LA Drupal Camp 2012: Beginner Best Practices

LA Drupal Camp 2012Level Up: For Beginning Themers and SiteBuildersMeghan Sweet (@meghsweet)28 July, 2012

Welcome!How do you learn Drupal?

Sometimes things are really easy..

Sometimes things are really hard.

Standing on the Shoulders of GiantsLeveraging ContributedModules-17,318 Modules on Drupal.org- Assess the project page- Read the README file- Put all contrib modules in ../sites/all/modules/-Views, admin_menu, ctools, webform,wysiwyg, panels, context.

http://drupal.org/project/views/

What do you need in your toolbox?HTMLCSS / JavascriptWillingness to build rapport with PHPFirebug or Chrome InspectorBasics of the Command LineDrushVersion ControlDev > Test > LiveDrupal CommunityYou can leverage a lot of skills you already have.

The “Drupal Way”?

Site Development Plan Typical Drupal Site

A complex system that works isinvariably found to haveevolved from a simple systemthat worked...Galls Law

Build features zoomedin, then pull back and see how it all fits together.

Structure ContentBreak up your content into the pieces you wantcontrol over.Important in mobile theming- content firstConsider your admins and your visitors.Good content is user-centeredAdopt the cognitive frameworks of your users-ERIN KISSANE

Skew, The Frontend Engineers Misery

Slow Site?

Common Client-sidePerformance Pitfalls- Cache Settings- Image Optimization- Image Handling- CSS Images- Size of pages, libraries, CSS.

Theming!Where everything can be overridden.

There is no "best" theme. -@rupl

Where to start Develop a theming strategy and find a theme to match- ‘Starter’ themes- Base Themes- Responsive Theming- Click-to-Config

Control your layout throughconfigurationPanels, Panelizer, PanopolyContext, OmegaDisplay Suite

Advancing ThemingIts all about OverridingConfiguration -> CSS -> PHP

You can give back to the community.

Coding Standards- Indent of 2 spaces- No trailing white space- CSS properties in alphabeticalorder

Learn MoreBooks Camps and ConsTraining IRCDocumentation Spirit of willingness, givingBlogs back and helping each otherVideosMeetups

Thank You!@meghsweet @chapter_three

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LA Drupal Camp 2012: Beginner Best Practices

by meghsweet on Jul 28, 2012

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LA Drupal Camp 2012: Beginner Best Practices Presentation Transcript