In an effort to get some more good quality themes ready for the next release of dasBlog, I’m going to host a little contest.

Introducing...

The dasBlog Theme Contest

The idea is simple.  Submit a new dasBlog theme, created by you, using valid XHTML and CSS.  Entries should be original and should be zipped up and sent to me at subdigital_AT_gmail_DOT_com.

Are you ready for the prize?  How about …

A $100 (US) Amazon Gift Card !

The rules:

• Mockups do not count.  They have to be either running online in dasBlog or submit the relevant files so that I can install them on a test blog.
• Hint:  we respect valid XHTML and CSS.  Don’t abuse tables!
• Multiple entries may be sumitted by the same person
• Entries must be submitted to me no later than Midnight, July 12^th. (That doesn’t leave much time!) The deadline has been extended to July 22^nd, 2007.  Get started!
• Send them to my email address (above) with the subject line dasBlog Theme Contest Submission
• No licensed material on the theme — all images and artifacts must be made by you or publicly available
• By submitting  you agree to allow us to package the theme along with dasBlog, if we so desire
• You are allowed to place a small link at the bottom of the page identifying you or company, but no logos
• The dasBlog team will judge the designs and the winner will be announced July 16^th July 25^th.

 The prize for this contest has been donated by Scott Hanselman and myself.

So how do I create a theme?

Creating a theme is simple!  The best way to learn is to open up one of the existing themes and take a look.  The basic structure of a theme is this:

Inside of your dasBlog directory there is a themes folder:

Each theme that you want to create (or install) goes in its own folder.  dasBlog ships with over 20 themes currently, so there are a lot to choose from as a starting point.  If you open the directory and take a look, you’ll see a folder for each.

Let’s take a look at mono.

Inside of the specific theme’s folder you’ll find all artifacts for the theme.  Any images, css, or template files go in here.

As you can see, there isn’t much to it…

 Notice the theme.manifest file here.  This is just a text file telling dasBlog that this folder is a theme and mono is its name.

You also have the opportunity to add named images, but you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to.

The next thing I want to open up are the 3 template files:

• homeTemplate.blogtemplate – this is the main site layout.  This will be the most complicated template.
  
• dayTemplate.blogtemplate – each day there are zero or more posts, usually with a date header at the top, but possibly other groupings by day.  This template will be rendered once per day (as long as there are posts on that day).
  
• itemTemplate.blogtemplate – this is the post template.  Included is the template for the entire comments structure.

I will show the homeTemplate right here, just to give you an idea of what it’s like to edit the themes.

Most of this is standard XHTML, however you’ll notice the macro tags marked with <% %>.  These will be picked up by the renderer and replaced with whatever the macro calls for.  For example, to tell dasBlog to output your administration bar at a certain location, you’d write <% newtelliigence.adminBar()%>.

For a complete list of dasBlog macros, check John Forsythe’s page on macros:  http://www.jforsythe.com/jforsythe/projects/dasBlogMacros.html

That’s enough of an introduction to get you started, so….

Good Luck!