Joomla Templates

Find the Best Joomla Template for Your Site

admin — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:08:33 +0000

For anyone new to building their own websites, the process can seem overwhelming. Joomla, a free, open-source content management system, or CMS, makes that process simpler by letting its users either build websites through a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editor or use a premade template. While templates let new users get started right away, choosing the best Joomla templates is not always easy. Before you decide which template is best for your site, think about your audience, your purpose, and your budget.

Some websites are made for personal reasons, while others are meant to appeal to a broader audience. A site made solely for a wedding party, for example, will have a completely different design than a site designed for professionals. The best Joomla templates for each will reflect the differences between their target audiences.

The wedding template might have more personal touches, while the business template should focus on navigation and ease-of-use. Some templates are clearly meant for certain demographics – a design incorporating a lot of pink, purple, or flowers might be aimed at teens and should be avoided in a business setting, but would be fine for personal use.

The purpose of your site determines the level of functionality that you will need. Every site should have some core features, including a clear navigational structure and a layout that is easy on the eyes, but others will vary.

Ideally, the best Joomla templates would do everything you need them to, but you may find a few that would be perfect if only they had one or two missing features. If a particular template does not have all of the features you need, you may be able to find a Joomla extension or module that does the job. A photography website should look for a template, or failing that, an extension, that can display photos in an easy-to-navigate format. Other popular extensions can provide e-commerce functionality, display videos, or even let you have full control over how your website is translated.

While there are many free templates on the web, you can buy a professional template if your budget allows. These templates often have more features and better support than free designs, but can be quite costly. If possible, look at reviews of a particular company before you decide to purchase one of their themes. The key is to look around before you decide. Although professional designs can be spectacular, you might find that the best Joomla templates for you are free.

How to Make Joomla Templates?

admin — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:25:08 +0000

Have you ever wondered how to make Joomla templates? You’re probably not the only one. While Joomla is fairly easy to use if you do not plan on customizing your website, its more advanced features were designed with developers in mind. To make your own template will require a working knowledge of CSS, something that is intimidating for the average user. Fortunately, there are methods that allow new users to ease into making their own templates without knowing complicated code. From easiest to hardest, you can use software, modify an existing template, and then, when you’re ready, make a new template from scratch.

The easiest way to start making your own templates is to use a program that generates designs for you. This allows you to quickly customize your site without knowing CSS, but it does have a few drawbacks. The home/academic version, which is less expensive, cannot create templates for Joomla, so you will have to spend a little more money to buy the standard version. Secondly, because the program was designed for people who do not know CSS or HTML, it is easy to use but does not allow for customization. This means that all the templates you create will be fixed-width, among other things. Still, if you do not know how to make Joomla templates, this is a good program to start with.

Your second option is to download a premade template and experiment. Many Joomla templates are free, so you will not have to invest any money, but this option does take a little more time than using a program. Once you have the template installed on your site, you can take a look at the code and begin to modify it. Start slowly, and have a reference close at hand. It is best to back up your site before you modify an existing template or make a new one. This is a good method for users that need hands-on experience before they can learn how to make Joomla templates.

The most difficult option for new users is making a new template from scratch. You will need a text editor of some sort to get started. First, you will need to create a new template folder in your site’s directory, then, using your text editor, make two files named “index.php” and “templateDetails.xml.” The index.php file is the “core” of your site, while the templateDetails.xml file holds your template’s metadata. From there, you can choose to create a separate CSS folder, or put CSS code in your index.php file. Which you choose is up to you. Though completely explaining how to make Joomla templates is beyond the scope of this article, some basic code and additional instructions are available for free at: docs.joomla.org

How Incorporating Flash Functionality Makes Your Site More Appealing

admin — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 07:21:07 +0000

When the internet first began, sites were often poorly designed and hard for users to navigate. Now that WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editors and sophisticated content management systems, such as Joomla, are available, users expect more from the websites they visit. Sites need to be easy to navigate, visually appealing, and interactive. One way to do this is by using Adobe Flash and Rich Internet Applications. Webmasters can easily add more interactivity to their websites by choosing Flash Joomla templates, saving them the trouble of coding everything by hand.

The Adobe Flash player is one of the most widely used browser plug-ins for a reason. The SWF files used by Flash look the same on any system or browser, and are capable of a wide variety of functions. Webmasters can use Adobe Flash to create a clickable streaming video, add an mp3 player, or load assets dynamically to reduce loading time. Adobe Flash can also be used to display text that will look the same on any screen size, browser, or system, avoiding a problem that has plagued webmasters since the beginnings of the Internet. However, the code used to add Flash functionality to your site does vary quite drastically between browsers, making it difficult for new users to get started. Using premade Flash Joomla templates lets new users get their websites running quickly and easily.

Although many Flash Joomla templates are freely available, you might want to buy a designer template instead depending on your needs. A professionally designed template usually has more features, and, more importantly, better support. Editing and customizing a template that fully utilizes Flash applications can be very difficult. Some companies can help new customers get started, while others offer editing services for a fee. You might have to pay for individual templates, or be able to subscribe for a monthly fee. It all depends on which company you choose.

The best way to appeal to today’s more sophisticated web surfers is to make your website more interactive. Fully utilizing Adobe Flash will make your website stand out, but doing so on your own is tough. Luckily, Flash Joomla templates are widely available, either for free or for a one-time or monthly fee. Before you know it, you will have an eye-catching website that will hook searchers by using videos, photo galleries, or mp3 players.

Professional Joomla Templates

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:22:43 +0000

Building a website for your business is one of the best ways to inform and attract new customers, keep clients updated, and make sales. However, it is important to choose your content management system (CMS) so that you can operate efficiently while providing a good experience for visitors. Joomla, one of the more popular systems in use today, is considered a great CMS for nearly any purpose. One of the most appealing things about Joomla is the wide array of templates you can use to make your website look unique, but it is important to choose a template that looks professional as well. Professional Joomla templates will be a good start, but there are a few things to keep in mind.

First, think about your target audience and the purpose of your business. A photography website should display photos in an easily viewed format, such as a gallery or slideshow. However, if the primary purpose of the site is to communicate and inform visitors about the business, then you might want to keep the theme clean and distraction free. Every demographic will have a style that caters just to them. It is your job to figure out what that style is. Once you have a clear idea, you can start looking for professional Joomla templates.

The perfect template will not only be functional, but will also be user-friendly. Look for a theme that is well-organized and easy to navigate. Do not make your users hunt for essential information, or they will quickly leave your site. In the same vein, any graphics or photos used in the site should load quickly. If a site offers demos of their templates, take a look at them to make sure each template fits these criteria. You may have to look at a number of professional Joomla templates before you make your final decision.

Finally, professional Joomla templates should be search engine optimized. The template should make use of appropriate header tags, meta descriptions, and subtitles. Photos should be renamed and clearly labeled so that search engines can “read” them. While many of these features will not be apparent to your visitors, they will help any business receive traffic from web surfers by making your site easy for search engines to crawl. Some features that are SEO (search engine optimization) friendly will also make your site more professional. These include using keywords sparingly, good site architecture, and fast loading times. A professional site that is functional, user-friendly, and attractively designed will make your site stand out from the rest.

Showcase Your Music with a MySpace Music Layout

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:34:29 +0000

You’ve decided you want a MySpace page that will showcase your interest in music. Perhaps you are a musician who would like others to listen to your music on your MySpace page. Or maybe you have a favorite band that you want the world to know about. You may want a page to highlight a different interest like cars or animals while visitors are treated to music playing in the background. MySpace gives you a wide range of options so that you can create a custom page using both graphics and sound, and music MySpace layouts are an eye-catching way to let visitors know about your taste in music.

There are a large number of free music MySpace layouts available for anyone to use. Some of the music layouts you can find right away by searching the internet feature cassettes, guitars, boom boxes, musical notes, headphones, and piano keys. If you have something else in mind, add it to your search, and you can find a layout for anything related to music that you can possibly think of.

Installing music on your site is easy because MySpace makes the process so user friendly. When you log in to your MySpace account and go to your profile you will see a link for “Music.” Clicking on this link will take you to the music section of MySpace where you will be able to find the perfect music for your site. You can find any musical style here, from classical to hip hop and you can search by style and artist. You can also add music videos to your MySpace page by copying the embedded code from your favorite video on YouTube and pasting it into the “About Me” section of your MySpace account profile after you log in. Adding a music video to your page after installing one of the music MySpace layouts will offer your MySpace visitors a dynamic experience that they won’t find on many other popular social networking sites.

If you really want to catch someone’s attention instantly when they land on your site, you can choose an animated layout, background, or image. Sparkling glitter, flashing text, and a spinning guitar will draw the eye and make your MySpace page stand out. You can choose from many of the options online or you can create your own animations using a generator available on several websites. So you can see that there are unlimited ways to give your MySpace page pizzazz by using any of the music MySpace layouts together with animation and music.

Photography Joomla Templates

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:10:36 +0000

Photographers often cannot use just any old template for their websites. Unlike a blog, which relies primarily on the written word to communicate, photography websites often operate as a portfolio and display nothing more than photos and information about the site owner. A lack of text does not mean that your website cannot be both engaging and visually striking, however. Photography Joomla templates and extensions will ensure that your photos speak for themselves and turn visitors into clients.

A photography site should aim for a style that attracts visitors but does not distract them from the photos. The best templates will have a slideshow or photo gallery that allows visitors to cycle through photos at their leisure. Alternatively, you might consider adding a light-box plugin or extension to your site. This extension allows photos to “pop” out of the page without sending visitors to a different part of your website. As the webmaster, this will allow you to display lower-quality thumbnails on the actual page. These will load quickly, but users can still click to see a full-size, high-quality version. If you sell photos from your site, you might want to add a shopping cart extension so that users can check out easily. Keep in mind, however, that the best photography Joomla templates will keep the user in mind without sacrificing functionality.

If the above extensions do not work for your purposes, you might want to think about a “magazine” style theme instead. These photography Joomla templates allow webmasters to display multiple photos or posts on the same page while maximizing screen real estate. Magazine themes work well for sites or blogs that incorporate a good deal of text in addition to their photos because they allow users to view many posts without scrolling or reading long walls of text. They also often feature multiple columns for an eye-catching design and easy navigation.

Although there are many premade photography Joomla templates, it is entirely possible that you will not find the perfect one for you. If you have a little knowledge of CSS, you can make your own from scratch, but beginners might find the process too daunting. Fortunately, Joomla’s many extensions make customizing your site easy to do. Before you give up, try searching through Joomla’s free extension directory at Extensions.Joomla.Org. If all else fails, hiring a professional to design your site may be a good investment.

Girly MySpace Layouts

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:02:37 +0000

You are a girly girl and want to make sure that the people who see your social networking site know it! MySpace is a great choice if you want to display a girly page since MySpace pages are customizable. There are many girly MySpace layouts to choose from and you can have a lot of fun looking through the various sites online before you find the perfect layout for your page.

The first thing you may notice when browsing through the different girly MySpace Layouts is the color. Many girly layouts display bright colors and eye-catching graphics. You can find layouts that have pink backgrounds with polka dots, pink and white checked gingham and layouts with pink hearts. Other layouts display bright yellows, aquas and neon green. You can also find layouts that have dark backgrounds with bright splashes of color to make them more girly.

When designing your MySpace page, remember that you aren’t limited to using only the girly MySpace layouts that you find online. You can use your imagination to create your own photos for your page. Slither into that slinky black dress, slip into those 4-inch spike heels and wind a feather boa around your neck and have a friend snap your picture. Or you can go with the whimsical and wear an old-fashioned sunbonnet with your bikini. Have a friend snap your picture and then you can use your computer or cell phone to upload the photo to your MySpace account. If no one is around to take your photo and you want to upload it right away you can use the webcam on your computer to snap your own photos.

You’ve finally chosen the perfect design from the many girly MySpace layouts you’ve looked at and are ready to put it on your MySpace page. First you will need to copy the layout code. You will either find it under the image of the layout you’ve chosen or will have to click on the layout name to access the code. The next steps will be to log into your MySpace account, click on “Edit Profile” and then paste the code into the “About Me” text box, making sure to delete any code that may be there from your previous layout. Then all you have to do is save it and your new girly layout will be displayed on your page for all the world to see.

Easy Web Design Software

admin — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 11:39:58 +0000

Since the internet world, the World Wide Web took over the entire globe everybody thought of advertising their services and products online to get more clients. People even make their own webpages related to their family, themselves and so on to make new friends. This is not limited to only people with a degree of computers but each and every person including kids have learned how to develop a website due to the easy web design softwares available online for free. These softwares not only make web designing easy but fun as well with the tutorials available with all softwares to give you a wild idea of how to operate it.

Internet is one of the facilities that have eventually become a necessity instead of a luxury. People of every age group use it to relax, enjoy and to get information on any topic you can think of. People not only visit other websites but are now building their own webpages either for their company/firm or a personal profile. Now at first developing websites was a job for a professional which needed to be hired but with the easy web designing softwares you can now download for free from the internet and use them following the tutorial. These softwares make every option and effect used in a website a click away subcategorized within menus.

You can also view the code source of the webpage if you are good at programming languages and want to make a change through there. Now easy web designing softwares may be different for each individual. For a person who is new to this would prefer different softwares to be used while someone who is familiar with it may use another software that he/she find easy. So according to each individual I put forward a few softwares that can be used according to your own knowledge and experience of developing a website. Now three famous types of easy web designing softwares are Microsoft Expression Web, Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Flash.

Microsoft Expression Web: this being the first one in the list of easy web designing softwares is the easiest one to use. You can start with this software if you are new to the web designing field as this software has easy and quick effects and options to build a website. I believe 30% of the websites are made from this software as it is the easiest one in the market yet. It is not only easy but the output from this software is very professional which gives a newbie a nudge to use Adobe Dreamweaver.

Adobe Dreamweaver: if you believe you are better than a newbie in the field of web designing and little low on becoming an expert then Adobe Dreamweaver is the web designing software to go with. This has options that are a little bit in detail and complicated than MS Expression Web. Adobe Dreamweaver is a little bit different than Expression Web in usage but gives an output which is a little better than the Expression Web.

Adobe Flash: if you believe you have been there, done that then Adobe Flash web designing software is the way to go. The experts who are now familiar with the basic features and options of a web designing software should definitely experiment with Adobe Flash as its output is ten times better than Dreamweaver and looks like it has been made by a web designer that gets paid $200 per website. To be honest it is a lot more complicated than the softwares mentioned above but once you get the point then it becomes fun using its features and functions. You can download ready-made themes from the internet and experiment with it by using the tutorial or internet for some tips and tricks. You can excellent, stylish and professional websites through this software yourself.

Web Design Tutorials are Necessary

admin — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 07:53:01 +0000

We live in a technology driven world. In fact, it is possible that human beings couldn’t function properly in their daily lives without the help of technology. Moreover, most people use and have at least one computer in the home or in their office. Plus, it is reasonable to believe that many people love to surf the internet at least three times a day. Since this seems to be the case then, people in the computer field need and computer lovers need to have some knowledge of web design. Therefore, web design tutorials are necessary in order to understand technology better.

We live in a technology driven world. In fact it is quite possible to think that we couldn’t live properly without the use of technology; especially computers and the internet. Many professional fields use computers and the internet. The medical profession uses computers in order to keep patients records up to date and writers want to write a great novel or poem on a state of the art computer such as a Dell or Apple computer. Moreover, small business from bakeries to flower shops use computers and the internet in order to keep track of flower and flour orders (pun intended). However, in order to work on and with computers we need web design tutorials. Since we need web design tutorials then, then it is necessary to have knowledge web design which probably involves knowledge of graphic arts, art, design, computers, and probably animation. Let’s look a bit closer at the art of web design and web design tutorials.

Web design is the process of conceptualization, planning, modeling, and execution of electronic media delivery via the internet in the form of different technologies such as markup languages that are suitable for display by a web browser or other web based graphical user interfaces. In addition, most web designers know that there are two kinds of web pages. Typically, web pages are classified as either static or dynamic. A static web page is a web page that doesn’t change content or layout with every request unless a human who is a web master or computer programmer manually updates the web page.

By way of contrast, dynamic web pages adapt their content and /or appearance depending on the end-user’s input or interaction or changes in the computing environment such as user, time, and data base modifications. In addition, did you know that due to the growing specialization within the field of communication design and information technology fields there is a strong desire and a strong tendency to draw a clear line between web design specifically for web pages and web development for the over all logistics of all web-based services. This information may make people’s heads spin; therefore some people might need to have a web design expert to give some web design tutorials every month or so. Let’s look a bit at web site design.

A web site is a collection of information about a particular topic or subject. Most people probably don’t know that designing a website is defined as the arrangement and creation of web pages that in turn go together to create a website. A web page consists of information foe which the web site is developed. Moreover, a website may be compared to a book and each page of a book is a web page. This information should be part of web design tutorials.

How to Choose eBay Store Layouts

admin — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 22:12:25 +0000

With eBay store layouts, virtually anyone can become an online distributer. After a person signs up for eBay Stores, they have a plethora of options available for building their new Internet business. This is where the problems begin. Individuals who are new to online auctions may not know which layout is best for their company. Consequently, they may choose something that hinders their branding. Others may rush and pick the simplest layout available. They then lose sales because they are not maximizing their advertising space. Indeed, before a seller opens up an eBay store, they need to understand what type of situation warrants a particular layout.

If a seller is operating a smaller enterprise, they will want to consider eBay store layouts that accentuate the “showcase” concept. When layouts utilize this type of style, emphasis is placed on two to four items at a time. No other explicit advertising is used, as the main goal is to try to get a customer hooked on these featured products. If the customer is not interested, they can still peruse the links that are provided on the left side of the screen. These will take them to the products that are not being featured. Larger businesses will want more complex eBay store layouts. There are several ways this can be achieved. The easiest involves advertising a multitude of products at one time. This is called the “Basic Layout.” Buyers will see a banner at the top, textual product listings on the left side and visual product listings on the right. Most of the emphasis is placed on the visual listings, where buyers can browse through dozens of items. In each of these ads, they will see a photo, a one-line description and pricing information. No other ads are available, even ones for featured items.

The inability to feature ads is a major setback for the Basic Layout. This is why many sellers opt for Advanced layouts. Through these layouts, sellers can advertise discounts in a variety of areas. The most popular tends to be in the space right beneath the banner. Sellers can advertise up to four ads in this space alone. If this is not enough, they can also advertise on the left portion of the site. By default, ads in this area usually appear beneath the product listings. They can be moved with advanced HTML knowledge.

In summary, eBay store layouts need to be chosen with care. A business should not use a showcase layout if they are selling hundreds of items. Conversely, a person with twelve items or less should not use a Basic or Advanced Layout. Ultimately, sellers need to think about what will work best for their situation. Just because a particular layout works well with one seller does not mean it will offer the same success for another.