Best approach to integrate HTML Templates in Drupal

Question

As part of team building, we have learned Drupal and tried out different options for managing websites. Team has already covered the basics and now they have some queries related to selecting the best approach. Below you can find an example and advice from Drupal experts will be very helpful to clear the queries.

We would like to build a custom Drupal theme with number of page templates in it. I already have all page designs and their HTML'S But while trying to start with it, Team is bit confused since we have two approaches in front:

a) Build all template and layouts using Drupal modules like views, panels, design suit etc. and then apply the required CSS and JS. So this is kind of configuration from back end without touching the code.

b) Create a child theme and create required template (.tpl files/.twig in Drupal 8) as required for each different layout and integrate it with the HTML, CSS, JS etc. I already in hand.

Kindly advice.

Answer 1

I would go for building a new theme from scratch and I am building one my self where I a using Classy as my template. Then I have full control over the classes that gets into the final site and how page elements are organized.

1. Start building a basic text page in Drupal.
2. Build the menus that you will need and create some placeholders
3. Simplify the templates as you will like them
4. You can now begin styling
5. Then you can start building all the other pages and arrange the content (content first strategy) from within Drupal

In my experience building a basic page and menu makes sure that you have a good base to build the rest of the site on.

If you have everything build in HTML and CSS - I would find the page that is most like a default article page and start there. Hope this is what you are looking for. If you look at a project like https://github.com/mattbanks/Drupal-7-Starter-Theme (or my fork of it) and mix it with the core Classy theme this will give you at good starting point.