I've been playing around with Omega 4 lately and I've put together a starter kit that I'd like to share. As with most things Drupal, there are a lot of different ways to to achieve a particular outcome, and working with Omega theme is no exception.

In this post I’ll briefly go over a few of the choices I’ve made in putting together this installation profile, which I’ve decided to call Basis. Keep in mind that it’s still a work in progress, but if you’re new to Omega 4, you may find it saves you time in getting up to speed. Here's the demo if you'd like to see a preview.

Omega 4 Layouts

Basis uses two different layouts. If you’re not familiar with layouts, they take the place of the Delta + Context combo in Omega 3. Layouts are essentially versions of page.tpl.php (read this preview of Omega to learn more).

In Basis, the two column layout is used for the basic page content type and the single column layout is used for articles. However, with the Context Omega module you can apply different layouts on a per node basis and I've done this with the front page, giving it the same layout as an article.

In an upcoming post I’m going to go through the process of creating a layout for Omega 4, so keep your eyes peeled for that if you'd like to see how it's done.

Display Suite

The layout for the nodes is managed with Display Suite. If you’re not familiar with Display Suite, it’s a very cool module that allows you fine-grained control over the display of your content. It's similar to Panels, but with a friendly user interface.

If you’d like to get up to speed with Display Suite, there is a very good series of video tutorials by Kristof De Jaeger, the creator of Display Suite, that I can recommend. I love DS, but it does take some getting used to. I’m actually planning a series of posts on Omega 4 and Display Suite because I think the combo is a good bridge for those used to Omega 3.

A Few Things to Keep in Mind

First, remember that this installation profile is a work in progress. I’m just sharing an early experiment with Omega 4. Basis isn’t meant to be production ready. Stuff is left undone and this is intentional.

If you’d like to use Basis for your project, feel free. At some point I’ll offer a more polished version of Basis here on Friendly Machine, but for now, I’m still thinking of the best way to do things.

Download Basis

OK, so here's the download link for the zip file on GitHub - you can also check out the full project if you prefer to grab it with Git. The file is bigger than I normally prefer because I added the source image files so it would be easier to play around with image styles. I may rethink this in the future, but I'm going with it for now.

If you’d like to read my future posts on Omega 4 and other things Drupal, be sure to sign up for updates. Any comments or corrections, may be politely left below.