Quick video on converting a template to Joomla 1.5

Posted on 06. Jan, 2009 by Rick in Screencasts

In converting a static theme to a Joomla template today, I decided to record part of it for preview’s sake.  A related tutorial series coming soon will illustrate, in detail, what this video overviews.  It’s a great clip to just watch how a portion of it is done!

http://www.vimeo.com/2744604

This video, of course, is just a quick clip of a Joomla conversion.  The related tutorial series that is coming will detail this out much better (as I spent no time trying to explain some things in this video).

The coming series will include things such as:  Dealing with template parameters, extending columns, Joomla specific styles, etc.

Oh yeah don’t forget:  These videos are in HD, so you can watch in full screen!

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29 Comments

Anders

09. Jan, 2009

Can’t wait to see the full series…

KristieMac

09. Jan, 2009

Awesome, the full series will be great, cant wait till you release the Joomla/Textmate bundle thingy, is there a chance you can release it in Dreamweaver too?

Rick

09. Jan, 2009

@KristieMac There are some handy Dreamweaver plugins out there for Joomla already although not for dev stuff. I’m not really familiar with how their plugins work. Textmate bundles are pretty easy.

Chris

12. Jan, 2009

Excellent Video! I use window/dw — and you mentioned that you weren’t aware of any plugins for dev. I wonder why? Also, what do you think of corephp’s snippet bundles?

Can’t wait to see the rest of the series — keep up the excellent work!

jitendra

13. Jan, 2009

very good tutorial.

Rick

13. Jan, 2009

@Chris Yeh I wonder why too. Maybe because developers don’t use dreamweaver. :-) Who knows.

CorePHP has some nice snippets to add to your library. There are a couple extensions that would work for DW too.

Russell

22. Jan, 2009

Great tutorial. I’m currently in a Web Development class and as part of our PHP course our teacher gave us a quick look into Joomla, drupal, and osCommerce. Joomla has really stood out for me, so I’m looking forward to learning more about it. Can’t wait for the rest of the series.

Mazen

29. Jan, 2009

thanks rick
can u put it in downloads section

Rick

30. Jan, 2009

Put what in the download section? The textmate bundle or the template in the video? I can’t put the template up for download as it’s a client’s. However, the textmate bundle I probably can. It is still in it’s beginning stages though.

Surya Sharma

03. Feb, 2009

Hey, is there some alternative for Textmate (same features, specially the joomla bundle or smth like that) for windows…?

Rick

03. Feb, 2009

dreamweaver is the only thingbi can think of that hasnjoomla snippets

Surya Sharma

03. Feb, 2009

Found e-texteditor [.com] It cant handle the Textmate bundles natively.

Could you please upload the bundles? :)

Amazing videos though. I spent my last two weeks search for a decent tutorial on Template Slicing and then conversion to joomla… finally found BID.

You kinda need some more SEO, maybe better tags @ vimeo, etc, cause these need to start showing up on google.

Rick

04. Feb, 2009

good idea on the SEO stuff. Havent had a whole lot of time to spend on that. The textmate bundle will be uploaded soon (within a month)

Neeraj

09. Feb, 2009

Thankxxxxxxx a lot for a such great video it helps a lot, but its a quick video can you please explain in details …..

Quinton Smith

09. Feb, 2009

Any Idea of when you carrying on explaining the detail in this tutorial? and when the toolbar might be available?

Rick

09. Feb, 2009

a month or two

Randy

11. Mar, 2009

Well that answers my question of what goes into converting a site to Joomla. I’m impressed by how well you know Joomla, and how clearly you communicate your knowledge. Great job Rick. Thanks.

Michael

19. Apr, 2009

Which version of Textmate is it you are using in the screencast?

Rick

19. Apr, 2009

The latest version. Using one of their skins on the website too.

Anshu

20. May, 2009

Thank you x1000 for this tutorial.

I was struggling with Joomla until I saw this. Fantastic.

Just one problem, though. I followed your instructions to the ‘T’, but when I went into Template > Edit, I couldn’t see any options. I wanted to set the main menu (similar to your horizontal menu) but couldn’t, because there wasn’t any place to set the ID for the navigation. The message being “Menus: Cannot assign default template.”

So I haven’t been able to move further. But getting this far itself made my day. I await the series. :-)

Thank you again.

Mike

25. Jun, 2009

Great tutorial Rick! You made it look so easy… I have a static template developed for a client who then wanted a CMS, so I thought ‘great!’… followed your instructions (I hope, to the letter) but it all turned to crap when I went to upload the .zip file to the Joomla! environment. At this stage the second screen (when you hit the ‘upload’ button) went blank! I was wondering if you have any ideas as to what I may have missed?
More detail would be great! Have you been able to expand tutorial at all yet?

Rick

26. Jun, 2009

Sounds like the references to the CSS files and the like are pointing to the template folder.

Still working on getting that stuff assimilated for the tuts.

choa

29. Jun, 2009

Really nice and quick. that tuts will make my life better :)

revive

21. Jul, 2009

Hello Rick,
Great screen cast.. looking forward to seeing the future editions and advanced Joomla templating. Also, what theme do you use for Textmate? Is it a how brewed master piece or off the shelf?? Care to share? :)

Thanks again.. we’ll be back soon..

Dee

20. Sep, 2009

PLS PLS PLS come out with a complete tutorial like this but more comprehensive one in the very near future. I have been searching all over for some good video tutorials on creating templates in Joomla. All seem to fall short in some area. Hopefully the ones you are creating will allow the whole process to be explained. From converting the html and css all the way thru install the template and all of the module, menus and articles admin management necessary to fully roll out the type of template that you can purchase. I am just picking up Joomla and I love what I am seeing so far and so many of my clients want to be able to update their own content so this seems like the right fit for me. However its unless if I can convert their design to a joomla template. Any idea when we can expect something?

Chad

06. Oct, 2009

Wow. I am very impressed with your screencast. I’ve been all around the net searching for a tutorial like the one you have here but have come up short until now! I am looking forward to more. Any idea when another one will be posted? Also, what’s the status on the bundle?

Thank you and great job!

JaxQK

22. Oct, 2009

Wonderful tutorial….I await the start of the series since their is no one else showing this in such detail as you do.

Great to have peeps like you arround teaching us to BE.
not wanna BE’s.

S

29. Dec, 2009

I have been searching HTML / Joomla Template conversion info for a while now and this video is THE BEST.

I’m wanting MORE..

Yum!

Willem

16. Feb, 2010

Very good tutorial! Now it makes more sense to me.
I’ve designed my first Joomla template and it’s all starting to work now.
I got one question, can you perhaps send me the javascript code for the menu (or an explenation of how I should build one)? I really don’t know how to do this correct for joomla and I need a similar dropdown menu.

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