Be careful. Implementing designs on a Drupal powered website is like turning a battleship--time consuming and an excessive amount of effort for relatively small gains. Drupal really isn't a CMS, it's a development platform (with its own methodology) upon which a giant beast of a CMS can be constructed.

"neemtree" - you obviously have a business agenda here that ties directly into Drupal; I can respect that, but it clearly biases your opinion. Not to nit pick, but Drupal is a software platform upon which a CMS can be built. This is a direct quote from the Drupal website:

The built-in functionality, combined with dozens of freely available add-on modules, will enable features such as: Content Management Systems...

Drupal's code is bloated and redundant. Anyone considering its use should understand that there is a steep learning curve. It's not a great blogging system. If someone wants a blog they should use blogging software. Using Drupal for a blog is like killing a fly with a sledgehammer.

That being said, Drupal is a very robust, feature-rich platform, upon which experienced developers can create powerful websites. Be aware that the default Drupal user experience stinks, and a great deal of work must be done to simplify the UI and publishing workflow.

That's my completely unbiased opinion after working closely with Drupal on two very challenging projects over the course of the year.

Every GPL CMS or any other application at this point I came around or used it past has the same story.
Badly writen, security problems bugs thats always need to be patch.
I can't complain I make money on it fixing stuff for the people.

Also the idea of Open source is good in general but in reality it creates more problems and frustration.

Cheers, DS

Why would I lie? The exact quote can be found here: Second paragraph after the first set of bullet points.

I can't speak about version 6 as I have no experience with it. Do you deny that currently, the default markup that Drupal creates is bloated, redundant and not semantic? Here's one that is seen frequently on Drupal sites:
<h2 class="title">
If you don't understand why that example is bad, you should hang out on this forum, read ALA and Eric Meyer more often.

How about this little gem:
<div id="sidebar-left" class="sidebar">
<div id="block-user-1" class="clear-block block block-user">


And, talk about inefficiency... Not including inline styles (inline styles?!) there are no less than eight server calls for separate style sheets on your own Drupal-powered website.

This is the kind of stuff that makes your typical front end developer/designer (XHTML/CSS gurus) sweat. It becomes time consuming and frustrating to sift through multiple style sheets to be able to target a single CSS property in the kind of mess that Drupal barfs onto the screen.

I know this reads like an absolute rant against Drupal, and it's not meant to be. I just want to make it absolutely clear that it is not a plug & play, easy to use system for your next web project.

Hmmmm, my ignorance of Drupal, or the person who constructed the website with a dozen or so style sheet and JavaScript calls in the head? I actually am aware of the fact that the system can be configured to limit such things.

My annoyance with Drupal is philosophical; it centers around the fact that it takes such great effort to remove all of the superfluous classes, id's and HTML tags in the first place. Wouldn't it make more sense to start by spitting out the least amount of markup possible, and giving developers the ability to add more as needed? Just kill the cruft!

On a sidenote, PettyRider, you sound like you actually know what you're talking about re. Drupal and might even enjoy working with it. Contact me if you're interested in some possible theming work. The marketing agency where I am employed is involved in a Drupal project that is in need of a good themer.

An interesting thread, having themed a few sites I would like to add that at first Drupal can be quite daunting. However if you take the time to read the tutorials it is quite developer friendly, by my third site I was able to reduce the unnecessary div, classes and id's to produce something resembling clean HTML.

I haven't quite got to grips with streamlining the CSS but I am working on it. I have used Drupal for my own site, still a work in progress as I am suffering from own site syndrome but that is another thread LOL. Would be interested in your view of the html code adjusta.

adjustafresh said:

I can't speak about version 6 as I have no experience with it. Do you deny that currently, the default markup that Drupal creates is bloated, redundant and not semantic?

And, talk about inefficiency... Not including inline styles (inline styles?!) there are no less than eight server calls for separate style sheets on your own Drupal-powered website.

Not sure if you're joking or if you have just skimmed the Drupal site, but, ever since Drupal 3 (Drupal 5 is the latest version) a few years ago, you could, with one line, remove *all* the default styling from Drupal.

For the benefit of other designers who stumble across this thread, the default Drupal download comes with default styling (CSS) already defined, but, that can be removed very easily, by just deleting 1 line in the page.tpl.php template file. i.e. the one that says print $styles.

You can also control the markup in the template files. i.e. you can completely strip down the output to it's raw elements by editing template files, which makes it a CSS designers dream. Either by hand, if you have a fairly rudimentary knowledge of HTML/PHP or onscreen using a GUI via helper modules like contemplate.module which is a designers helper module.

I've tried many CMS tools, but, the combination of functionality (there are a huge amount of add-on modules you can plug in to your site) and control over the layout ( Drupal allows you to control the markup of every single element that Drupal outputs) was two of the main reasons I chose to work Drupal.

@adjustafresh: I wouldn't be so blinkered when it comes to Drupal. It is true, that if you just download the default themes/layouts, you will be working with someone else's style.css and numerous other default CSS style sheets, but, as I said earlier, you can remove that very easily.

The Drupal logic is quite simple....it's assumed that designers don't want to work with default themes/layouts/styles, i.e. they are designers and would probably prefer to design their own. Hence the option to remove all the default styles/markup. While the default themes are for non-designers who just want a powerful site but don't have the design/CSS skills to create their own.

I'm obviously biassed (with a username like this) but I thought I would throw in an educated post based on experience to give a more accurate view rather than, from what I can gather, comments from someone who just had a quick look at the default and leaped to all sorts of conclusions.

Advanced DRUPAL Themes (layout files) for CSS Designers

Incidentally, I notice you referred to a list apart in your comments...the a list apart "holy grail" theme is available for Drupal. http://drupal.org/project/holygrail

As is more advanced pure css/xhtml themes like the advanced ATCK theme, which allows you to quickly build css and xhtml valid Drupal themes from scratch without having to un-theme an existing Drupal theme to do it.
http://drupal.org/project/atck

Or the ZEN starter themes:
http://drupal.org/project/zen

I'm not suggesting it's easy, you really need to know CSS very well, but, most designers, especially CSS designers I introduce to Drupal get very excited when you show them how to remove all the CSS defaults and how to control the markup of Drupal output.

Particularly when it's not enough now to just have a "desktop" layout/CSS, i.e. you generally need a mobile/pda/wireless layout/CSS as well. So, the ability to control Drupals output to a very granular level, combined with the power of the functionality available makes it a designers dream.

Dub

"Dub"

My opinions were formed after toiling for several months with two Drupal projects. Our front end development staff was stymied and frustrated to the point of exhaustion battling with the crufty markup. Not just the markup from the default Drupal installation, but the markup of all of the modules that we were using. We even hired not one, not two, but four separate Drupal consultants to help get things in order... to no avail. In the end, we went about one million dollars over budget, and the project never turned out; I'm not exaggerating - $1,000,000.

That being said... I'd LOVE to see some of your sample Drupal work to see how well you are controlling the markup and UI.

Thanks

Not just the markup from the default Drupal installation, but the markup of all of the modules that we were using. We even hired not one, not two, but four separate Drupal consultants to help get things in order... to no avail. In the end, we went about one million dollars over budget, and the project never turned out; I'm not exaggerating - $1,000,000.

Let me get this straight...you claim that over $1,000,00 was spent on a Drupal project that never happened, going through 4 Drupal consultants and you still don't know a one-line change in the Drupal template removes all the default Drupal styles and how to control all the output markup ???!??

No offense, but, that's not the sort of thing you brag about.

Have you ever heard the expression "Don't blame the tool for the hand that holds it "?

I'd LOVE to see some of your sample Drupal work to see how well you are controlling the markup and UI.

I'm not a CSS designer, I'm still learning, so I'd prefer not to get into a CSS/Markup p-ssing contest with you, if you don't mind. I think it's a tad childish and detracts from the core discussion.

However, whenever I'm introducing someone, especially CSS designers, to Drupal, I usually point them to the following Drupal showcase sites:

urlgreyhot.com

Terminus1525

The Onion

Amnesty International

Yahoo research

Twit.TV

Novell communities

Mac World

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

A list of notable music websites based on Drupal

And to pick up on something you claimed earlier...

Drupal's code is bloated and redundant. Anyone considering its use should understand that there is a steep learning curve. It's not a great blogging system. If someone wants a blog they should use blogging software. Using Drupal for a blog is like killing a fly with a sledgehammer.

Well, Tim-Berners Lee, the daddy of the World Wide Web as we know it disagree's with you.

As I mentioned earlier...just changing 1 line on the page.tpl.php template file allows you to remove all the default CSS that comes with Drupal and the templating (Theme) system allows you to override the default markup, which makes it a designers dream. I'm not saying it's easy, but, the infrastructure or Drupal framework is such that it allows for (if you know what you're doing) very very granular control over content output.

I hope that's of use to some other CSS designers, particularly those who would like much more site functionality, but, don't want to learn how to program.

As a tip, if you're diving into Drupal, I would tend to advise approaching it in two stages, for any size site i.e.

(a) Functionality - use the default themes to play around with modules and build the functionality the site requires.

(b) CSS/MARKUP control - once functionality is done, you can strip away all the default CSS very simply (see above) and build your style sheets from scratch and/or go a level deeper and override theme defaults so you can control the markup of Drupal output, remove extra styles etc. Overriding general theme functions is fairly straightforward, more advanced markup control and theming for ALL content types in Drupal can be controlled on screen using Contemplate.module - a CSS designers helper module to override MARKUP.

hope that helps others and bear in mind that I'm biased towards Drupal. I've tried out a lot of the CMS tools out there and nothing comes close to matching Drupal in terms of a balance between scalability, functionality and theme-ability.

Dub

I'm not bragging. I want people to know why I feel the way I do about Drupal, and understand that open source does not necessarily mean free or cheap.

I still don't get it. You claim there was $1,000,000 spent on the project you were involved with, yet you still aren't aware that you can remove all the default CSS by changing 1 line of code and how to control the output markup. I find that truly astonishing and would argue that the source of the problems the team experienced had nothing to do with Drupal. Similarly, I would hazard it had nothing to do with open source.

As a tip, whenever a project goes pear shaped, it's a good idea to have some sort of postmortem to identify where and what went wrong. I mean, seriously. After spending, as you claim, $1,000,000million dollars, did it not cross anyone's mind to learn from the mistakes?

As an aside, that's partly what makes makes your flippant and inaccurate comments about Drupal so irritating and in the context of this forum (A skills share forum), very unhelpful and very misleading.

What's even more irritating is that the whole concept of open source and community development is that problems that people experience feed back into the community and the project improves as a result.

Does that (1 line of code trick) strip out all of the crufty CSS and markup from modules as well?

Just the CSS. Changing 1 line of code removes all the default CSS from the output but I have outlined below how to go deeper.

LEVEL 1:Remove all the default $styles (CSS) by deleting 1 line that spits out the $styles in the page.tpl.php template file.

That means you're starting from the equivalent of a blank canvas from a CSS point of view and working with the default markup. Most prefer to go to level 2 and control the markup as well.

Level 2: Control the markup that Drupal spits out.

Option 1: Onscreen, by using the CSS/Designers helper module called CONTEMPLATE.MODULE, which makes it easy to rearrange fields, output different fields for teasers and body, remove the field title headers, output fields wrapped for use with tabs.module (part of JSTools), or anything you need. The nice thing about this module is that it allows you to customise RSS feeds for all content types, e.g, you might prefer to have different content/fields included in the RSS feed for gigs as opposed to news RSS feeds etc.

Option 2: Using a text editor like notepad, to edit template files, such as page.tpl.php, node.tpl.php, block.tpl.php, blog.tpl.php, forum.tpl.php, node-audio.tpl.php, comment.tpl.php and so on. Those tpl.php files look pretty much like a html file. Here's a representation of the default page.tpl.php template file on screen and a list of variables available to the template. It should be fairly intuitive from there how to remove/modify/add markup.

Level 3: Overriding Theme functions.

Level 1 and Level 2 will remove all the styles and allow you to control the markup Drupal spits out. However, there are situations where you may want to override how certain module content is output, to a very granular, field level, such as menu's, (un)ordered lists, bullets, messages, a login form or an audio player, for example. That's where a special template.php file comes in, where you can override completely how it's output. This level of "theming" in Drupal is more advanced and someone who knows php is useful to have around to help construct the theme overrides, if examples don't already exist in the Drupal handbook.

It's plausible that Drupal could just spit out the content, without any markup and styles, but, most designers don't want to learn a programming language, they just want to control how the output looks, which is why the architecture behind the Drupal theme (layout) framework is structured in such a way that a CSS/HTML designer can get to level 3, without having to learn a programming language or getting their hands dirty/pulling their hair out over code.

It does require a time investment getting to grips with the basics and the Drupal philosophy, but, that's a small price to pay for the functionality and scalability that you get in return.

I hope that is useful for others.

Dub

Gus - the horse has been sufficiently beaten. One line of code. Drupal is the bees knees. We get it. Cut the condescending tone.

My comments about Drupal are based on my experience. I hope that others may find that valuable. I have not said that Drupal is a bad; on the contrary:

Drupal is a very robust, feature-rich platform, upon which experienced developers can create powerful websites.

All I am doing is warning people who are considering its use about the fact that there is a fairly steep learning curve. You and I agree on this point:

It does require a time investment getting to grips with the basics and the Drupal philosophy

With that said, I think that people can take away what they want from this thread (some people like Drupal and some don't). And the conversation is closed...