OpenCart 1.4 Template Design Cookbook : Over 50 Incredibly Effective and Quick Recipes for Building Modern Eye-catching OpenCart Templates

In Detail Templates in OpenCart provide a powerful way to make your site look exactly the way you want either using a single template for the entire site or a separate template for each site section. Although it sounds like an easy task to build and maintain templates, it can be challenging to get beyond the basics and customize templates to meet your needs perfectly. Get to grips with the basics of template design for OpenCart such as changing the logo and altering color schemes for your templates. Understand OpenCart concepts such as module chrome and template positions. Create custom error templates for your website. Style OpenCart's search results and customize OpenCart's breadcrumb trail. Customize the look and feel of your OpenCart website's administration panel to match either your business or client identity. Use the jQuery JavaScript library to enhance your OpenCart template. Make use of a wide range of miscellaneous tips, tricks, and tasks to help get your OpenCart website one step closer to perfection. Create custom menus using multiple approaches and techniques. First we will install OpenCart. Then we will get familiar with the ways to modify the store configuration. After that we will start styling our OpenCart store by resetting all the browser settings. We will create a banner image step by step. We will control the positioning of our OpenCart modules. We will see how we can use different jQuery plugins to display our products effectively. We will also cover several modern footer creation recipes in this book. Towards the end of the book we will use different eye-catching menus for our store so it really starts to take shape. Finally we will learn how to create an error page and a sitemap page for our store. Once our journey through the book is complete we will have created a modern store with OpenCart and have full control over our store template. Approach This hands-on guide cuts short the preamble and gets straight to the point with practical recipes instead of just theoretical learning. Each recipe is specifically tailored to fulfill your appetite for creating professional visually stunning templates and themes for your OpenCart store. Who this book is for You may be the owner of an OpenCart web store or a designer working with OpenCart. If you want to customize OpenCart to unleash its enormous potential and elevate your store to the next level, this book is for you. You must have some experience with OpenCart and understand its basic features. You also need to know HTML and should be comfortable taking up some challenges in PHP and JavaScript programming. Cover......Page 1 Copyright......Page 3 Credits......Page 4 About the Author......Page 5 About the Reviewers......Page 6 www.PacktPub.com......Page 8 Table of Contents......Page 10 Preface......Page 14 Introduction......Page 18 Setting up our environment......Page 19 Installing OpenCart......Page 23 Creating logos in OpenCart......Page 27 Inspecting elements using Firebug......Page 38 Installing Web Developer......Page 39 Installing Colorzilla......Page 41 Introduction......Page 46 Changing your shop's general settings......Page 48 Modifying the settings of your store......Page 50 Basic localization settings......Page 53 Setting image properties......Page 58 Changing administrator favorites icon......Page 62 Setting up SMTP mail server......Page 64 Modifying server options......Page 66 Creating categories......Page 67 Adding products to a category......Page 71 Introduction......Page 74 Creating a new theme......Page 76 Resetting layout styles......Page 77 Setting basic style properties......Page 81 Creating a promotional banner......Page 88 Placing a banner on your site......Page 97 Introduction......Page 100 Changing header of module......Page 103 Adjusting layout......Page 107 Placing featured block at middle......Page 111 Styling centre featured block......Page 113 Applying styles to categories......Page 123 Introduction......Page 130 Altering the logo......Page 131 Styling top navigation......Page 132 Placing menus......Page 135 Styling the search bar......Page 137 Styling language bar......Page 141 Controlling search style......Page 146 Styling language and payment units......Page 148 Creating the header banner......Page 151 Introduction......Page 156 Installing jQuery and jCarousel......Page 157 Displaying products using jCarousel......Page 158 Displaying products vertically......Page 166 Customizing the cycle plugin......Page 173 Modifying the side column with the cycle plugin......Page 176 Different effects with the cycle plugin......Page 179 Displaying horizontal sliding menus......Page 188 Adding a fisheye menu......Page 200 Giving a background color to the menu......Page 209 Integrating the social networking menu......Page 215 Creating a wide footer for our store......Page 220 Footer with a gradient image......Page 229 Creating a three column footer......Page 240 Modifying headers......Page 254 Menu creation......Page 257 Footer adjustment......Page 261 Styling dashboard......Page 273 Broken glass 404 error page......Page 294 Sitemap creation......Page 308 Index......Page 318 Annotation Templates in OpenCart provide a powerful way to make your site look exactly the way you want either using a single template for the entire site or a separate template for each site section. Although it sounds like an easy task to build and maintain templates, it can be challenging to get beyond the basics and customize templates to meet your needs perfectly. Get to grips with the basics of template design for OpenCart such as changing the logo and altering color schemes for your templates. Understand OpenCart concepts such as module chrome and template positions. Create custom error templates for your website. Style OpenCart's search results and customize OpenCart's breadcrumb trail. Customize the look and feel of your OpenCart website's administration panel to match either your business or client identity. Use the jQuery JavaScript library to enhance your OpenCart template. Make use of a wide range of miscellaneous tips, tricks, and tasks to help get your OpenCart website one step closer to perfection. Create custom menus using multiple approaches and techniques. First we will install OpenCart. Then we will get familiar with the ways to modify the store configuration. After that we will start styling our OpenCart store by resetting all the browser settings. We will create a banner image step by step. We will control the positioning of our OpenCart modules. We will see how we can use different jQuery plugins to display our products effectively. We will also cover several modern footer creation recipes in this book. Towards the end of the book we will use different eye-catching menus for our store so it really starts to take shape. Finally we will learn how to create an error page and a sitemap page for our store. Once our journey through the book is complete we will have created a modern store with OpenCart and have full control over our store template