This is bound to be a controversial topic - and bound to flare up into a flame war within the open source community. However, here is a presentation made by one of our most talented front-end engineers who knew TYPO3 (ver3.x) theming as well as Drupal (ver 5.x).

1. Drupal Themes
A comparison with TYPO3 Templating
Thursday 5 February 2009 Prepared by: Syed Shikeb ur Rahman
www.srijan.in

2. What makes a good theming
system?
● Loose Coupling
● Homogeneity
● Changeability
● Ease of Implementation
● Portability
Thursday 5 February 2009 Prepared by: Syed Shikeb ur Rahman
www.srijan.in

3. Anatomy of a Drupal Theme
Thursday 5 February 2009 Prepared by: Syed Shikeb ur Rahman
www.srijan.in

4. Building a PHPTemplate Theme
● Create or modify an (X)HTML/CSS template for
the site.
● Create a .info file to describe your new theme to
Drupal.
● Standardize the filenames according to what
Drupal expects.
● Insert available variables into your template.
● Create additional files for individual node types,
blocks, and so on.
Thursday 5 February 2009 Prepared by: Syed Shikeb ur Rahman
www.srijan.in

5. Loose Coupling
● Drupal can work with ● TYPO3 uses TV, TS
different theme and it's own system of
engines markers
● Themers and module ● Themers must know
developers can work the markers provided
in parallel by the plugins/mods
● Elegant hook system
Thursday 5 February 2009 Prepared by: Syed Shikeb ur Rahman
www.srijan.in

6. Homogeneity
● PHPTemplate is PHP ● Extensive use of TS
● No need to learn ● Learning TS is
another language essential
● Drupal themers are ● TypoScript is not a
good coders programming
language
Thursday 5 February 2009 Prepared by: Syed Shikeb ur Rahman
www.srijan.in

7. Changeability
● Changes require ● Changes require
editing text files. editing at multiple
● Efforts are locations
proportional to ● More effort even for
complexity smaller changes.
Thursday 5 February 2009 Prepared by: Syed Shikeb ur Rahman
www.srijan.in

8. Ease of Implementation
● Out of the box, Drupal ● Out of the box,
works like a blog. TYPO3 throws an
● Sub-themes error.
● Easy to use version
● No sub-themes
control ● Using version control
● Enforces structure very difficult
● Prone to scattering
Thursday 5 February 2009 Prepared by: Syed Shikeb ur Rahman
www.srijan.in

9. Portability
● Very portable ● Difficult to move
Thursday 5 February 2009 Prepared by: Syed Shikeb ur Rahman
www.srijan.in