With the Drupal themes I've used, I always feel like I'm molding a theme to my design rather than building my website to my needs.
My choice? I have used lots of themes for Drupal and Wordpress. For example, Zurb Foundation might be a little more challenging to use in a deeply textured, highly styled design because Foundation starts out very clean and open. Some frameworks lend themselves to certain designs and not to others.
You often have to edit the code in the framework. CMS implementations of your favorite framework often require a deeper understanding of your chosen CMS because these frameworks often do not have all the settings inside the CMS to alter the framework.Lots of styling built-in (top navigation functionality, typography, table styles).Ready for the latest technology like SASS, Responsive design, and off-canvas layouts.I prefer to use a framework like Yahoo's YUI Grid, 960.gs or my new favorite Zurb Foundation. My preferred method is somewhere in the middle. If the theme upgrades, it can break your code.Especially difficult if the design calls for full-width background but the theme doesn't take that into account. Can be difficult to find and style the appropriate CSS to match the design.Often have way too much code since the theme isn't designed for your project, it is designed for everyone's project.Often overly complex code to accommodate all the attributes and variables you can set inside the CMS.Often they have CMS options to set various extras like turning on IE shiv, set which browsers will get Chromeframe as an alternative and how you want the design to behave on various devices.Using a pre-built theme can be great because you can usually know if it is well tested, it has nice configurations to customize to your project and it comes packed with all the best code for your chosen CMS. Can be more challenging to integrate with a CMS since you have to know all the integration code.Don't take outliers into account (Did you remember Chromeframe for old browsers, did you remember ARIA roles for accessibility, etc).(float bugs, double-margin bugs, orientation resize bugs, etc) You are often solving problems that have been solved before.You have to do extensive browser testing.No "code bloat" since there will only be code needed for the project.In today's world, this approach is outdated. I love building from scratch, creating perfect HTML, clean CSS and everything named exactly how I want. Framework: blend the best of both worlds and build your site with a good foundation.Theme: create a sub theme and build your website on an established theme.Scratch: write your own HTML and CSS from the ground, up.
When it is time to begin the build (for a custom design), there are a couple of approaches to build a modern website. No one makes everything from scratch, we use various libraries to accomplish these requirements. Why spend your budget reinventing? We need modern requirements: responsive site designs, clean type styles, HTML5, CSS3 and the list goes on and on. There is already a Drupal project underway, let's lend a hand! Includes all the Foundation framework, scss files for customization, and plugins for Orbit slider, Clearing lightbox, and Flexible videos.The next time you are ready to slice up a Photoshop design and begin implementing a custom design, don't reach for your favorite Drupal theme-try using a framework like Zurb Foundation. Otherwise, same as version 1.0.0.įirst public release. Upgraded Foundation framework to version 5.3.0.Ĭorrected minor bug in documentation. * Added possibility to put links on images in Orbit slider * Upgraded Foundation framework to version 5.4.0
If you are using it, you will probably need to upgrade your Sass / Compass installation. This new version requires at leasts Sass version 3.4.0. Option to filter images by categories.ĭo not display hidden images on backend preview of Orbit / Clearing. Fixed incompatibility with older PHP versions.