Drupal Blocks
To add new content to the theme template, you can hack the page. A better approach, though, is to use the Drupal Block configuration page, as shown in the following screenshot:
Each activated content block is listed under the section of the page, known in Drupal as a region. I don't have a right sidebar, so there are no blocks listed under the right sidebar. However, I do have three menus, one standard (Navigation), and two custom listed as blocks under the left sidebar, each given a weight equivalent to where I want the block to display in the bar (starting from negative values to the top, positive values to the bottom).
In addition, I also have a couple of blocks in the footer: the standard "powered by Drupal" button, as well as a custom block named, imaginatively enough, "my additions to the footer". This block contains the link to the previous weblog entries, as well as the Google search form.
To create a custom block, select "Add block" from the top menu, and in the page that opens, define the block contents, including the HTML to format the data.
Once the custom block is created, you can then assign it to a specific region, such as the footer for my custom block. You never have to crack the template code directly again. Well, until Drupal upgrades to version 7, I imagine.
Of course, not every custom functionality is implemented so easily. In an ideal world there would be three tool users, each exactly identical in nature. Since we thankfully don't live in an ideal world, we need a way to override some of the default template behavior. Before I get into that, though, I want to return to the concept of creating a custom Drupal theme.
