Converting Drupal 5.x Theme Foliage to 6.x

I really like Web 2.0 and particularly Drupal and WordPress. There’s so much functionality gained so quickly, fantastic upgradeability, reliability, and a great support community. Recently I converted my friend David’s Drupal 5.1 theme Foliage to Drupal 6.9. It’s really a painless (after you’ve done it) 3 step process that I’d like to share. Here’s how I did it.

References:
The original instructions from Drupal.org
Cutting to the important parts. Thanks Wesley Tanaka, this post was very helpful.

Files:
Unchanged files: block.tpl.php, box.tpl.php, node.tpl.php, and all the rest of the theme
Changed files: comment.tpl.php, page.tpl.php
Added files: foliage.info

Steps:
Step 1: Create foliage.info, add the following 4 lines “as is”. Note that you must use “6.x”. It won’t work if you put “6.9”.

; $Id: Foliage-850.info, 2009/01/28 goba Exp $name = Foliage 850px
description = Foliage 850px wide.
core = 6.x
engine = phptemplate

Step 2: Change comment.tpl.php
Change line 7 from: <div class=”content”><?php print $content; ?></div>
to:
  <div class=”content”>
       <?php print $content ?>
       <?php if ($signature): ?>
           <div class=”user-signature clear-block”>
             <?php print $signature ?>
          </div>
       <?php endif; ?>
  </div>
(Sorry the tabbing isn’t rendering well. The code is here.)

Step 3: Change page.tpl.php

Line 38: “$sidebar_left” to “$left”
Line 53: “$sidebar_right” to “$right”
Line 62: “$footer_message” to “$footer”
Line 2: “$language” to “$language->language”, do this twice

FTP the foliage theme file to your Drupal site’s theme folder, and select it. You’re done.

Also posted to the Drupal Foliage forum.