Installing & Configuring A Drupal Theme

This screencast steps through the process of installing and configuring a Drupal theme. I've selected Pixture Reloaded for this exercise, which is a great theme for anyone that wants to do as little coding as possible. Based on AdaptiveTheme, it features HTML5 and some easy to configure CSS3 effects like rounded corners and drop shadows. To follow along, you'll need to download both themes as well as the Noggin module, which will allow us to set a custom header image.

Another important feature of Pixture Reloaded is support for the Color module. Although this Drupal theme comes with quite a few pre-defined color schemes, the use of the Color module gives site administrators tremendous control over the look of the site. Body and header fonts can be changed as well, with seven font families to choose from. With all these bells and whistles, it's easy to see why this theme is one of the 10 most popular on Drupal.org.

If you're looking for a different theme, check out my post on the best themes for Drupal 7. My advice is to choose carefully. At the time of this writing, D7 isn't ready for every site because not all themes and modules are production ready. It's also important to review the compatibility between the various themes and modules you plan on using in your site. That said, it's my bet that for the large majority of websites, D7 will be a safe choice by mid-year 2012.

This is the third video in the Ascend Project series. The Ascend series walks through the process of creating a community website using D7 starting from the ground up. Ascend will cover every facet of creating a production-ready website including: installing modules, themes, using views, groups, blogs, forums, managing content types, users and more, all without writing a single line of code.