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Joomla! 1.5 Template Contest - First Impressions PDF Print E-mail
Written by Cory   
Monday, 24 September 2007
Joomla! 1.5 Template Contest

Last month, the Joomla! core team announced a template contest for Joomla! 1.5. The top 5 templates (chosen by the core team) receive Joomla! swag as prizes, and the grand prize winner is rewarded with having his or her template distributed with the stable release of Joomla! 1.5. Saturday was the deadline for submitting templates to the contest via the forum. I have spent some time looking through the templates, and based on first impressions, here are my favorites so far (in no particular order).

Top 5

Based on first impressions, these are my 5 favorite templates. They each have a clean design with high quality graphics and layouts. It is clear that professionals created these templates. If I had to guess, I would say that the winner will come from this list of 5 or from the honorable mention listed below.

JA Purity (JoomlArt)

RedEvo_Aphelion (libaizhuo)

JoomlaPraise (pixelpraise)

kodadesign (bratanon)

68Portal (spook][68)

Honorable Mention

The following template gets honorable mention. I cannot say it is my favorite because it did not provide a demo like the other templates did. However, based on the screen shots, it appears to be top quality.

Universatil (55 Thinking)

My Template

I spent some time working on a template for the contest. However, I did not have enough time to get it finished before the deadline. You can see an incomplete demo of the template here.

If anyone is interested in my template, let me know and I will continue work on it and release it to the community. If not, at least it was a good experience for me to be able to dig into Joomla! 1.5 templating. Hopefully, I will have time to post a tutorial here on how to create a basic template for Joomla! 1.5.

Disclaimer

I am not on the core team, so I have no influence over the actual top 5 templates. The templates listed here are just my opinion of which are the best ones in the contest. Being listed here does not mean that these templates will be in the top 5 or even win the competition.

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Comments (6)add comment
Amin: ... http://www.sublime-products.com/articles
As someone who's only recently started using Joomla, I must say I'm astonished at the quality of the templates listed here.

They are modern, clean and just a joy to behold. Of course time will tell how fast they load, but I suspect they should be ok on that front.

I'd like to see Cory's template finished at some point - it looks pretty snazzy.

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September 25, 2007
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Cory: ... http://www.howtojoomla.net
Hi Amin,

I agree, there are some great templates in the contest. I haven't picked one favorite yet, but I don't think we can go wrong with any of these. The good news is, they've all already been released under GNU/GPL, so regardless of who wins, they are available to be used by anyone!

Thank you for your kind words regarding my template. I think I will finish it when I get some time, but spare time is pretty hard to come by these days. smilies/smiley.gif

Thanks for visiting and commenting.
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September 25, 2007
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Russell: ... http://www.avfcreations.com
I just started working with 1.5 RC2 and must say I'm impressed. The contest was/is a brilliant way of making sure there are lots of new 1.5 templates out there when the stable version comes along. I just found your site today, so the answer to this question may be "right here", but I'm wondering if there are any good, easy to follow resources/tutorials online for creating Joomla 1.5 templates. Your picks (and your own template) have inspired me to get creative!
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September 28, 2007
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Cory: ... http://www.howtojoomla.net
Hi Russell,

Barrie North at Compass Design is writing a book on Joomla! 1.5, and he released the chapter about creating templates. It is a great tutorial for getting started with 1.5 templating. Here is a link to that chapter:

http://www.compassdesigns.net/...orial.html
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September 28, 2007
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Russell: ... http://www.avfcreations.com
Thanks, Cory! That's just what I was looking for!
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September 28, 2007
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Mirza Aliyev: ... http://infashion.az/
Hello.

Is it possible to check my website also? The link is http://infashion.az/.

Thank you.
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October 23, 2007
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HowToJoomla was started in September 2006 by me, Cory Webb, a long-time Mambo/Joomla user with a desire to give back to the community that has given so much to him.

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About Me

I am a 28-year-old husband and father of a beautiful baby girl named Lucy. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, an MBA from Baylor University, and over 4 years experience working with the Mambo/Joomla CMS.

On February 1, 2008, I started a web design, development, and consulting company specializing in designing and developing custom Joomla-powered websites. The new company is aptly named Cory Webb Media, LLC. The double meaning is purely unintentional, but with a last name like "Webb" it is difficult to escape the obvious puns. If you are looking for professional assistance with your website, please feel free to contact me to discuss your project.

I also run HowToJoomla, CoryWebb.com (my personal website/blog), and JoomlaForm.com (a site dedicated to promoting good design in the Joomla! community). In my spare time (if there is such a thing), I volunteer with the youth ministry at my church.

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