Chapter 3. Developing Custom Templates
Joomla's ability to use templates is one of the key reasons for its widespread adoption. A site that appears mediocre can be transformed into a fantastic Web presence with the five-minute installation of a professional template. In fact, a flourishing segment of the Joomla market is the commercial template market. There are literally dozens of companies offering templates for sale. Many of the sites use a monthly subscription model, where a subscriber may download any template available there. This model ensures that new templates are always needed to keep the subscribers interested.
In this chapter, you'll learn to create a template from scratch and use stylesheets to provide comprehensive layout features. Most free templates include only a single page that's used throughout the site. For a more professional presentation, you'll learn how to create a template family where multiple stylesheets are used together to provide a cohesive image or brand for a Web site.
Before you begin creating templates, it may be useful to review the structure of one. Since the general structure varies little from template to template, a thorough understanding of template organization can make designing your own templates, or editing existing ones, substantially easier.
Template Structure
Joomla templates can be made up of a any number of files and folders, but their standardized structure allows Joomla to treat templates generically. That makes it possible to switch ...
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