First off, you can probably check out this entry which provides four functions to look at upon developing. You would need the Devel module for this.

I personally use dsm though I believe it simply makes use of the dpm function from devel. I am not certain if this is the proper way of checking the available variables when theming. You could first take a look at the template files e.g. page.tpl.php or node.tpl.php to check what variables are available for you. I also sometimes add the code below to check for the available variables in a template file.

<?php dsm(get_defined_vars()); ?>

dsm I believe print outs the array provided by getdefinedvars onto the message area.

You could also make use of krumo_ob by simply adding the code below to the location you'd wish to print out the variables.

<?php print krumo_ob(get_defined_vars()); ?>

Works perfectly for me. :bigsmile: