Hello

For a while now I've been progressively moving to wordpress for customers sites, mainly because there are already a number of WP "theme frameworks" that tremendously simplify the design tuning process by incorporating the ability to define CSS colours for the various template blocks individually, without having to go through the css files editing. One just uses the colour pickers and see the result immediately.

Some examples of such can be found here: themeforest.net/item/good-space-responsive-minimal-wp-theme-/2278615 and here: themeforest.net/item/nx01-responsive-drag-drop-wordpress-them/2284528

Joomla with the modules concept already covers the positioning issues, but the template CSS coding is still done by hand (with some exceptions like Gantry).

I know that the "oldshcool people" will argue that a developer should edit the code, notepad is purity,... ...., but actually being able to do it visually really speeds up the work.
Adapting a WP site to a customer takes only hours instead of days that a J! site takes. In 80% of the cases, one just uses the framework and adapts it to the customer needs rather than spending time searching for the right template and then hardcoding it.

Jommlabamboo is the design house that is more advanced in J! responsive templates and extensions and I really like your zendgrid framework possibilities, like the sticky nav, the tabbed modules, the hidden panel and, of course, the responsive ability.
I also love your designs - in fact it's the reason I found you in the first place, a fresh breath in the J! ecosystem - however lately all templates seem to have "too much template", leaving less room for content to be king and, specially becoming more and more complicated to customize, thus leaving the choice of either giving the customer a site that is equal to many others, or investing a lot of time in customizing and debugging it. Or moving to WP and doing it in one afternoon.

I don't know how complicated it can be to do, but my suggestion would be to relaunch a version of the "Responsive" template with the option to use the colourpicker for the main elements of the template (rather than just predefined highlights) in the zengrid admin panel.


Some additional configurations could be:
- boxed or unboxed layout
- colorpickers for menus and submenus
- background selector


That way, one could mimick, for example, Rasa or Newstream using a responsive template and taking advantage of your excelent framework, zentools & extensions and K2 Zenkit.

Just my 5 cents

Bes regards

Hey there,

Thanks for your feedback and apologies for the delay. I had wanted to respond to this yesterday.

Ive had the idea as well and am definitely keen to create a more customisable backend panel and last month I developed a php script that actually constructs the hilite files for us via setting some hex values for primary, secondary, neutral colours etc.

I just need to build that into the framework.

Re the comment about having too much template I'm not 100% sure of that. If you look at Colour Shift and platform I think there is plenty of space there for content to stand tall.

I hope to have an option for this customisation int he next major release of the framework.

Thanks again.

Anthony

Thanks Anthony

I'm looking forward for the new framework release.

And yes, you are totally right about Colour Shift and Platform. Both are great templates. My comment was more regarding Corporate and Lifestyle, which are great but hard to customize because the media queries tend to get messed up. Probably just my lack of knowledge to do it right.

Hope you can also migrate some of the old templates to the new framework, thus creating plethora of responsive theme which, IMHO, are the correct move in the J! ecosystem.

Best Regards
Alexandre

Thanks Alexandre Im hoping to get to some older templates very soon.