Front End Drupal: Designing, Theming, Scripting

Drupal is now the world’s #1 open source content management system: Thousands of individuals and organizations are using it to build and update Web sites of virtually every kind. As Web designers and developers adopt Drupal, they need ways to quickly customize the visuals and interactivity of their sites. Drupal offers powerful tools for doing so, but little guidance on using them effectively. Front End Drupal is the solution. In this book, two expert Drupal developers cover everything you need to know to create great visual designs and state-of-the-art interactivity with Drupal’s behaviors, themes, and templates.

Front End Drupal is 100% focused on issues of site design, behavior, usability, and management. The authors show how to style Drupal sites, make the most of Drupal’s powerful templating system, build sophisticated community sites, streamline site management, and build more portable, flexible themes. You’ll also gain hands-on experience through several case studies that walk you through the customization of everything from page templates to Web site forums.

*Prepare and organize content so it’s easier to integrate into Drupal Web sites
*Structure Drupal page templates that are easy to work with
*Configure Drupal with the modules and browser tools you need to customize your site
*Utilize Drupal’s Starter Themes and themes converted from WordPress, Joomla!™, and Drupal 5.x
*Maximize the power and usability of Drupal’s content editing forms
*Build usable community sites with user profiles, comments, and user-generated content
*Use JavaScript™ to make your themes interactive and to enhance usability
*Create powerful animations and AJAX callbacks with jQuery, Drupal’s JavaScript library