I have never used the Expression Engine (EE) before, so this is a complete experiment. Let's see how it goes...

page.tpl.php

From what I can see, EE has a file called index.txt that displays almost everything. This file is our page.tpl.php candidate.

• Remove the {assign_variable:master_weblog_name="journal"}
{assign_variable:main_template_group="bartelme"} from the beginning of the index.txt file
• In the html definition, replace @{lang}@ with @en@ - this is just a fix for en web sites - a proper i18n solution should be implemented for production sites
• Replace {exp:weblog:info weblog="{master_weblog_name}"}{blog_title}{/exp:weblog:info} with @@
• Drupal adds metadata itself, so you don't have to worry about it - so remove it
• Remove links to stylesheets and javascripts and add


• Replace @{homepage}@ with @@
• Replace @{exp:weblog:info weblog="{master_weblog_name}"}{blog_title}{/exp:weblog:info}@ with @@
• Replace @{exp:weblog:info weblog="{master_weblog_name}"}{blog_description}{/exp:weblog:info}@ with @@
• Replace the navigation block with print theme('links', $primary_links, array('class' => 'navmenu primary-links'));
} ?>
print theme('links', $secondary_links, array('class' => 'navmenu secondary-links'));
} ?>
• Replace the search code @{exp:search:simple_form search_in="everywhere" result_page="search/results"}...{/exp:search:simple_form}@ with @@ we will assign the search form to the header block to appear here
• In the About section, replace the paragraph text with the mission statement @@
• In the posts section, add the Drupal messages, help, tabs and the rest
  
  
  

  '. $mission .'

  '; } ?>
  

  '; } ?>
  

  '. $title .'

  '; } ?>
  

  '; } ?>
  
  
  

• Copy the text to print the posts and paste it to node.tpl.php
• Replace the code @{exp:weblog:entries weblog="{master_weblog_name}" limit="1" sort="desc" orderby="date"}...{/exp:weblog:entries}@ and @{exp:weblog:entries weblog="{master_weblog_name}" limit="2" offset="1" sort="desc" orderby="date"}...{/exp:weblog:entries}@ with strlen('
  
  ')) && (substr($content, 0, strlen('
  

  ')) == '
  

  ')) {
  print $content;
  } else {
  print '
  

  ' . $content . '

  ';
  } ?>

• Remove the Comments block as this is also managed by Drupal
• Replace the code inside the sidebar-wrapper with @
  @
• Replace the code inside the footer section with @@

The final page.tpl.php file looks like











Skip to main content

print theme('links', $primary_links, array('class' => 'navmenu primary-links'));
} ?>
print theme('links', $secondary_links, array('class' => 'navmenu secondary-links'));
} ?>




'. $mission .'

'; } ?>


'; } ?>


'. $title .'

'; } ?>


'; } ?>




strlen('


')) && (substr($content, 0, strlen('


')) == '


')) {
print $content;
} else {
print '


' . $content . '

';
} ?>

Design Copyright © 1999 – 2006 Wolfgang Bartelme |
Theme Ported by Sadhana Ganapathiraju

• Xhtml Happy
• Css Happy
• 508




node.tpl.php

As mentioned above, strip out the part of the index.txt file that deals with posts (or nodes in Drupal-talk) and put it into a node.tpl.php file.

• The new node.tpl.php file should contain
  

  {title}

  {entry_date format="%d %M %Y"}
  {comment_total} Comments

  {exp:markdown}{summary}{/exp:markdown}
  continue reading "{title}"
  and all this needs to be converted
• Replace @{entry_id_path=bartelme/comments}@ with @@
• Replace @{title}@ with @@
• Replace @{entry_date format="%d %M %Y"}@ with @created); ?>@
• Replace the comments section with @
  ' . $links . '

  '; } ?>@

• Replace @{exp:markdown}{summary}{/exp:markdown}@ with @

  ' . $title . '

  '; } ?>@

• Replace @continue reading "{title}"@ with
  

• Add a line to print the taxonony terms @
  ' . $terms . '

  '; } ?>@

The final node.tpl.php file should look something like the following



created); ?>


' . $terms . '

'; } ?>


' . $links . '

'; } ?>

' . $title . '

'; } ?>

comment.tpl.php

Copy the node.tpl.php file to comment.tpl.php.

• Update it a bit to suit comments and you have something like
  
  

  timestamp); ?>
  new) { print '' . '' . drupal_ucfirst($new) .''; } ?>
  

  ' . $links . '

  '; } ?>

  
  

style.css

The rest of the work is CSS related - find out what does not work, update the CSS to use the Drupal names and fix the problems one at a time.

The result

• Home page
  
• Node
  
• Node edit
  

What it should look like

• 
• 

To do

There is still a lot to do - CSS mostly - but the core is there.