1. Default Theme
2. Administration Theme

The administration theme is applied to the site when the administrator is logged in and is viewing pages under the Administer menu item. In all other cases the default theme is applied to the website.

How to change the general theme

• Navigate to Administer >> Site Building >> Themes
• Or type in your browser http://www.yourwebsite.com/admin/build/themes
• Scroll down to the theme you want
• Enable it by checking the checkbox
• Activate it by selecting the radio button (column labeled as default)
• Scroll down and click Save configuration

How to change the administration theme

• Navigate to Administer >> Site Configuration >> Administration theme
• Select the name of the theme you want to use as the administration theme
• Click Save configuration

For more information on where to find free drupal themes you can read my previous article.

A theme consists of:

• Theme template files
• Theme functions

Theme template files display your content through an html and css styled template file. So your site design and content are separate. This means that you can easily change the visual display of your site without affecting the content.

Visit the Drupal Theme Tester at themes.zaf.me to see drupal themes live in action.

In the upcoming articles I will explain how to style your site using different templates so that your site can look exactly how you want it.

Drupal works as follows:

• All content; such as articles, information, user details, etc, are stored in a database.
• The database is accessed and managed via a database server.
• The design and layout of a drupal site is handled by themes. These are template files, styled with graphics and text. Themes allow you to easily change the appearance of your website without modifying any of your content. You can read my article about the large amount of free themes that you can download for your drupal website and where to find them.
• Drupal uses the PHP programming language. PHP is open-source and therefore free to use.

Drupal requires 2 things to work:

• A server environment, such as Apache
• A PHP Server
• A mySQL database server

All of the above can be downloaded in a complete package for you to use while developing websites on your pc. I recommend that Windows users check out Xampp, Linux users can use Lamp. But there are many other all-in-one PHP-mySQL development environments too.

Once you have your development environment set up, then you can install drupal and start making websites.

• Development environment
  • Xampp (Windows) , Lamp (Linux)
• Drupal installation file (compressed archive, e.g. .zip or .gz)
  • Download at drupal.org

Installation steps:

• Extract the drupal installation file htdocs folder.
  • This is the folder where your website files for your development environment are found.
  • Lets say you extracted the drupal installation archive it to a folder called ‘drupal’. (The default folder is something like ‘drupal-6.13’ with the version included.)
• Copy of settings.default.php in the ‘sites/default’ folder to settings.php
  • In your file browser, navigate to drupal >> sites >> default
  • Make a copy of settings.default.php
  • Rename the copy to settings.php
• Create a database for your drupal installation to use
  • This may vary depending on your development environment and database server
  • If you are using Xampp
    • Navigate to localhost/phpmyadmin
    • In the Create new database field, enter the name of your new database, e.g. drupaldb and click create.

    

• Navigate to ‘localhost/drupal/install.php’ in your browser
  • Follow the instructions to install drupal

Some samples of websites developed with drupal:

Why use drupal?

• It’s free
• It manages your website content
  • Easily store and edit all your content and data
  • Display your website pages
  • Easily and instantly edit the appearance of your website
    • Using Themes (templates)
    • Color profiles
    • Visit the Drupal Theme Tester at themes.zaf.me to see drupal themes live in action.
    • Some theme examples:

    

  • Lets you easily add features to your website, such as
    • Image galleries

    

    • Blogs
    • Forums
    • Calendars

    

    • Video Streaming
    • Podcasts
• Drupal has a large online community, supporting each other and developing drupal add-on modules to provide extra functionality to drupal.
• Get started now with drupal at drupal.org

1. Tripwire Magazines list of 200 free Drupal Themes

A very long list of free drupal themes. You’ll definitely find something you like here.

1. 20 Great 3-Column Drupal Themes

A selection of 20 stylish drupal themes with both fixed and fluid layouts.

1. Some Very Good-looking themes

These themes are definitely worth having a look at.

1. Professional Looking Themes

If you looking for clear, usable yet elegant themes then this is a good place to start.

1. A Few Very Good Themes From drupal.org

A nice range of themes.

1. Various Drupal Themes From All Over

Some more free drupal themes, selected from various sites across the web.