How To Get The Most Out Of This Site
Before we start diving into the inner workings of what makes up a template and how to integrate core (and 3rd party) extensions into one cohesive unit, it is essential to understand that the knowledge found within these articles comes from years of perspiration and frustration.
You aren't supposed to understand all of this today. If you did, you probably wouldn't be reading this right now. Whether you have been avoiding the "coding" aspect or have been building Joomla websites for years, I am hopeful that the information found on this website can help you become a better web developer/designer and elevate your skills to a higher level.
The great thing about the Joomla community is there are plenty of knowledgeable users who are more than happy to help - you just have to ask.
The Articles
If you are an experienced developer, you can skip to the topic that catches your interest and disregard the order of articles below. If you are beginning your journey into understanding how to mold Joomla to fit your projects with custom templating, study the following articles in the following order:
- Tools of the Trade
- Building Your Menu Structure
- Setting Up PHP Storm
- Building A Custom Joomla 5 Template
- Creating Your Own Template Fields
- Creating Article Custom Fields - Part 1
- Creating Article Custom Fields - Part 2
- Integrating User Custom Fields
- Using Category Custom Fields
- Creating Your Own Joomla Custom Category Page
- Code Snippets
I recommend downloading the template created for this website, installing it on a fresh copy of Joomla 5, and deconstructing each aspect to gain a deeper understanding of how this came together. I know my progress would have been much faster had there been something like this available when I first started down this journey.
The Resources
The right tools in the right hands can make a world of difference. The list below are all the tools I use to build most of my projects:
- Get Bootstrap (Documentation)
- Bootswatch (Free Bootstrap Themes)
- Font Awesome (Documentation / Icons)
- Chat GPT 4 (Debugging, PHP, JS, Joomla code snippets)
- PHP Storm (Coding)
- Shack Error Notify (Debugging)
- Akeeba Backup (Backups / Development Sites)
Downloads
The following downloads will help you on your journey to understanding the "what" and the "how" that goes into any of your templates.
- Clean Slate Template (Blank 'My Template' created in "Building A Custom Joomla 5 Template")
- For restoring backup on a separate website: (username: mysuperuser - pw:RwaBkx4cFH6RMKm)
- Akeeba Kickstart 8.0.4