I’m at the point of frustration with competing ecommerce solutions that I really don’t care if Magento is in a pre-release stage. I’m going to go for it anyway as I have full confidence in this software engineering team. I’m going to be launching a store (hopefully!), with a shopping cart of exotic/custom designed jewelry. My father is the designer. I’m just the web geek. I’m extremely excited to start interacting with the community here!
With that said, I’ve tried surfing the wiki/knowledge base on how to begin integration my existing css/xhtml template the proper way. I’m looking to bring in the following to Magento:
So admittingly, the templating is a bit overwhelming at first. Especially when I have everything pieced together already in valid XHTML/CSS.
Would anyone with more experience be kind enough to steer me in the right direction? I guess my layout includes a header, a left column, and a content window as you can see in http://gregs.phpgeek.org. Should I start breaking this thing up into several different xml/phtml files? I’m an avid user of web technologies including XHTML/CSS/PHP/XML/JavaScript, except the way things are broke down here aren’t my ‘norm’ way of working.
I’d definitely appreciate it if someone can give me some advice.
Thanks all, hope I can get this to eventually work with my store.
That clears a lot of things up for me. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how Magento’s templating system works, and that explanation makes it very easy to grasp. I can’t wait for final documentation so I can really get into the details. Thanks!
P.S. Raise your hand if you think Minu deserves a big raise. *raises hand*
*raises hand* Thanks, Minu. Thanks to your post I was able to understand within a few minutes what I’ve been trying to figure out for the past two hours! I also look forward to the final templating documentation. keep up the good work!
Minu, I *completely* am greatful for the post you’ve made above. You went above and beyond what most people would in many communities. You really are a valuable key player and I’m looking forward to reading that with my breakfast to see what I can apply to my existing template. I’m like, dying to get this thing working. Cheers! - sf
Your posting was absolutely great, very simple and straight forward explanation. I am one of the business owners and web developers who is trying to implement Magento to my business. I have been looking screenshots and this form to find out how I can complete my website. Your post really helps me to understand the key component of template. Than you, thank you very much, Minu!
Minu, that post is just awsome. Downloaded Magento a few days ago and taken the demo store apart, again and again to start to understand how everything is mounted together so I know what to change or not, but your post will most definatly save me lots and lots of hours of detective digging of my own.
I raise my hand and after beeing more and more convinced what plattform to start to build on, this community is making me dedicated.
Abit embarassing to admit, but I’m not sure I understand after all. I understand how to put things together, but still not where and how to structure my folders.
Will refer to what Minu wrote
Pretty straight forward. This type of templates are what we call “skeleton templates” because it exists for the purpose of positioning structural blocks within a page. Such templates are located in app/design/frontend/default/default/template/page/,
Does that meen that all your templates should be located in the standard setup? As of the path beeing “fontend/default/default”?
Located in app/design/frontend/your_package/your_theme/layout, layout is the one that puts all the pieces together. When a page loads in your store, the following things happen…
Here comes the referens to what seems to be a unique name in the structure “fontend” but should that then only contain the layout data?
I’m confused
Basicly, if you want your own looks and probably function as well, then should you create a complete package with all things needed or do you still just add stuff into layout? (and skin of course)
Sorry if this is basic stuff and I should have understood this from my 3 times around the tutorials, but still not there yet. I know I will feel that this structure is very logical once I reach the “oh, aha, thats how it is put together moment” but still need a few more pieces…
Hi, I have the same feeling as Macaper :-( ... I have spent last 3 days trying to implement my HTML/CSS template into Magento. In fact I understand the business about interfaces and themes and skeleton templates etc. I think that the problem is the XML structure that I am not by far familiar with and that should “put it all together”.
Pls believe I’ve read the Guide many times. The most helpful would be if somebody could work out a very very simple tutorial that should actually implement very very simple HTML/CSS template into Magento. It could be a template like header, left column with a cart and main area with catogories perhaps. I dont know whether this would be too much work for some of the people that are used to work with Magento. I dont know whether it is better to build a new theme from the scratch or to amend the default Demo shop template. If someone could help I would be very greatfull.
Thank you!
