Advice on Creating Drupal Themes

Look for one of the simple base themes in the theme directory and work from there. That's probably the easiest way to start. The theme for TWF is based on grid_inspired. The site I developed at work was based on Hunchbaque.

You might need to copy in some .tpl.php files from one of the default themes if they're not included in the one you're using.

Like Megan said, take a current theme (make sure they have the .tpl.php files) and start with that. (All the themes in my signature started life as danger4k but evolved.)

I'll assume you have a WAMP/XAMPP/MAMP like setup on your local computer to emulate a webserver. That's saves a lot of time!

~silverwing

Seems like most of these themes are for versions 5.x and not 6.x. Should I be developing with 5.x? What is this site using?

well, when I am working from psd I use a very basic theme like Framework (although Zen might work out too haven't really tried)

You will need a good css inspector like the Firefox plugins Web Developer and/or Firebug

You will need to be comfortable making some minor edits in the php template files, mainly moving a section or commenting it out. You may also need to add custom css classes or ids.

When adding css make sure to place it at the end of your theme stylesheet so it overrides earlier values. If you change the css in a module's stylesheet, you are likely to lose the changes when you upgrade the module.

Refrain from editing the core Drupal php and stylesheets as this is considered "forking" and will leave you stranded when future Drupal releases come out. Edit your theme files to your heart's content. You can even rename the directory of the theme and make it your own, If you come up with a really unique and error-free theme, you can contribute it!

Some sites I have created this way include http://4m.netsperience.org/ with customization of the Nice Menus module css and custom theme search box with a button image added in css. This is a basic two column theme I am not using the right column.

At http://jcat.netsperience.org/ I have hidden the entire Drupal front end, because client does not now want the community features but I bet your sweet bippy (remember the Smothers Brothers? - oh brother, showing my age again) anyway I am sure they will want them later and rather than panic I will just roll them out from the backend. We are also using the Drupal CMS, this simple looking page is a node with 2 or 3 nodes embedded in it. For admin I created a custom admin page http://jcat.netsperience.org/manage/adminjc.html

Anyway, this is my approach when working from a total design like a psd.

I do also adapt themes such as the Ability theme here http://hcshc.netsperience.org/ and my personal site http://netsperience.org/ adapting the 4 seasons theme (I just switched servers/hosting cos and getting some stupid DNS issues settled)

Thanks for the advice everyone. It doesn't feel right developing a new website with 5 when 6 is available, but that's what I will probably do. It can always be upgraded I guess. I'm surprised it's taking this long for everyone to update their themes and modules for the new version. It's not even that "new" anymore, being 6 was released almost a year ago.

There's nothing wrong with 5.

Like I said, a lot of modules decided to undergo some code changes for Drupal 6 and it just took longer than expected. And because of that, a lot of people haven't upgraded to 6 so they still need 5's modules and support for 5.

Once more of the modules are released as stable for 6, getting them working for 7 won't be as bad.

~silverwing - d5 apologist

I've taken to building my own base theme and customising it for each project. I decided to go about it this way because my own base theme is already customised halfway, compared to starting customisations from scratch with Hunchbaque or Framework.

I modified my base theme from Zen. I like Zen, but I think it tries to do too much.

Also, I agree with silverwing. Drupal5 is solid and it works.