Solve : Exporting theme from Drupal 5?

1.	Solve : Exporting theme from Drupal 5?
Answer» Is there a way to export a theme from Drupal 5? I have a website with a theme but I'd like to dump the website as it's a mess and save only the theme for use with Drupal 7.I think you're going to be out of luck. The theme engine changed pretty radically from 5 to 6, never mind 7. Is it a theme you created yourself, or did you download it? If the latter, it may well have been updated by the creator. If the former, now might be a good time to take stock and redesign anyway. Visual standards for the web have improved a lot since the Drupal 5 days. For example, when designing a new web site, I usually start with a CSS framework like 960.gs or Bootstrap, to get layouts up and running much more quickly. There are several vanilla themes for Drupal that you could use for this purpose, eg. Zen or Blueprint.I believe it is a theme that was created for someone personally. I'm not much of a graphics artists and I don't want to be, too much nagging about the colour of this and that .. Tried it. Hated it. Can I at least extract certain elements like the logo and colour values so that I might reconstruct the whole deal? Alternatively, I guess I could upgrade to Drupal 7 from Drupal 5. Is this possible? Or even recommended? It would save a lot of time. Quote from: Raptor on January 23, 2012, 07:39:56 AM Can I at least extract certain elements like the logo and colour values so that I might reconstruct the whole deal? Absolutely. You can always download any images and CSS files that your browser can see of course. For colour matching, I highly recommend the ColorZilla addon for Firefox. It gives you an eyedropper to pick out colours ANYWHERE on a web page. Quote from: Raptor on January 23, 2012, 07:39:56 AM Alternatively, I guess I could upgrade to Drupal 7 from Drupal 5. Is this possible? Or even recommended? It would save a lot of time. No, I don't think there's a direct upgrade path. You'd need to upgrade to 6 first and then to 7. Expect pain. Quote from: Rob Pomeroy on January 24, 2012, 06:55:07 AM Absolutely. You can always download any images and CSS files that your browser can see of course. For colour matching, I highly recommend the ColorZilla addon for Firefox. It gives you an eyedropper to pick out colours anywhere on a web page. Or ColorMania which gives you an eyedropper anywhere in any window. Where would I GO about finding the CSS and images used to construct the website? Is it in the theme folder? There seem to be quite a few themes installed.Press CTRL+U to open the HTML source. Then look for anything with and save those files. Or go into the theme's folder and just save those files.Yes, that is the easiest way to grab the files indeed. Thanks. But how do I go about rebuilding the website in Drupal 7? Do I need to write my own theme or is there a section where I can fill out my own HTML and CSS?I have absolutely no experience in Drupal themes so unfortunately I can't help you there. I'm sure Rob can help though. Quote from: Raptor on January 24, 2012, 03:13:12 PM Do I need to write my own theme or is there a section where I can fill out my own HTML and CSS? See my above post where I mention Zen and Blueprint. This is one of the quickest ways to get up and running. Even then, there's a lot of reading to do and your CSS skills will be exercised to the max. The full theming documentation is available here, including the gen on how to start from scratch. Personally, I wouldn't start from scratch, even with a thorough understanding of theming in D7. It's so much quicker to start with one of the boilerplate themes and create a subtheme from there.I've tried Zen, actually. Didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time, went back to the default theme. I don't think I'm anywhere near experienced enough to do what I thought needed to be done. I understand CSS but Drupal is all new to me. Would you say that sticking with Drupal 5 is a bad idea or is it safe to be used nowadays? Otherwise I'll just recommend starting a new site with a pre-fab theme. Quote from: Raptor on January 26, 2012, 05:00:39 AM Would you say that sticking with Drupal 5 is a bad idea or is it safe to be used nowadays? There are a few issues, staying with version 5: You cannot skip version numbers when upgrading. The longer you remain on version 5, the harder it's going to be, to upgrade, when other pressures (see below) make that desirable. Drupal 5 is end of life. There will be no more security updates. For Drupal (as with any significant web application) security updates are quite common - think at least one a month during the life of the product. It is safe to assume therefore that UNPATCHED exploits exist for Drupal 5. Any Drupal 5 based website should now be considered insecure. Drupal 8 is just around the corner, meaning that Drupal 6 will be going end of life very soon, never mind Drupal 5. Hosting platforms will also be increasing version numbers for things like PHP and MySQL. It may be increasingly difficult to find a home for older versions of Drupal, due to compatibility problems (deprecated functions, etc.). Upgrading Drupal is a pain though, I'm not going to lie to you. I think this issue has been addressed to some extent in Drupal 7, but of course you're going to have to go through two version upgrades to get there.Yeah, Drupal 7 seems to have the upgrades handled nicely. Thanks for the information, I shall recommend that they have their website redesigned in Drupal 7. The theme will just have to be rebuilt. Quote from: Raptor on January 30, 2012, 08:02:02 AM I shall recommend that they have their website redesigned in Drupal 7. The theme will just have to be rebuilt. I think that's a good decision. Alternatively I'd advocate looking into a PHP framework. Most of them have dedicated CMSes. This means that it's much easier to make significant changes to the CMS (if you are already familiar with the framework). E.g. Fuel CMS - based on CodeIgniter. Besides the CODING advantages, you'll also see a significant speed improvement. On the other hand, you'll have access to fewer community-developed modules. In any case, if you're doing much web development, sooner or later you'll be glad you learnt a framework.

Answer»

Is there a way to export a theme from Drupal 5? I have a website with a theme but I'd like to dump the website as it's a mess and save only the theme for use with Drupal 7.I think you're going to be out of luck. The theme engine changed pretty radically from 5 to 6, never mind 7. Is it a theme you created yourself, or did you download it? If the latter, it may well have been updated by the creator. If the former, now might be a good time to take stock and redesign anyway. Visual standards for the web have improved a lot since the Drupal 5 days. For example, when designing a new web site, I usually start with a CSS framework like 960.gs or Bootstrap, to get layouts up and running much more quickly.

There are several vanilla themes for Drupal that you could use for this purpose, eg. Zen or Blueprint.I believe it is a theme that was created for someone personally. I'm not much of a graphics artists and I don't want to be, too much nagging about the colour of this and that .. Tried it. Hated it.

Can I at least extract certain elements like the logo and colour values so that I might reconstruct the whole deal?

Alternatively, I guess I could upgrade to Drupal 7 from Drupal 5. Is this possible? Or even recommended? It would save a lot of time. Quote from: Raptor on January 23, 2012, 07:39:56 AM

Can I at least extract certain elements like the logo and colour values so that I might reconstruct the whole deal?

Absolutely. You can always download any images and CSS files that your browser can see of course. For colour matching, I highly recommend the ColorZilla addon for Firefox. It gives you an eyedropper to pick out colours ANYWHERE on a web page.

Quote from: Raptor on January 23, 2012, 07:39:56 AM

Alternatively, I guess I could upgrade to Drupal 7 from Drupal 5. Is this possible? Or even recommended? It would save a lot of time.

No, I don't think there's a direct upgrade path. You'd need to upgrade to 6 first and then to 7. Expect pain. Quote from: Rob Pomeroy on January 24, 2012, 06:55:07 AM

Absolutely. You can always download any images and CSS files that your browser can see of course. For colour matching, I highly recommend the ColorZilla addon for Firefox. It gives you an eyedropper to pick out colours anywhere on a web page.

Or ColorMania which gives you an eyedropper anywhere in any window. Where would I GO about finding the CSS and images used to construct the website? Is it in the theme folder? There seem to be quite a few themes installed.Press CTRL+U to open the HTML source. Then look for anything with and save those files. Or go into the theme's folder and just save those files.Yes, that is the easiest way to grab the files indeed. Thanks.

But how do I go about rebuilding the website in Drupal 7? Do I need to write my own theme or is there a section where I can fill out my own HTML and CSS?I have absolutely no experience in Drupal themes so unfortunately I can't help you there. I'm sure Rob can help though. Quote from: Raptor on January 24, 2012, 03:13:12 PM

Do I need to write my own theme or is there a section where I can fill out my own HTML and CSS?

See my above post where I mention Zen and Blueprint. This is one of the quickest ways to get up and running. Even then, there's a lot of reading to do and your CSS skills will be exercised to the max.

The full theming documentation is available here, including the gen on how to start from scratch. Personally, I wouldn't start from scratch, even with a thorough understanding of theming in D7. It's so much quicker to start with one of the boilerplate themes and create a subtheme from there.I've tried Zen, actually. Didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time, went back to the default theme.
I don't think I'm anywhere near experienced enough to do what I thought needed to be done. I understand CSS but Drupal is all new to me.

Would you say that sticking with Drupal 5 is a bad idea or is it safe to be used nowadays? Otherwise I'll just recommend starting a new site with a pre-fab theme. Quote from: Raptor on January 26, 2012, 05:00:39 AM

Would you say that sticking with Drupal 5 is a bad idea or is it safe to be used nowadays?

There are a few issues, staying with version 5:

You cannot skip version numbers when upgrading. The longer you remain on version 5, the harder it's going to be, to upgrade, when other pressures (see below) make that desirable.
Drupal 5 is end of life. There will be no more security updates. For Drupal (as with any significant web application) security updates are quite common - think at least one a month during the life of the product. It is safe to assume therefore that UNPATCHED exploits exist for Drupal 5. Any Drupal 5 based website should now be considered insecure.
Drupal 8 is just around the corner, meaning that Drupal 6 will be going end of life very soon, never mind Drupal 5.
Hosting platforms will also be increasing version numbers for things like PHP and MySQL. It may be increasingly difficult to find a home for older versions of Drupal, due to compatibility problems (deprecated functions, etc.).

Upgrading Drupal is a pain though, I'm not going to lie to you. I think this issue has been addressed to some extent in Drupal 7, but of course you're going to have to go through two version upgrades to get there.Yeah, Drupal 7 seems to have the upgrades handled nicely.

Thanks for the information, I shall recommend that they have their website redesigned in Drupal 7. The theme will just have to be rebuilt. Quote from: Raptor on January 30, 2012, 08:02:02 AM

I shall recommend that they have their website redesigned in Drupal 7. The theme will just have to be rebuilt.

I think that's a good decision. Alternatively I'd advocate looking into a PHP framework. Most of them have dedicated CMSes. This means that it's much easier to make significant changes to the CMS (if you are already familiar with the framework). E.g. Fuel CMS - based on CodeIgniter. Besides the CODING advantages, you'll also see a significant speed improvement. On the other hand, you'll have access to fewer community-developed modules.

In any case, if you're doing much web development, sooner or later you'll be glad you learnt a framework.

Solve : Exporting theme from Drupal 5?

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