drupal custom theme noob

Question

Hi,

I'm just starting to learn Drupal ( and web stuff generally ) and i have a very basic problem, but i can't figure it out.

I've downloaded drupal 6 and installed it on my local server, and ported a basic web site as a custom theme. I've set this as the default theme and everything works ok, the page appears nice with all the images and layout.

The problem is that now, no matter what i type as URL i always get to my page. So how can i go to admin page ? /q=user does not work. I can change the theme from the database but that is not what i want. I just want to keep this theme and be able to access all the drupal functionality.

I know that i've made something wrong somewhere but i can't figure out what.

Edit: For the custom page i've created the page.tpl.php and .info file. Along with the css file i've put them all in a new folder in the themes directory.

Thanks for any advice.

Answer 1

Ah! Basically page.tpl.php specifies the over all structure of site. Look at the original page.tpl.php file - it will be printing a variable called $content somewhere. That is the variable holding all the content of your specific page. You will need to print it at appropriate place in your pge.tpl.php

You should check out the right way of creating a theme here: http://drupal.org/theme-guide/6

Answer 2

@abhaga's answer is spot on - you've turned the entire site's theme into a single page's HTML, so they're all going to be the same.

If you'd like to avoid glitching the admin side of things with a bad template file, you can set one of the core themes as your "administration theme" (in Site Configuration) - that way, the admin backend will always use that theme regardless of the other templates.