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Apr
03
2008
Drupals Garland Theme Inspires JoomlaShack and Rockettheme
Written by Steve Burge   
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Color-SwitcherAlmost a year ago now (April 27th 2007) we covered the new color-switcher in Drupal's Garland template.


It allowed you to either choose from one of sixteen default color sets, or to select your own colors for the site's base, links, header and text. You can also upload and install a new logo and favicon directly from the same interface. My view was that:

"I doubt it will be long before we see a similar tool for Joomla. Making it easy for people to design and customize their own templates is a big step towards making software more attractive for non-techies.


A year later, this technology has been launched in Joomla by two different companies within three days of each:



Recently we've seen Drupal themes adopt techniques from Joomla. Roopletheme have been a leader in this area introducing Suckerfish menus, multiple color options and complex block layouts to the Drupal world. Now innovation has traveled in the opposite direction.

Its likely that other template sellers will use the same technology soon. However these two companies were the first to use tools like font and width-changers regularly in Joomla templates, so its no surprise to see them out in front with this technique.


Having tried them out, what do you think?


  • Useful tools or uneccesary bloat?
  • Great for non-designers or likely to produce some eye-bleeding color combinations?
 

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Comments  

 
#1 Brian Teeman 2008-04-03 17:05
I've had the opportunity to have a play with the joomlashack template builder during the beta stage and WOW I was impressed.

As someone with limited css knowledge but a clear idea of how I want a site to look I usually spend hours tweaking the css by trial and error until I found the correct line to edit.

Now with the template builder it is easy for me to find the correct thing to change and the builder ensures that I do it in a standards compliant way.

There are of course some improvements/changes that I would like to see but hey whoever said we had to get it perfect first time.

All in all I'd give this a 9/10 and I'm sure we will hear lots more about this tool in the months to come.
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#2 Cory Webb 2008-04-03 17:05
One man's useful tool is another man's unnecessary bloat. :-)

From my perspective, including that type of color switcher in a template like RocketTheme has done is unnecessary bloat. However, it is a neat trick, and will likely attract new customers. Smart move by RocketTheme.

JoomlaShack's tool is pretty smart. The only thing I would recommend is to try and apply the same tool to more than just the MyTemplate template you have to purchase from JoomlaShack. If they can do that, I think they may have something really useful. I especially like it because it takes the customization out of the template package, which means that it does not have the unnecessary bloat.
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#3 Randy Wiggins 2008-04-03 17:18
I agree -

The Shack is right on track!

JTB is a much better strategy - hope most of their templates will work with JTB as an option moving forward. Even better if they will make some of their existing templates JTB compatible as well. Anyone know if that is part of their strategy?
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#4 Klaus Nitsche 2008-04-04 01:55
RocketTheme's colour chooser is definitely neat, although it's in the wrong place. There is no sense at all in putting it into the frontend - but it's a perfect tool for the developer. So, my advice is to enable it during the testing phase, play with the presets and finetune the settings, then enter those in the template's configuration and switch the colour chooser off.

JoomlaShack's template builder is blazingly innovative. All I can say is 'wow'.

Kind regards,
Zorro
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#5 guido 2008-04-04 04:10
I agree with Cory, Shack's one keeps template and configuration separate, which allows the code to be lighter! In contrast Rockettheme's one is all in one package and they clearly state is not made for older browsers, like IE6 (they say it leaves out many effects...),which, at least in Italy, means more than 30% of visitors...
Did any of you try it with IE6? or at least, since I have IE7, do you know a way to test it with IE6 (virtualization , a web service, whatever...)
anyway, technology on joomla is making big strides (and many say innovation is not for OS...)
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#6 Barrie North 2008-04-04 07:58
We had the same thinking in mind when Casey developed our Joomla Template Builder (joomlatemplatebuilder.com/). The concept is to allow non-designers to create color schemes AND templates without Fireworks or Photoshop. My special favorite is the module builder that allows you to create curved corner modules with any color style you want.

Stay posted at Joomlashack for more of our templates to get added to the Template Builder!
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#7 Dave C 2008-04-04 08:08
Cory

As I understand the way that builder works it is entirely possible to make this work with other Joomlashack (www.joomlashack.com/) templates, Simplicity (www.joomlashack.com/) for one. One thing about this builder is that it is VERY light on graphics, as it uses mostly css for the colors to make for some quick loading sites!
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#8 Cory Webb 2008-04-04 08:35
That's great news, Barrie. I love the idea of the the template builder. You guys are doing great work!
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#9 eric 2008-04-04 11:27
Wow! That is really cool! Makes me want to sign up for Rockettheme again.

I think this is a step in the right direction for both end-user and designer. The end user can now make the theme any color combination they want and the designer can save time by not having to design all the different colored themes.

I hope to see a modular template tool in the future. That would be the ultimate.
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#10 Steve Burge 2008-04-04 11:30
Hey Eric

You make a great point there. Joomla's templates have offered professional designs at a low price but one downside has been that lots of sites have the same look. This is a big step towards solving that.
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