What level themer are you?  Ever wanted to upgrade your skill set and take your theming beyond your comfort zone? 

In this course we'll start you off at the ground floor of Drupal 7 Theming and work our way towards becoming theming super heroes. We will walk you through the basic concepts necessary to start on your custom theme adventure. We'll then teach you the tools you need including basic php to implement your vision. Throughout the day we will demonstrate common pitfalls and how to work your way through them. You'll leave day 1 feeling empowered with new found abilities to control layout and add custom functionality via the theme. You'll walk away with a theme built from scratch and learn how to use a foundation provided by thousands of other of Drupal themers.
 

Who will gain the most from this course?

Site Builders who want to learn to theme! This course is designed for people who have no knowledge of PHP but are ready to start learning. You will need an elementary understanding of programming languages, equivalent to the understanding you gain with being an experienced Site Builder. Proficiency in CSS and HTML are required for theming, but only an understanding is required for this workshop. Experience with Drupal configuration and use of contributed modules/themes is helpful for understanding the concepts of theme development.

For this training it is quite important that you have a local drupal install up and running on your machine BEFORE you arrive in class. Here is a google doc explaining how to do so in case you need assistance.
 

Learning Objectives

You will learn through a presentation of a series of hands on exercises that will lead you to building your own theme. Each exercise builds on top of the one previous, and our instructors will be standing by, ready to help you should you get stuck.

Syllabus
Class begins at 9am, lunch is at 11:45, class ends at 5. During the course of the day we will cover:
Lvl0: Contrib Themes: What can you do without code?
Lvl1: Getting Started: Introduction, theme anatomy, .info files, common tools
Lvl2: Base Themes: How to sub-theme, picking a base theme, common tricks
Lvl3: Layouts without code: Mastering Display Suite and Panels
Lvl4: Tipple fips (.tpl.php): Drupal's cascading templates, introduction to simple PHP
Lvl5: Preprocess functions: Introduction to template.php, adding variables to templates
 

Prerequisites for this course

No knowledge of PHP is required, but a willingness to learn and elementary understanding of programming languages is a necessity. Proficiency in CSS and HTML are required for theming, but only an understanding is required for this workshop. Experience with Drupal configuration and use of contributed modules/themes is helpful for understanding the concepts of theme development.

Course Information

Date: May 11

Time: 9:00-5:00

Cost: $500 - includes breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks

Training Company: Chapter Three

Trainers: Mark Ferree, Zakiya Khabir, and Rob Decker