Soon after installing the default configuration of Drupal, most users are going to be disappointed. Yes, Drupal still provides all the power and flexibility that was promised, and then some, but let's face it...the default look of a Drupal install leaves much to be desired. This two-part tutorial aims to provide a simple solution for those new to Drupal who still want a more aesthetically pleasing look to their site, without delving into CSS or PHP.
One of your first questions with Drupal will probably be "How can I customize my Drupal install so it looks ...er... better?" If this isn't one of your first questions, rest assured it'll be one of your boss's, so you might as well figure this out as soon as possible.
Fortunately, Drupal has many incredibly easy ways of changing the look and feel of your site. Like most other CMS packages (like Mambo, phpBB, and OSCommerce) Drupal allows you to install pre-built theme packages for your site. Unlike the other CMS packages I've used, however, Drupal allows an incredible amount of flexibility while also surpassing the others in terms of ease of implementation. Even a complete newbie to website design can have a great Drupal site up and running in no time, using freely available templates.
The first step is to decide which theme engine you want. Unlike most other CMS packages, Drupal allows you to decide which engine you want to use to render your themes...this will affect which themes you can install, as well as how you write your own custom themes (for when you get tired of using other people's themes, or when you need something specific that just isn't available anywhere else...) I strongly recommend PHPTemplate...it's a great engine, possibly the most flexible, and using it will prepare you for theme design in other FL/OSS CMS packages, since it's fairly similar.
Installing PHPTemplate was easy. I did a Google search for "PHPTemplate Drupal" and got to The PHPTemplate For Drupal page on the Drupal site. This page offers a much more in-depth look at the PHPTemplate system, for those of you who are interested. I clicked on the link to the Drupal download page which lists the latest version of the engine, and then clicked on it to download.
It came as a .tgz package, which meant I had to uncompress it. I used Zipgenius, a free unzip utility, and had a folder called "PHPTemplate" when I was finished.
Next I read the read-me file to make sure there were no surprises and no arcane rituals I need to perform to make it work. Thankfully (like with most Drupal module installs) there wasn't...I simply had to upload the file to the right directory on my webserver. The engines go in a folder called (predictably) "engines" inside the "themes" folder in the root of your Drupal install.
I used the Firefox extension FireFTP to upload the folder, and that was it. I was ready to use themes based on the PHPTemplate engine.
The next step: Installing a PHPTemplate Theme.
