Update: the Fusion base theme is now up on drupal.org, along with the Acquia Prosper subtheme! New site coming soon!

Since late last year we’ve been dreaming of a 2.0 for TopNotchThemes. Our current base theme packs in a TON of advanced features, but there is always room to evolve. So for the past few months we’ve been listening closely to our customers and the Drupal community, and plotting world domination a revolution in theming.

So much of what you want to do with your sites isn’t rocket science — if you’re already a Drupal themer! We’re talking about things like adding a slideshow or sidebar pullout menu, changing the theme width, adding a different list style, changing a block’s colours, centering banner ads, styling a View, floating article images, or changing the comment layout for a certain content type.

Freedom from regions

With our current heavily-region-based approach to theming, we have to make a lot of assumptions about you and your site’s content. We have to hold back with strong design elements because it’s been tough to make these elements easy for you to control what happens where.

Along with a flexible new grid-based theme/subtheme system, we’d been working on a new module based on Block Class (a big thanks to Four Kitchens for helping out with initial work on this!), when we got wind of Skinr, a module Gravitek Labs was working on. Our efforts merged and this module will now be a foundational part of our new theming approach — allowing YOU to configure your theme’s layout, styles, and features through Drupal’s UI.

Here’s a simple example: a default unstyled menu block switched to a new menu style with a couple of clicks.

Before:

Style from theme applied to same menu:

Styling anything

What we REALLY love about this is that it’s not just about blocks. We can create styles in the theme for Views, Panels, content types, comments, tabs, and ultimately, anything in Drupal that’s themable!

I recorded a quick demo video (no audio) of a few block layouts and styles in a very simplistic Fusion subtheme, just to give you a "live" feel for what the heck we’re talking about here.

We’ll be writing several posts in the upcoming weeks to talk about different aspects of this new system, from uber-nerdy to visual to site administration.

To answer a few likely questions:

• Fusion Core (the base theme) will be available on drupal.org, and we’ll be working on training materials and starter subthemes to help others get a head start on using it for different types of sites — more about this later
• Our upcoming Acquia Prosper theme for Ubercart will be the first free theme to use this new system - ETA: later this month, dev version soon
• Acquia Marina/Slate will be rewritten for Fusion as time permits
• A totally new website is coming for this new line of subthemes
• Some (most?) of our premium themes will be ported to Fusion over the coming months, and yes, existing customers will receive free upgrades

If you’re in the Bay Area, we’ll be doing a presentation at the meetup on Monday the 13th!