how to create Joomla templates?

Question

I see a lot of sites selling Joomla templates at a premium but most of them look simple enough to build.

Where can I find some tutorials to create such templates which I can provide users for free?

Answer 1

Here are a few:

• http://www.absalom.biz/tutorials/Mambo_Template_Tutorial.html
• http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/other/creating-your-first-joomla-template/
• http://joomlatp.com/joomla-template-Tutorials/how-to-create-joomla-template-with-dreamweaver.html
• http://www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-tutorials/joomla-template-tutorial
• http://www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-tutorials/joomla-15-template-tutorial (This one is good) you can also find other tutorials relating to design on the same site - http://www.compassdesigns.net/joomla-tutorials/

Good luck and enjoy!

Answer 2

The official Joomla tutorial will walk you through an incredibly simple (albeit stripped-down) template build.

The process is similar to building a template for many popular Content Managers, with it's own quirks here and there. A Joomla template is largely comprised of an index.php file that is a styled framework of the sites design. JDOC tags are then used to configure things like module positions that are specific to Joomla (which are then styled through CSS).

http://docs.joomla.org/Tutorial:Creating_a_basic_Joomla!_template

Answer 3

mar10's links are worth reading for advanced stuff, but you can create a template really simply:

1. Create a new folder under /templates for your template.
2. Copy the templateDetails.xml file from another template and edit it for your template name etc.
3. Create an index.php file and use that as the main template.
4. Wherever you want a module position to go, put this special code: <jdoc:include type="modules" name="left" /> (where "left" is the module position).
5. Wherever you want the main content to go, put this code: <jdoc:include type="component" style="content" />

That's all you need for the absolute basics.

Answer 4

Have to give credit to http://www.artisteer.com/ for creating a Dreamweaver like GUI for Joomla Template building. It's so scary easy now. Seems to work for the others (Wordpress, Drupal, etc) as well.

Answer 5

I'm late to the party on this one, but check out How-To Joomla's section on templates.