Test custom header in Drupal before publishing

I'm quite new to Drupal and want do some editing of the header. I want a custom toolbar to appear on every page. I've already created that toolbar in a file called toolbar.php. It has a layer which is fixed and will appear on top of every page.

1. How do I include the toolbar.php in the header template of drupal?
2. The toolbar refers to $user which is a global Drupal variable and I want to test toolbar.php before publishing it to the site. Is there anyway I can do that?

Re开发者_开发知识库gards, Dasith

Of the two methods above the first is easier if you understand the basic idea of html and CMS templates, the second will be easier if you are a programmer.

First thing to check is that you really need to do this! Can't you restyle one of the existing menus (Primary or secondary) to do this - will make your life (and anyone who works on the site in the future) a lot easier.

The other thing you can do is look into adding an output region, basically something where you put the php into a drupal friendly format and then effectively do a 'drupal print'. This is how the toolbar, search box etc are done. You still need to alter the templates as above.

Yes for sure. If you want to have the html produced by your function/file appear on every page of the site then you will need to over-ride the page.tpl.php file in the theme you are using and essentually add the html to that file.

To gain access to the $user variable, just declare it in your script. global $user;

open page.tpl.php file in a code editor and save as page-front.tpl.php (with two dashes if you are using Drupal 7.. one dash with Drupal 6) and upload it to your theme's directory. Clear your cache by going to configuration->Performance->Clear All Cache. Then referesh the page. Now your homepage is using page-front.tpl.php as it's template file. Every page will need its own template file. The page machine name comes after the hyphen so the user page template uses page-user.tpl.php. You can edit it as you want. The proper way to really do this is to use hook_theme() to pass variables to the template file. One variable could be the html which creates your custom header.

See also http://drupal.org/node/457740 Beginners Guide to over riding theme output