Theming

Theming is the work necessary to take total control of the output/layout coming from drupal, without using one of the pre-made themes alone. A new theme can use another theme as a base. It would probably be best to review the basic structure before starting, and then take a look at one or more themes located in the core drupal install.

• Overview of theme files

create a folder to contain your theme here: <drupal install>/sites/<sitename such as default>/themes/<your theme name>

see http://drupal.org/node/171205

Create a page.tpl.php file to style the main layout of your site. Then create a node.tpl.php file to control the content output coming from your nodes. If you create a custom content type, you can then control it by creating a node-<content type>.tpl.php file.

This will control the visual layout of your site.

Once your theme is roughly set up, you need to enable it in the drupal admin, under Administer→Site Building→Themes.

• Theming Guide
• Theming nodes by content type