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Drupal vs. Expression Engine, pt2
One of the more delightful features of Expression Engine is oddly enough the lack of one-click themeing.
In Drupal, the page layout is relatively rigid. With few exceptions like the contributed side-content and front page module, all blocks, node types, and forms are displayed in a well-defined page region and it is up to the theme engine to render and plonk into their proper spot on screen. This implies that themeing revolves around components and where to place them. EE produces the same end result, with the profound difference that each page/form/whatever is designed as a distinct template. This allows for great flexibility and with the use of embedded/nested templates also avoids excessive cut and paste between templates. On the flip side, since each theme is custom built, it is virtually out of the question to change the theme on the fly.
I never made the time to wrap my head around theme design in Drupal, but I find it most straightforward to port themes to EE. The basic approach is save a copy of the stylesheets as a CSS template, then copy and paste the source of a sample page, then merge in the EE template tags as needed. Finally, break out nested templates from the index page and set up whatever other pages are needed.
Posted by markus on Tuesday, July 04, 2006(0) Comments • Permalink • Generic Geekery