Twitter Bootstrap + Panopoly = ThemeMagix/CodeScience

It's been more then a year since the introduction of both Twitter Bootstrap and Panopoly yet the Drupal community has still not produced a module and/or theme that easily integrates these two powerful toolkits.

This session will briefly showcase the power of Panopoly, Panels and Twitter Bootstrap and then will show what happens when the three collide in a powerful explosion of codescience, namely a new theme developed by Kalamuna called Kalatheme.

This intersection produces an entirely different theming experience for Drupal that will allow developers to rapidly build fully responsive, mobile and tablet ready themes built with a best practices CSS/JS toolkit (Bootstrap) but also built on top of the awesome Panopoly framework.

Specific areas of interest that will be discussed are:

Libraries API Integration

Start theming on the 10th floor instead of from the ground and remove tons of clutter in your theme by putting bootstrap (or custom bootstrap libraries like on https://wrapbootstrap.com/) in the libraries folder where it belongs. Kalatheme takes care of these basics so you can focus on what makes your theme unique. Also, no companion module here. It's all powered by the theme.

Blocks are Dead

Move beyond the old paradigm of theming with blocks and regions to a panels layout driven responsive paradigm that fully leverages the power of the panels in place editor. Never turn block.module on ever again.

Page and Panels Layout Templates

Older themes have a plethora of template files with lots of complexity and logic in page.tpl.php. In the "no-regions" paradigm page.tpl.php becomes trivial and simple and your entire site becomes simple, lightweight and easily built panels layouts. Add "regions" when you need them.

Simple Subthemes

With Libraries API integration and a powerful base theme your subthemes will be simple, intuitive and not overloaded with files. Instead of having tons of monolithic templates and CSS your subtheme will have a couple css files and some panels layouts. Do more with less.

Styles Plugins

Kalatheme ships with a special ctools style plugin for site builders and admins to easily configure the device visibility of particular panels panes. It also allows users to easily add element tags and classes to panels panes. You can configure add additional styles and classes to the plugin in your theme settings. Hide certain panes on tablet and mobile. Easily change pane styles. Bridge the gap between site building and theming.

The session will finish by showing an example of a Kalatheme subtheme and the pathway taken to easily turn a custom bootstrap library into a powerful panels based, region-less theme.

The session will also showcase a bunch of custom Bootstrap libraries that don't look like Bootstrap.

The session may also give a brief overview of the current Bootstrap integrations that are available.

Schedule info
Status: 
Proposed
Session Info
Speaker(s): 
Track: 
Frontend
Experience level: 
Intermediate

Comments

Mike did a great job of presenting some of his early thoughts on this subject at Sac Drupal Camp last year; the recent work he's done has made implementing highly-flexible themes based on Bootstrap fast enough that I can use them for rapid prototyping in Panopoly.

I just submitted my review on drupal.org for Kalatheme, and I can reiterate here that it's a streamlined, sleek theme that does an excellent job of integrating Bootstrap with Drupal and Panels. I also know the presenter to be quite knowledgeable about theming and Panels. He's definitely a source of great insight into the future of designing and developing themes for Drupal.

Mike Pirog is an incredibly bright, top-tier Drupal talent and has created a very special tool that I've personally used on a number of non-profit websites to save them money and time. Not only do people need to see this presentation to help understand the potential and power of Kalatheme, but they will also enjoy Mike's forward thinking attitude and command of this (and many other) subjects.

I had the pleasure to attend a presentation by Mike at Sacramento Drupal Camp about Kalatheme this year and will be encouraging others to attend this session at DrupalCon.