etc. yourself.

Drupal has a very modern outlook and a strong developer community that is open to all who want to get some quick tips or advice to help them out of troubled waters. Its other great advantage is that it is an open source platform with a secure architecture and authorization to contribute content to the site can be given through secure channels to visitors.