Joomla! VirtueMart 1.1 Theme and Template Design

Give a unique look and feel to your VirtueMart e-Commerce store

Key Features

• Thorough discussion of template structure, available fields, and customization possibilities
• More than 50 real-world exercises that can be directly adapted to your store
• A comprehensive reference to all templates in the VirtueMart default theme including usage of each template and all available fields
• Integrate with existing Joomla! plugins and JavaScript frameworks
• A step-by-step comprehensive guide to customizing Joomla! VirtueMart templates and themes with the necessary screenshots and explained code

Book Description

VirtueMart is the best shopping cart solution around for the Joomla! CMS. A VirtueMart template is a Joomla! template that is designed to create the overall look of a store. It puts in things such as a shopping cart bar, more shop-like graphics, more readable colors, and so on. A VirtueMart theme only impacts the area of the site actually controlled by the VirtueMart component. Themes work inside the overall framework. Applying custom templates and themes to give a unique look and feel to your VirtueMart web store will really attract customers! This book will guide you to build VirtueMart custom themes and templates. Joomla! VirtueMart 1.1 Theme and Template Design explains how the VirtueMart theme and template system works and points out ways to configure the default theme. It then goes on to look at each of the major templates with an emphasis on how to customize them. It then discusses individual page groups such as product list, product details, shopping cart, checkout, and invoice e-mails in the order they appear to your customer. After-sale services like invoice e-mail, account management, and order list are also discussed. The book also discusses the different components of a VirtueMart theme and will teach you how to build a theme from scratch. You will also learn advanced features like child products, advanced attributes, custom attributes, and product types. Topics like integration with Joomla! plugins and AJAX functions are also included. An Appendix provides a comprehensive template reference of the use and available fields of every template. Joomla! VirtueMart 1.1 Theme and Template Design is a practical guide for all those who want to make VirtueMart work for them. It will put many advanced features of this popular open source e-Commerce application at your finger tips.

What you will learn

• Understand the basic framework of the Joomla! VirtueMart template system
• Understand the structure of a VirtueMart template
• Customize VirtueMart using the general configuration and default theme configuration
• Identify the file(s) that need to be modified to achieve your requirements
• Customize and add features to the product list page, product detail page, shopping cart, checkout pages, invoice e-mails, and many more features
• Build your own web store home page and customize the overall look of your store
• Create custom language elements that can work in a multi-language web store
• Extend VirtueMart features through integration with existing Joomla! plugins
• Extend VirtueMart features through integration with existing JavaScript frameworks
• Customize the Joomla! modules that come with VirtueMart
• Build a VirtueMart theme that is backward compatible with new VirtueMart versions
• Customize and add features to several VirtueMart advanced functionalities such as child products, advanced attributes, custom attributes, and product types

Who this book is for

You may be the owner of a Joomla! VirtueMart web store or a designer working with Joomla! VirtueMart. If you want to customize VirtueMart to unleash its enormous potential and elevate your store to the next level, this book is for you. You must have some experience with VirtueMart and understand its basic features. You also need to know HTML and should be comfortable taking up some challenges in PHP and JavaScript programming.