For 40 years, scientists have searched for a way to bring nuclear fusion to the masses. If successful in bringing fusion online, we all could have an inexhaustible form of power to meet our world's energy needs. The promise of fusion is a dream that many have hoped to see become a reality in their lifetime.
Perhaps not for as noble of cause, Drupal users have sought better themes for their Drupal sites. Four years ago, it seemed to me that creating a good theme for Drupal was almost done as an afterthought. There simply were not too many places for a user to go for a quality Drupal theme. I recall spending a lot of wasted time maintaining my own (boring) themes for Drupal sites. The Drupal days of version 4.4, 4.5, 4.6 and even 4.7 for themes were dark days indeed. Luckily, Drupal 5 introduced us to a new theme called Garland. Garland may not have been a perfect theme but in my opinion the theme marked the beginning of an era for a new style of Drupal themes.
In the past few years, the number of Drupal themes provided under open source or via private companies have exploded. Along with that explosion, various starter and base themes have been introduced too. On the top of my head I can think of Zen, Genesis, Basic, and AdaptiveTheme. These starter/base themes offer theme developers opportunities for everyone to build or use professional sub-themes. In fact, this site used Zen in the theme's early years and today we're currently using a Genesis based theme called Extreme Updates (slightly modified). With each passing year, the theme offerings for Drupal has steadily improved in quality and quantity. This year is no exception and brings us a new official base theme to carry us over into the next generation of themes made for Drupal.
The year 2010 brings us Drupal's newest base theme, Fusion. Currently, there probably isn't a Drupal theme that offers site owners more control over layout and style than a Fusion based theme. Fusion has the support and backing of well-known Drupal theme shop, TopNotchThemes. TopNotchThemes appear to be serious enough about Fusion revolutionizing the way themes are done in Drupal. This week they publicly announced their new line of themes and a website called Fusion Drupal Themes. Most of the themes offered at the site are for a price, but there are a couple free themes also being offered that should give you a chance to see what Fusion is all about.
If you're still with me so far, you have to be wondering why I'm writing an article that sounds more like a commercial. Well, probably because this article does indeed sound like a commercial. But I'm not attempting to push Fusion on you and I currently have no financial connection to TopNotchThemes. This commercial should be considered more of a Drupal Service Announcement letting people know that I think Drupal is hitting another milestone in theme development. Fusion, just as Garland was, is a good indicator for marking this new paradigm shift in Drupal theme development.
If you think Drupal 6 themes are something to get excited about, wait until you see what Drupal 7 will be offering for theme development. Stephanie Pakrul from TopNotchThemes has already said that Drupal 7 will be in their sight once the Fusion launch dust settles. Better yet, she believes the theme improvements in Drupal 7 core is "good news" in that they should be able to make Fusion even leaner by taking advantage of "the improvements that have gone into Drupal 7". She expects they'll be able have their first Drupal 7 Fusion theme ready around the same time the release candidates of Drupal 7 are available.
You can be sure that there are plenty of theme development shops out there also getting ready to bring the next generation of Drupal themes to the community once Drupal 7 reaches critical mass. Better yet, those days of Drupal 4.x and being defensive on the state of theme development in Drupal are things of the past. This time Drupal themes developers are on the offensive and helping Drupal to take on more market space. This is a very good time to be running your site on Drupal.