Joomla! 1.5 Template Design

• Create Joomla! 1.5 Templates for your sites
• Debug, validate, and package your templates
• Tips for tweaking existing templates with Flash, extensions and JavaScript libraries

In Detail Using Joomla! Templates with HTML and CSS allows you to give a unique look and feel to your site, present a "fresh face" to your pre-existing content, ensure that your site design is consistent with your brand, and build a site layout that suits your unique needs. A quality web site is easily within your grasp using these cutting-edge templates. However, even experienced web developers need help to take their designs and turn them into flexible and easily maintainable Joomla! 1.5 templates.

The release of Joomla! 1.5 meant a radically enhanced template system that is very different from that of Joomla! 1.0. Joomla! 1.5 comes complete with the ability to create template overrides and customize "module chrome". The Joomla! development team has also revamped the template process by introducing clean, understandable jdoc tags in place of the PHP function-based Mambo-derived markup that Joomla! 1.0 templates used. This book focuses squarely on the new enhancements to the Joomla! 1.5 templating process and walks web designers through the process of turning a working XHTML and CSS "mockup" into a fully functional Joomla! 1.5 template.

This well-crafted and easy-to-use book provides you with everything you need to create your own unique Joomla! 1.5 template. It guides you through setting up a basic work flow for Joomla! template design, debugging and validating the template code, creating drop-down menus and dynamic forms for your site, and packaging up your finished template in a ZIP file for users. At the end of this book you will be able to create a template that is effective, flexible, and presents a new look for the pre-existing content.

This book focuses on the new jdoc template system for Joomla! 1.5. It is geared toward web designers who need to know how to turn their designs into Joomla! 1.5 templates. It covers how to enhance and speed up your design and revision process, then focuses squarely on the Joomla! 1.5 essentials of creating a template. It covers implementing template overrides, the best approaches for implementing Flash and AJAX techniques, as well as advanced enhancements such as creating design parameters so users can have some control over the template via the administration panel. The original 1.0 book covered how to amend an existing 1.0 template before creating one from scratch, the new templating features of Joomla! 1.5 are so logical to implement we move right into creating a full table-less, semantic XHTML/CSS template from scratch.

What you will learn from this book?

• Debug and validate your template code
• Use the W3C's XHTML and CSS validation tools
• Package up your finished template into a working ZIP file
• Know the standard XHTML markup and CSS classes for Joomla!
• Create Suckerfish drop-down menus
• Get Flash content quickly into your Joomla! site
• Create interactive and dynamic forms in your Joomla! site
• Download and install Joomla! Extensions for your Joomla! site
• Use the wrapper (Wrapper Menu Item) for fully working AJAX applications

Approach

This book covers the "how-tos" of creating templates for Joomla! 1.5. There is also advice about what works and what to consider when working with your Joomla! 1.5 template. Because this title is about Joomla! 1.5 templates and not about CSS or semantic XHTML, an understanding of established and current XHTML and CSS techniques for achieving compliant, semantic, and accessible designs is assumed. However, quality references and links are always given so the reader can learn more about any specific CSS or XHTML technique discussed if they are unfamiliar with it.

Who this book is written for?

This book is aimed at web designers who want to create their own unique templates for Joomla! 1.5. Readers should have a basic knowledge of Joomla! 1.5 (Building Websites with Joomla! 1.5 by Hagen Graf from Packt Publishing will help you with this) and also basic knowledge of table-less CSS and XHTML techniques, as well as using Dreamweaver or other text/code editors for coding purposes.