joomla 3.3.3 php latest gantry 4 (latest) need template

[isthisthelogin]

Hi,

New to joomla using all of the latest versions of Joomla, Gantry, K2, etc.

Since I am new to Joomla, I thought the best bet would be to find an appropriate

template for a news and or blog site.

I have been creating a custom html modules in order to create my own template

but I am sure I will miss something so I'd like to stick to a template.

1. So, does Rocket have a template that fits a news and/or blog site? (I have not seen one)

2. Joomshaper (I think they have Helix framework.) has News plus,

GavickPro (not sure of framework) has News2 and Magazine, but can I use

them with Gantry?  ( I like Gantry, so I hope) 

3. Has anyone have experience with any of the above and what are your favorites?

4. If I find another template does it have to run on gantry or can I use a template

that maybe works on another framework OR is that a bad idea?

5. Any problems that I am not seeing?

Thanks a lot 

Billy

[Grant Preston]

Hi Billy and welcome to Joomla and Gantry.

Yes there are template makers out there that create templates that run on stock Joomla with no need for an additional framework but then you are left with only stock Joomla positions and would not have the power, flexibility and features that frameworks such as Gantry add.

Additionally there are other frameworks besides Gantry. Obviously this User Group is made up of people who use the Gantry framework so we most likely will be bias. I believe Gantry was the first such framework of it's kind and is easy to use and extremely powerful, flexible and extensible. It has also been made open source. Many other template makers use it and RocketTheme, the company who created it, is a leader in the field. I've reviewed another framework and ended up sticking with Gantry.

Being new you still have a lot to learn. Adding modules does not a template make so yes you would be advised to find one you like for your site. But keep in mind, besides added on features and sometimes additional positions, which you may or may not need, a template is basically the CSS styling of the elements on the pages. In other words you can see a template you like and yet put in your own content in the articles and modules and end up with a very different look because your content and layout is different.

Basically what I am saying is you don't need to let a template dictate how your site looks. Yes some templates are designed to have a magazine or news like feel to them and yes RocketTheme makes some that are styled that way. Visit their demo site at http://demo.rockettheme.com and use the navigation controls up top to view their templates. I would advise not to go to far back or you end up choosing a template that may be prior to them creating Gantry. You can visit their main site http://RocketTheme.com to find the template compatibility chart as you will want one that has been made Joomla 3.x ready and have Gantry.

Lastly another resource to educate yourself on Gantry would be http://gantry-framework.org and spend some time there. And also here... http://demo.gantry-framework.org

You can also find additional info on YouTube to continue to learn more.

Lastly one thing that is important to know is you will want to create a custom css file for creating your own CSS classes and overriding those created by the template. This file will be the templates name with a -custom.css added to the end. So if you used the stock Gantry template your file would be called gantry-custom.css and most other RocketTheme templates have an rt in the template title so another example would be rt_elipson-custom.css. You then place this file in the JoomlaRoot/templates/YourTemplate/css directory.

Best of luck and again welcome.

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