Nixer: a CSS-only theme for Drupal

Submitted by ebuck on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 00:05

When I first setup Drupal on this site, I had pretty much decided that I would use an existing theme from Drupal's theme repository. And for a while, I did. I reviewed a lot of different themes, from very basic themes to more visually appealing ones. I eventually settled on one or two and gave it a go. This worked okay for a while but over time, I came to the realization that:

  • themes can have bugs too (some serious)
  • debugging other people's CSS and PHP is a lot of work
  • heavy themes can really slow down your site

Considering that from the get-go, I wanted a minimalist, fast rendering, and easy to customize theme, I came to the conclusion that I needed to write my own. And to make sure that the theme was as lean and efficient as possible, I decided to write it from scratch. The result is nixer, a fast, lightweight yet professional CSS-only theme for Drupal. It is the default theme for nixer.org, thus the name of the theme.

Version 1.0 of the theme for Drupal 6.x is now available for download. The theme project page is at:

http://drupal.org/project/nixer

The theme is fairly well-tested so I don't think it has any serious bugs. If you find any, please create an issue for it.

Theme of CSS for Drupal

Submitted by sachiinfotech on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 00:23.

Very Very Interesting Article. I don't have complete idea on CSS usage in Drupal. Really i got some idea Learnt by your article.

Thanks Sharing

Sachi-infotech

Thanks for adding this theme

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 15:22.

Ed,

I've just spent 3 hours looking through all the themes on drupal.org.

I've found some possibilities - a shortlist of 4 in fact. Nixer is on that shortlist.

The themes could do with a tidy-up - get rid of the crap. Anything without a thumbnail should go. Any dead themes should go eg Base ( http://drupal.org/project/base ) is a dev version on Drupal5 untouched since June 2007.

I am not trying to unpleasant to the people involved - but I just can't see who is ever going to download this from now on.

Maybe that could be a part for me to play in the Drupal community - the clean-up man !

My own site is a customised Andreas00 ( http://www.sitedoublers.com/ ) - I've gone right off the look - that's why I'm shopping round now.

great but one problem

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 05/08/2009 - 05:24.

Hello,
Thanks for the theme, I am using a slightly modified version for my website (first one I am creating, a true beginner, and yes it is great for learning). The only thing I would need is to theme the default 1pixelout flash player, which is done via template.php. Nixer doesn't like that, I guess because there is no added PHP. Any directions? Thanks.
M.

clearn theme, good to learn

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 04/05/2009 - 00:55.

clearn theme, good to learn too ;)
thanks

Yup

Submitted by ebuck on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 08:36.

Yeah, learning was definitely one of my goals with nixer. So far so good. :-)

variable width?

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 17:28.

I really like the look and feel of this theme, and especially appreciate its light weight. Any plans/thoughts about making it variable width, as well?

perhaps

Submitted by ebuck on Fri, 04/10/2009 - 08:34.

I hadn't thought about doing a variable width version but it would be very easy to do. I think it would require changing 2 lines of layout.css. If you need help with this, let me know and I'll tell you what changes need to be made.

The Nixer Theme

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 12:07.

Yes I reckon this is a nice lean theme that does the job well.

Congratulations

Digby

Thanks

Submitted by ebuck on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 12:34.

Thanks! I hope others find it useful as well.

Very nice work.

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 12:43.

Very nice work.