Joomla! 2.5 Tutorial - Templates

Joomla 2.5 Video Tutorial - A quick look at the front-end and administrator templates installed in Joomla! 2.5 and the JoomlArt T3 Template Framework 2.0.

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Hi. I'm Robert Vining. And I am gonna give you an overview of Joomla
1.6 template today.
Overview
Joomla 1.6 comes with a built in
Templates Management System
that allows you to configure
the look and feel of your website.
You can access the Template Manager
in the Joomla control panel
or in the "Extensions" menu at the top.
In this administration section you can manage
the templates and their styles to be used for your website.
Notice the toolbar at the top of this screen?
This allows you to set styles as default,
edit, duplicate and delete styles.
Joomla 1.6 comes with 4 templates for your front-end
and 2 for the administrator back-end.
Each of them have various settings and default styles.
When managing a large amount of styles and templates
the search and filter feature can be very helpful.
In the "Templates" tab, you can check the version,
release date and information about the author
for each template.
Templates Management
OK! Let's see what these buttons can do!
First, we will set a style as default.
This default style will be used for all pages
in the front-end.
As you can see, just select the style
and click the "Make default" button.
Now let's duplicate one of the template styles.
Select one and click the "Duplicate" button.
You can use this new one for specific settings
you might need for a specific page.
To delete it, select it and click the "Delete" button.
To edit a template style, select one
and click the "Edit" button
or simply click on the name.
This will open the template administration panel.
The "Atomic" template does not have
any additional parameters.
Still, you can set it as default from this panel,
or assign it to the menu items.
This means that when browsing the pages linked
in the assigned menu items, Joomla will use this template.
Other templates provide various settings to customize
the look and feel of the website.
For instance, the "Beez" template allows you to set a
minimum and a maximum template width,
logo, site title (if no logo image is selected)
and description.
Also, you can set the position of the main navigation
and the template color.
Let's have a look at each of the templates in the front-end
on the sample websites distributed with Joomla 1.6.
The "Atomic" template is very lighweight with a clean design
witch makes it easy to customize.
The "Beez" template provides additional styling for menus,
content and a text-resize feature.
The "FruitShop" sample data in Joomla 1.6
uses a custom style with a different color scheme
for the "Beez" template.
Here is another sample website in Joomla 1.6
using a different custom style for the "Beez" template.
Let's have a quick look at the administrator templates.
The template you have seen so far is called "BlueStork".
Let's select the "Hathor" template and make it default.
With this template, the toolbar is closer to the items list
for handy management.
The "Hathor" template was designed during
the Google Summer Code 2009 by Andrea Tarr
to be accesible with a keyboard or screen reader
for those with dissabilities.
That is why the menu has been moving inside a tab
and the addition of submit button
next to the dropdown boxes.
Let's have a quick look at the "Hathor" template settings.
Again with the accessibility in mind, "Hathor" offers
a high contrast color option as well as a bold text
for those that need it.
Let's have a look at the "BlueStork"
template settings now.
This template allows you to disable
the rounded corners of the administration panel,
display the site name in the header, enlarge the text size
and even enable the high contrast mode.
Let's have a quick look.
T3 Template Framework
Template frameworks extend the basic functions
of a Joomla template by adding various options and features.
One of the most powerful is the T3 Framework.
The framework provides CSS & JS Compression options,
a powerful presets feature called "Profiles"
to hold all layout design settings of the front-end such as:
font to be used for specific elements and titles,
navigation settings
theme settings and layout settings.
The T3 Framework provides a multiple layouts feature
so you can use a special design for each of your pages.
There are also Mobile Ready layouts to be used for iPhone
devices and other Android or Windows Mobile devices.
Every panel comes with guides, video tutorials and
hints for parameters settings.
Let's explore the "T3 Blank" template.
This is a sample website created with
the "T3 Blank QuickStart" package
so you can easily get to know all the features.
The "Explore" menu will help you switch the layout,
menu system and color theme.
First, let's switch the layout design.
Now let's check the menu systems.
Now let's load the "blue" color theme.
You can do the same with the cPanel when you
are not using the "T3 Blank" sample data.
The T3 Framework is the first to introduce
Mobile Ready capability.
Here is the short view of "T3 Blank" template on the iPhone.
This is a special layout designed for iPhone devices.
It's optmized for the latest standards and provides
a handy user interface to browse your website.
How does it work?
T3 Framework can detect your mobile device and load a
designated layout optimized
for your handheld or iPhone device.
As part of the user interface, the menu system
was designed to made navigation easy for iPhone users.
This interface also makes search
possible for your cotent items.
The interface provides a special "Log in" form for your
registered users to get access to your website content.
Well, that's it for the overview of the Templates for Joomla 1.6. I'm
Robert Vining. Thanks for watching!