Week 4 Completion Checklist

Before you begin working on templating (the Joomla word) or theming (the WordPress and Drupal word), you need to have your site configured, with content and extensions installed. The placement doesn’t need to be perfect, but they need to be present. You can’t template/theme what you can’t see!

Warning: I estimate it will take you 10-12 hours to create your custom template, including watching the videos and writing code. DO NOT PUT OFF THIS ASSIGNMENT. 

You may not need to watch all videos this week. Video 2 is suited to those new to HTML/CSS who may have trouble constructing an initial web page. Videos 6 and 7 fill "option A" of the two advanced options for your project and/or an "instructor's choice" item. If you're watching video 2, you probably don't need to watch videos 6 and 7.

Videos

  • Video 1 is an overview of Joomla templates -- what do they do, how are they configured, where does the HTML come from, where does the CSS come from?
  • Video 2 covers creating a starting HTML page. If you already know how to make a HTML page with CSS, skip this video. There is nothing new here, just basic HTML5 and CSS3. I am building without Bootstrap. If you want to see the page built with bootstrap, watch the lynda.com video.
  • Video 3 deals with converting index.html to index.php and inserting component and module code.
  • Video 4 covers favicon plus some additional images, configuring the XML file, and zipping everything together.
  • Video 5 installs the template, rearranges module positions, and deals with some styling.
  • Video 6 is an advanced technique: Template overrides
  • Video 7 is an advanced technique: Optional regions/alternative regions.

By the end of this week

To stay on track for having your Joomla assignment complete in time, by the end of this week, you should have the following completed from the assignment:

  • Your website plan is complete, and you're executing it.
  • You've plopped in all of your content.
  • You picked out extensions, installing and configuring them.
  • You've created your initial static HTML look for this site. You've converted this to a Joomla template with the appropriate code, XML, and supplementary files. It installed.

You may not have all of your CSS tweaked to perfection.

You may not have decided if you want to do more with templates for your project, or if you want to do something with permissions instead.

You may hit a bump along the way -- an installation problem, a styling problem, whatever it happens to be. You may still be resolving it.

However, at the end of this week (Feb 17), you have 14 more days until the assignment is due to smooth out any styling issues and decide whether you want to do more with templates, or do something with permissions (also called Access Control Lists, or ACL). That is plenty of time to finish everything and get it tied up nicely.