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It seems Grid systems, or CSS frameworks, are being picked up by the Drupal themer community. I think this is a good thing. Some think it is a bad thing. So let us have a look at the downsides and upsides of grid systems in Drupal.

Grid Systems force you to change your HTML, that is bad.

This is wrong, for three reasons.

1. It might be bad, if it were true. But not all grid systems, or their implementations require changes to the HTML, in theory. I love SASS and its tool-kit Compass.

The fabulous basetheme Genesis is now mirrored on Git.

This has several advantages. A basetheme is used as scaffolding for your own theme. During upgrades and bugfixes, however, your altered version will be hard to keep in sync. Usually this costs a lot of manual labour; eliminating one of the advantages of a basetheme: continuous re-use of existing work.

Erik and I (Bèr Kessels) decided in December last year, that the Netherlands needed a Drupal trainingshop. And that we are going to run it: Wizzlern. We are not the first Dutch trainers, bytheway; our friends at Krimson run the first Dutch trainingshop. But they are situated in Belgium, and we in the Netherlands.

Drupal’s block system is far from ideal. It was designed back in the threecolumn-era, was improved to work beyond three-columns-content-in-middle layouts, but is still unsuited for more complex layouts.

If you want real complex layouts, you will have to turn to Panels, or Panels2. Or so they say.

A client of mine, a large Dutch media company uses Drupal for all its new sites -about four, five each month-, and untill today used panels in these sites.

Luc van Braekel recorded the Drupal Devroom on FOSDEM 2008. De presentation by Morten (aka King of Denmark) and me is uploaded to google video. De presentations are uploaded tp slideshare and can be downloaded below.

Together with Morten, one of the best Drupal themers, I will give an introduction in Theming for Drupal-6.

So, if you aer interested in theming for Drupal in general, or Drupal6 in specifics, make sure you pop in at the Drupal-developers room.