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>

Part 2 of a series: Building out a full Drupal site in a weekend.

Well, one plane flight down, and a conference to go, I have the main structure of the theme set up (locally; haven't pushed it out to opensourcecatholic.com yet). I decided to go with Zen 2.x's -dev releases, for the simple fact that it's new and the way the Zen project is moving. There are a few rough areas in the documentation, mostly in the 'Readme' file for installing a subtheme, but I got through everything okay.

This theme, I hope, will make its way onto the fine Drupal.org theme repository; getting a CVS account, I'm sure, will be fun ;-)

I started with the very bare layout I had made for the OSC splash page. Then I posted a couple sample blog posts, articles, and other items, and went to town theming all the common HTML elements, positioning the navigation items, and doing some (very) basic testing in IE. Here's a rough idea of how the theme looks at this stage in the game:

Now, mind you, this is quite rough; I was focusing on the main layout for most of the plane flight, and I haven't even gotten around to theming all the listings, more blocks, etc.

But hopefully you have a general idea of where I'm going; I decided to use a digg-like navigation look (border-radius ftw!), and went with Warnock Pro for headings (why not? If you don't have that, you'll at least get Georgia!). I'm still not 100% happy with the 'Zen' way of having Navigation all the way at the bottom for a simple site where there are only a few links. I don't think it negatively impacts SEO much if at all, and although it's a good display of the idea of structure separate from form, it might simply not be worth the hassle.

I'm sticking to the KISS principle for this site, and hopefully will have a very clean, modern look to the site (right now I'm titling the them 'Blue Airy'). I'll keep you posted throughout the rest of the weekend, but postings tomorrow will be very sparse indeed, as I'll be at a conference all day!

I just finished rolling a patch for fixing node.tpl.php in Drupal 7 over on the Drupal.org issue queue; hopefully it's ready to be rolled into core, as it's been weeks months since that particular issue was started. Page.tpl.php is already complete. We still have a few more to go, including comment.tpl.php, block.tpl.php and a bunch of little .tpl.php files.

I think Drupal 7 is going to be the best release of Drupal yet, in terms of being able to have a lot of appeal to non-programmers/techies. I set up my first ever full-fledged Wordpress site a few days ago, and it was super-easy to get things going (although also severely limited in what it could do, compared to a base Drupal install with Views and CCK), choose a new theme, change some settings, and hit the ground running.

By making it easier for themers and designers to quickly customize a Drupal site to their liking, and by having some themes included with core that are either (a) beautiful and functional or (b) great for starter themes (like zen, stark, or genesis... all which are great for different reasons), we can grow the Drupal design community exponentially.

We're almost to that point; we just need to keep making patches, keep having meaningful discussions in #drupal (unlike this one) and the issue queues, and keep feeding webchick cookies (and ice cream). Let's make Drupal the best CMS for designers, themers, and everyone in-between!