Customer Rating:  
Summary: The book I wish I had read a year ago!
Comment: Going through the pages of "Drupal 5 Themes" I kept thinking how useful it would have been to have this book in my hands a little over a year ago, as I was first dabbling with Drupal. This title complements very nicely Drupal: Creating Blogs, Forums, Portals, and Community Websites by focusing on making your Drupal-based site look and feel the way you want it to, departing as much as possible from the native themes available through the Drupal community.
The book is not meant for those who are not familiar with a bit of PHP and CSS and should not be tackled before being clear on the basics of Drupal. The only downside to the book as far as I am concerned is the lack of color in the illustrations: while not critical, it would help get the point across better in a few places.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Drupal Resource
Comment: This book is exactly what I have been looking for. Being pretty new to Drupal I had been using the documentation at the Drupal site. It is good for starting off but my company, Savant Creative Group - [...] - needs to develop our own themes. The book is well written, well documented and not too heavy on PHP. It is great for design people who know html and css.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great as introduction to Drupal 5 Themes!
Comment: Great book for web-designers/developers who start with Drupal 6 Themes. Can't wait for the Drupal 6 version or a book that addresses the more experienced Drupal Developers.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Drupal theme book but left me wanting.
Comment: The first thing new Drupal developers ask me is, "How do I make my new Drupal site look different from the rest?" Drupal 5 Themes by Ric Shreves is the first book dedicated entirely to theming Drupal. This topic certainly deserves its own book and I'm glad we now have it. (On the down side Drupal 6 is already released and Drupal 7 is in the works.)
Somehow I've been able to avoid advanced theming by using sub-contractors or taking themes from the Drupal Theme Garden. But I realize that designers and programmers cannot go it alone. In order to build the most interactive sites, we need to reach across the gap and learn a bit about each other's craft. Enter Drupal 5 Themes.
The book is written for designers who need to learn some base level Drupal theming. It covers Drupal's use of the abstraction layer in a way that is easy to understand. And while the pace and brevity are appropriate for the non-programmer, be prepared to look at some code: Chapter 8 does a good job of exposing novices to the template.php file and the form_alter api, allowing them to take advantage of some of Drupal's more advanced modification options.
As a programmer, my favorite section was Chapter 4 - A guide to Themeable Functions (p.87)--it makes an excellent quick reference guide by listing theme functions and their definitions, organized by module. I find these sorts of things super useful, relieving the poor souls who answer my endless questions in the Drupal-support IRC channel about "What is the right theme function to use?"
But this list, as well as the book in general, is limited as it only addresses theme functions in the Drupal core. Most sites I've developed have 20+ modules loaded, in addition to the Drupal core. It would be great to have additional references for popular modules and their theme functions. For instance, the Content Construction Kit and Views modules are becoming the preferred way of building forms, detail pages, and lists, therefore deserve addressing.
I recommend this book to designers who need to learn some Drupal, as well as to new Drupal programmers who are looking to get a handle on Drupal's abstracted theme layer. But the established Drupal programmer, like myself, will find it a little too brief and lacking in real world use cases, considering Drupal's modular capabilities.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Drupal 5 Themes
Comment: A few months back, I was sent a review copy of Drupal 5 Themes by Ric Shreves from Packt Publishing. I have been thumbing through it since, and despite some odd editing I have found it to be very easy to read. The examples strongly illustrate concepts through out.
I really enjoyed the first couple of chapters which reinforced concepts that I already grasped providing very basic Drupal management and configuration and discussing what makes a Drupal theme. It goes on to illustrate setup and configuration. Chapter 3 looks at Theme engines--in depth for PHPTemplate and then touches on other engines. Chapter 4 explores style sheets. Chapter 5 looks at intercepts and overrides. Chapter 6 covers modifying existing themes using Zen primarily as the example theme. Chapter 7 explains the process to create a new theme from scratch. Finally Chapter 8 covers forms. Each chapter has a concise summary that re-iterates what was learned in during the chapter.
I appreciated that some effort was put into explaining how cascading operates in CSS--a touch that will definitely help folks who are new to the sphere and made following parts of the book much more accessible.
There is a form to download a copy of the sample files in the book. When you put in your request, an automatic email will be sent to you--be patient, it will take a few minutes for it to get to you. The email will contain a link to a ZIP file containing the files.
Interestingly, there wasn't any information on two tools that I was taught back in the days of 4.x--CCK and Views. This seems to me to be an oversight given the prevalence of sites using CCK and Views.\
This book is terrific for a beginner who is getting his or her feet wet in Drupal theming. It makes for a strong reference for themers with more experience as well. I've got to say, that it has inspired me to dig deeper into the theme layer of Drupal and has provided me with insight that helps me to understand what our themers at work are engaged in.
All in all, I enjoyed the read and can recommend it.
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