Moshe Weitzman talks about the new Page rendering flow and hook_page_alter() functionality in Drupal 7, which allows a more control over what appears on each page load. This will enable one-off customizations to the page loads in a much easier way. He talks about how Drupal 7 themes can now implement alter hooks, and how the page render arrays use the same approach as forms and nodes. Weitzman suggest that if you're new to the concept of render arrays to check out either the Pro Drupal Development book or some of the other training resources such as a workshop or other training videos.

John Albin Wilkins (aka JohnAlbin) talks about some of the new extensions to the theming system that are new in Drupal 7 including render elements, hook_page_alter(), show, hide, theme_get_suggestions(), and improvements to theme_links(). He also talks about the theme administration page overhaul, how it's now a lot easier to create "mega-menus" dropdown panels when hovering over the primary navigation, as well as another presentation that Palantir gave on previewing Drupal 7.

For more detailed information on what's new in Drupal 7 for themers, then be sure to check out John's DrupalCon presentation titled "Design and Theming: What's new in Drupal 7?" read more »

Emma Jane Hobgin (aka emmajane) gives an overview of her DrupalCon San Francisco presentation on PHP for Designers. She talks about the importance of pattern recognition and forensic coding, some helpful modules such as Devel Themer as well as some of the basics of Drupal theming with tpl.php files and preprocess functions within the template.php.

For more information, be sure to check out her PHP for Designers presentation.

Chris Fassnacht (aka sociotech) talks about the evolution of Top Notch Themes and Fusion Drupal Themes. He focuses on some of the target market and intentions that drives their premium theme service. He also talks a bit about some of the backend infrastructure that they're using with the Project module & Drush Make's in order to automatically package up all of their various theming downloads. Fassnacht also talks about their approach to designing Drupal themes for e-commerce and briefly talks about the Skinr module, which is the driving force behind the Fusion theme system. read more »

Morten Heide (aka mortendk) talks about the Mothership theme, which is his solution to the Designers vs. Developers debates about clean HTML markup vs. the flexibility from the machine-generated markup.

Morten is also helping coordinate DrupalCon Copenhagen taking place August 23-27th.

Benjamin Doherty (aka bangpound) talks about the Semantic Views module, and some of the ways that it makes theming views easier, more robust and more accessible. It's a Views plugin that allows you to customize HTML elements and class attributes through the Views UI instead of having to override templates for each view. There is a Drupal 6 module, and there is a pending issue for integrating Semantic Views into the Views 3 branch for both Drupal 6 and Drupal 7.

Stephanie Pakrul (aka stephthegeek) of Top Notch Themes talks about their latest Fusion theme and related store that sells Fusion Drupal Themes.

Fusion is powered in part by the Skinr module and provides a user interface for customizing the layout of your Drupal site and grid system.

Pakrul also mentions their Acquia Prosper theme which is a theme for Ubercart for Drupal 6.

Pakrul also takes a look at some of the new theming features in Drupal 7 that she's excited about. And finally, she talks about the other two sessions that she was involved with including the Monetizing Drupal panel as well as one on Conversion Rate Optimization.

For more information on the Fusion theme, be sure to check out their DrupalCon session called "Theming with Fusion: a new approach for layout and modular styles"

read more »

Jeannie Finks and Susan MacPhee talk about the second Drupal Design Camp coming up in Boston on June 19-20, 2010 taking place at the MIT Strata Center.

Jeannie & Susan talk about the origins of the 2009 Design for Drupal camp, about some of the hot topics for designers and themers at DrupalCon San Francisco, and what to expect at the upcoming camp coming up next month.