If you just installed Joomla on hosting and started setting up a new site, then first of all you should take care of creating the original appearance (you need to find and download templates for Joomla). True, there is a small problem: there are not so many templates for Joomla, like, for example, themes for WordPress; in the case of Joomla, the choice of templates really looks scarce. There are even fewer Russified templates, so you can safely look for the desired design on foreign resources. Some of these are joomla24.com and mambohut.com

If you are using the third version of Joomla, then you need to look for templates for it (in extreme cases, you can install / pull a template tailored for version 2.5).

Installing and then editing a template is a very difficult task, because if you install a template it costs nothing, then editing requires knowledge of html and css (we will talk about this in other articles).

Before choosing a template, you need to decide on its structure, content placement options, menu appearance, number of blocks, etc. Knowing what you want will make it much easier to find the “right” topic.

What is included in the template

Let's say that you have already found the template you need and downloaded it. Now you need to make sure that the archive contains exactly the template, and not a group of archives. This happens infrequently, but still sometimes there are archives that contain a whole bunch of archives, where the templates themselves or generally incomprehensible files are located.

Generally speaking, the standard equipment looks something like this:

• the templateDetails.xml file, which is required to install the theme in the admin panel;
• index.php containing the template code;
• params.ini, thanks to which it becomes possible to save user settings;

The template must also contain folders:

• images, which contain all template images;
• css containing style sheets
• js, which contains files with JavaScript scripts.

Of course, we have not listed all the files and folders that are in the Joomla template, but, in any case, these are the main ones; their number directly depends on the type of each template. If, when opening the archive, you find a bunch of archives, then if you focus on these files and folders described above, then you can easily find the template. By the way, the templates of the earliest versions of Joomla will not work correctly or will not work at all on the latest releases of the CMS.

Installing Joomla Templates

There are two ways to install/pull a Joomla template. The first of them is a regular installation through the system, and the second is copying files to the templates folder. We will consider both options.

To install the template through the Joomla admin panel, go to "Extensions", and there already find the "Install / pull" item. When you click on this link, a window will open that prompts you to download a file with a template, and then you need to immediately click on the "Upload file" button. If a suitable file is selected, the download will begin, and just a short time after the start of the download, a message should appear indicating the successful completion of the operation.

Now go to the "Extensions" menu and select the "Template Manager" item. Here you will see the newly delivered template, as well as those that were installed earlier. You can select this template if you place/drag the pointer in front of it and click on the "Default" button.

The second method involves using an FTP program. It is used when there is a need for bulk loading of templates, or when the theme does not want to be added/removed in a standard way. So, if you downloaded the archive with the template, now we pull out all the contents of the archive and transfer it to any folder (its name must be written in Latin letters). Launch the FTP client, open the /templates folder on your site and upload the template folder.

To test the template loading, simply reload the page.

Some more points

If you want to change the name of your template, then you need to find the templateDetails.xml file and open it in text editor. Now you need to find the template_name tags in the file, where instead of “template_name” you need to write the desired name (only in Latin letters!).

If you have too many templates loaded, it's best to navigate through them by hovering over them, and then their thumbnail image will be shown.

Templates for Joomla, as a rule, fall under the Creative Commons license, which gives a "green light" for copying, processing and distributing the work, but only with attribution. Some developers place their authorship in the form of an active link to the site, but in some templates there is nothing. It is not recommended to remove the link in order not to run into problems due to copyright infringement in the future.

There are two ways to create a website. Make the site yourself, that's what we do on this site. Or contact a specialized company that creates a website and promotes it online. The second option seems easier. For example, you need to create a site Voronezh is your hometown. Look for a company that creates a site with localization in Voronezh and after a while you are the owner of a working site. If you want to do everything yourself, read on.

The Joomla 3 template is quite reasonably called the clothes of the site. Wanted to change appearance site, installed a new template and you're done. Website in a new design. There are more serious reasons for changing the template. For example, the template becomes obsolete, the author does not update it, and at the next Joomla update, the template starts to "fail". In any case, whatever the reason, to change the default Joomla template, you need to install the template first. This can be done in three ways.

What is a Joomla Template

Joomla template is a system extension that can be created and released by any author. On the Internet, you can find options for free and paid templates from a variety of authors.

The difference between paid and free Joomla templates is the author's technical assistance (support) and the possible presence of external links to the author's site or sites. Those. support is present in paid templates, and external links hang on free templates.

How to check a template for viruses

• It doesn't matter where you get the template. At the end of the article there are several links to excellent free templates (by authors). Download the template in a zip archive.

Checking the template for viruses

• To be safe, check the downloaded template file for viruses. Do this in at least two ways:
• Check the security of the template with your antivirus installed on your computer;
• Check the template archive file on the Virustotal website ( https://www.virustotal.com/)

Template Directory Check

Check out the downloaded plugin. Unpack it. It is highly likely that the archive you downloaded contains two archives: the template itself, plugins and modules for it. There may be many.

You need to select a template archive and a system plugin archive. Template modules are add-ons and optional for initial installation.

Now important! To get acquainted with the template, unpack the template archive before opening all files and folders. See if there is an installer in the template directory XML file. If it is not there, the template from the site panel cannot be installed.

Three Ways to Install a Joomla 3 Template

There are three ways to install a Joomla 3 template.

• Installing a template from the Joomla site panel;
• By FTP;
• By the URL of the file from the repository.

Template installation method No. 1. Install template from Joomla site panel

The most suitable installation option joomla template, to understand the quality of the template and its readiness for work. If the author of the template compiled it correctly, then this installation method will work and there is a high probability that there will be no pitfalls in further work.

• To install the template, go to the tab: Extensions>>>Install;
• Select "Load file from package" in the manager menu;
• Select the downloaded template on your computer;
• Install;
• Correct and correct installation will be informed by a green information bar;
• To check the installation of a Joomla template, go to the template manager and see the installed template in the list.

Template installation method No. 2. Install Template via FTP

• Unpack the Joomla template archive file until all files and folders of the template are visible;
• We enter the site directory via FTP using FTP client(FileZilla or WinSCP);
• Locate the tmp folder in the site's root directory. Clean it up by deleting everything except the index.html file;
• Upload the template folders and files to the tmp folder;
• Return to the site panel. On the tab Extensions>>>Extension manager>>>Install, select the menu item "Install from directory";

• Check the correct path to the tmp directory and click the "Check and install" button;

Note: You can do the same, but upload the template in your folder. Then you need to add tmp/template directory to the path.

Template installation method No. 3. Install template by URL from repository

In Extension Manager>>>Install there is a button "Install from URL". In theory, it allows you to install a template from an open file storage. I have never used this setup.

Several Authors of Free Joomla Templates

• Joomshaper (HELIX3 basic). https://www.joomshaper.com/joomla-templates/helix3
• JoomLead. https://joomlead.com/
• Joomdev. https://www.joomdev.com/
• Agethemes. http://agethemes.com

"Dark horses" come across not only among people, but also among CMS. One of these "horses" is DLE.

If there is a lot of information about other php engines on the Internet, then only a few worthy materials can be found about this CMS. Let's make this article worthy by telling readers how to install a template on DLE:

Known about unknown CMS

This engine is not as popular on the global Internet as WordPress or Joomla. It is a creation of Russian programmers. Therefore, you can most often stumble upon a site running on this CMS and a template for DLE in Runet.

CMS DLE is positioned by the creators as the basis for deployment information portals and blogs. The internal system of the engine is adapted for heavy loads and has a high degree fault tolerance:

Like most engines, DLE ( Data Life Engine) works for php based and MySQL. The main disadvantage of this content management system is its payment. Despite this, DLE occupies the fourth position in terms of prevalence among the resources located in the ru zone. Although most of them (59 thousand sites) use pirated versions of the engine.

A license for the basic configuration of CMS for a period of 1 year costs 2190 rubles. Its extension for the second year (and subsequent ones) will cost 1490 rubles. The price of the extended version is 2790 rubles.

In addition to paid versions, there is also a free one. This version of the CMS is presented by the manufacturer as trial version engine and basis for creating your first site:

The main disadvantage of DLE is the weak security. Back in 2008, experts criticized CMS for its low security. internal system when working with queries. Most likely, this problem has not been fixed today.

According to Yandex analytical data for 2011, most often sites that work on the basis of CMS DLE are infected. Latest release engine on this moment is version 10.3. She came out in September 2014.

Features of the template for DLE

Templates for DLE sites have a number of features that fundamentally distinguish this CMS from other content management systems:

• The engine's template structure is based on TPL files. This greatly facilitates the process of layout and adaptation of the template design;
• The main structure file is main.tpl . All additional template elements ( menu, side panel ) are also defined using TPL files ;
• Style decisions are written in two files: styles for the program part are set in engine.css, and everything else is in style.css:

Before you install DLE template, download its installation package and place it in the templates folder:

Then you need to go to the site control panel (admin.php file). Then select "" from the menu on the left side. Script settings», « System settings»:

Below in the section General settings» go to « Default site template". Select from the dropdown list desired template. After making changes, do not forget to click the " Save":

After that, the new template is activated, and the site will change its appearance. But before putting the template on DLE, don't forget to unzip it.

AT CMS DLE unlike other popular content management systems, the template is not installed from an archive.

Unfortunately, most of the templates for DLE, like the engine itself, are paid. But if you search well, then in Runet you can find a couple of decent resources where you can download templates for free. Here are a few of them:

• dle-shablony.net - there are about 50 different templates for free download. But they are all “dumped” in one general section without sorting by category. Although among them you can find absolutely “strawberry” specimens:

• newtemplates.ru - the site presents a large collection of paid and free templates. All of them are conveniently sorted into thematic headings. But even among the paid ones, you can find samples worth $ 5-10 and a circulation of only 5 copies. And this will provide the resource with a design with a fairly high degree of uniqueness!

• 10.dle-shabloni.ru is a cool resource with a huge collection of templates for DLE sites. Tags will help you find among them the ones you need by subject or even by color. You can see how the template works using the built-in demo or in the video playing in the Youtube video player window:

Do not forget that each template was developed for a specific version of CMS DLE. Their compliance must be checked before downloading the selected sample.

How to edit a DLE template

Unlike other popular content management systems, DLE has a simpler templating scheme. Thanks to this, their editing is much faster and easier. The toolkit of the administrative part of the engine includes an integrated code editor.

To access this tool need:

• Go to the site admin panel;
• From the menu on the left select " Template Management"," Site templates ";
• In the drop-down list located in the field " Selected template for editing"Install the desired instance and click on the" Run" button:

• After that, the built-in code editor window will be displayed below. But before editing the template, you need to select a file to edit. The template file tree is located on the left. After clicking the cursor on the right source its contents will be displayed in the editor window:

As you can see from the figure, the tpl file is regular html, whose structure is easy to understand. But before editing this code, it is strongly recommended that you familiarize yourself with the features of building the DLE engine.

Publication date: 01/09/2016

Greetings, dear readers of the site! 🙂

With this article, we continue the series of publications dedicated to independent creation.

As general information Let me just remind you that this product is included in the top 10 free engines for creating online stores and is one of best solutions for a quick start of small resources, without requiring any special skills and knowledge from the creators.

So, in my previous article, I helped you get past the first step in getting the engine installed. As a result, you already have a ready-made online store, which remains to be configured so that the resource is more complete and attractive to customers.

And the first step on this path that we will overcome is installing an OpenCart template.

There are a lot of templates today - both paid and free. In this situation, as usual, there are pluses and minuses 🙂 On the one hand, there are plenty to choose from, and on the other, your eyes run wide.

To the complexity of the choice is added the fact that the template (aka "theme") is desirable to choose one, because. due to the peculiarities of installing the OpenCart template, it will be problematic to remove it from the store later. And when installing a lot of themes, they can lead to crawling errors in the storefront and conflicts in its work.

How not to get confused in this variety and choose the right one?

To answer this question, I decided to compile a small list of criteria that will help you in choosing.

And in the second part of the publication, we will talk about how to install the OpenCart template and activate it.

Choosing a resource for installing an OpenCart template - 5 options

Before considering the criteria for choosing a template for Opencart, I want to say a few words about how to choose the right resource from which to download.

The choice of a resource for downloading should be approached no less responsibly than when choosing the template itself, because. on some of them, you can download virus-infected files or fragments may be introduced into the product code that allow their developers to hack or harm your resource.

These situations when installing OpenCart themes, modules and other extensions, unfortunately, are not uncommon and are especially common in the case of free products.

Therefore, be sure to search the Internet with an antivirus enabled, which will help you weed out potentially dangerous resources. When downloading files, pay attention to the size and extension.

If the size is suspiciously small (a few bytes) or has a non-standard extension, then it is better to refuse such a file and look for something similar elsewhere. The modules themselves, in most cases, the files are packed in rar or zip archives, so everything else - .exe, .xyz, .something short - is a potential virus software that must be removed immediately.

Well, it will also not be superfluous to scan the downloaded files with an antivirus.

However, even these measures will not help protect against malicious files by 100%. Sometimes, unintentional or intentional errors in the code of the modules themselves can cause very serious consequences - up to the loss of information and control over the resource. The antivirus does not recognize this kind of danger.

However, you can also protect yourself from this by downloading OpenCart templates from resources where files are manually moderated. At the same time, add-ons can even be free 🙂

These resources have been personally verified by me. I actively used and continue to use them, downloading and uploading my developments to them, so you can safely use them 🙂