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Apply multiple Drupal themes for sections in a single Drupal website

| (about a 3 minute )

Think of a way by which you could select one Drupal theme for your blog section, one for your forum and one for the other pages/nodes. So this is possible how you do it what you are going to get in this blog post. I am doing it on a Drupal 6 website, it can also be done for a Drupal 5 website.

Modules You will need

A Drupal theme for a section say blog or forum is possible with use of the Sections module which you can get here. You can sort things by using the Path Auto module, you can download the Path Auto module here, PathAuto depends on Token get it here. Now lets see how to get started:

Steps to Do it

  1. Download, install and activate Path Auto and Sections module as below at Administer>>Site Building>>Modules . (links in above paragraph)

  2. Configure your URL for the content type/node type you want the different section with a theme for. In this example I am having a different theme for blogs.
    So my blog URL should be consistent like below done with PathAuto settings done at Adminster>>Site Building>> URL Aliases>>Automated Alias Settings which is http://yoursiteurl/admin/build/path/pathauto [you must have permission to do it :-) ]
    (You can use other replacement patters but make sure all blogs fall under /blog )
  3. Create a section from Administer>>Site Building>>Sections>>Add Section as below:

  4. Make Sure your section is enabled as below.

  5. Add a blog and enjoy the new theme for that segment of you website going to the URL http://yoursiteurl/blog like below:

  6. Enjoy the different them but after some configuration defined in things to consider below.

Things to Consider

You must have two or more themes active at Administer>>Site Building>>Themes and have the respective blocks placed on respective theme regions for the block to appear as you want on the themes when activated. Block can be placed aptly for themes at Adminster>>Site Building>>Blocks.

Live Demo

Live Demo of this tutorial can be witnessed at here , the main site has Acquia Marina theme.

The blog section at blog has Color Paper Theme. The blog section is just for testing now :-).

Conclusion

This is a very useful feature in Drupal you can even have multiple themes as per pages if you create sections for each page but it will be best utilized when used for sections like blogs, forums, news etc.

Multiple themes in same Drupal site if fun, useful and applicable.

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