From time to time, I've had to update my airyblue project in CVS (Airy Blue is a light, airy, Zen subtheme listed on Drupal.org's Themes section). It's always a bother, and I always end up spending about 20 minutes figuring out how to check out the module to my local computer (I use three of them, so even if I have it set up on one, I need to get it going on another sometimes), then another 20 figuring out how to commit my changes, tag a release, etc.

So, this post might be titled "How to Maintain a Theme on Drupal.org if You're Confounded by the CVS Guide for Theme Maintainers, and you are on a computer on which you haven't checked out your module yet."

Logging in, Setting up CVSROOT

1. Open up Terminal (on a Mac) and navigate (cd) to your CVS folder.
2. Enter export CVSROOT=:pserver:<username>@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal-contrib
   (This will set your CVS 'root' to the right directory. Enter your username where it says <username>).
3. Enter cvs login to login, and type in your CVS password when prompted.
4. Type in cvs checkout -l contributions/themes
5. Type in cvs checkout -d contributions/themes/<themename> contributions/themes/<themename>

After you do this, you should have the latest version of your module checked out into your local folder. Now, edit the files however you'd like, and test them locally to be sure your changes are correct. Next you have to commit your changes (don't do this yet if you've added or removed any files or folders*):

1. In the same Terminal window, type in cvs commit -m "Explanation of changes."
2. Finally, you have to tag your release before you can go to the project page on drupal.org and create a new release of your theme. Type in cvs tag DRUPAL-6--1-1 (or whatever tag you need - in my case, it was DRUPAL-6--1-5 for 6.x-1.5).

Now, go back to your project page on drupal.org, and click the 'Add new release' link under the Download section. In the release notes, you should reference all the issues you addressed in this release cycle, by typing them in as follows: [#552912] (the number should be replaced by issue's number as seen on drupal.org).

*If you added or removed any files, you will need to tell the CVS server what you did:

1. For a new directory, type in cvs add <directory>
2. And to get all the files inside that directory added, type in cvs add <directory>/*
3. To remove a file or directory, type in cvs remove <filename> or cvs remove <directory>

After running through an installation of Drupal 7 using the latest CVS HEAD revision, here are a few cursory notes:

• LOVING the new admin toolbar - Will still use admin_menu for myself, but for content editors, the new toolbar across the top is quite a usability improvement, imo.
• "Automatically run cron every X hours" built into core - a great feature, especially for those who can't configure crontab on their host/server (or don't know how to). Also comes with a sensible default (3 hours).
• Status report page looks a little funny (at least in Safari 4.x).
  • The 'run cron from outside the site' line is kinda confusing at first glance, and looks erratic. Might want to change that into a different kind of link...
• Dashboard is nice.
• The 'Seven' admin theme really needs icons :-P
• "Check for updates of disabled modules and themes" at admin/settings/updates <-- FINALLY!
• Moving from Seven theme to installed theme when managing blocks is kinda weird, I have to say...
• I like the streamlined Content Type addition page - now it has vertical tabs, and the first thing that shows is the options for changing the Title/Body field labels, which is what I typically do first... so, nice!
• It would be nice if the Menus page listed Main menu, then Secondary menu... but it's alphabetical, with other menus in-between, so that can't quite happen :-(
• There's a nice "Clear Log Messages" button on the dblog page, which is extremely convenient.
• It's not immediately apparent how to get back to the website from anywhere in the /admin section of the site (?) --> you have to click the itsy-bitsy "Home" breadcrumb link.
• Image styles – WOAH! Awesome sauce! ImageCache-ishness in core!
• Stark theme - Love the 'starkness,' but there's a lot of craziness going on with IDs and Classes - too many right now (as opposed to D6's too few/not right classes). Funny, since that's something we thought we had fixed up already.

These are some thoughts off the top of my head based on a quick glance through a test site... Things are looking great so far, and the site felt pretty fast and smooth while I was testing. Can't wait for code freeze / streamlining for 7.0 release!

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: