Automatic Building of Joomla! Templates with WYSIWYG Editors

The manual creation or customization of templates for Joomla! Content management system could be a complex task for beginners. The existence of template development tools that integrate with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web authoring applications will definitely simplify the process of building custom templates for your Joomla! based website.

There are multiple possibilities to automate the creation of Joomla templates. The most intuitive alternative is represented by the usage of WYSIWYG editors plugins. On Joomla! website in the Extensions Directory section, you will find free to download plugins for Dreamweaver and NVU (Komposer).

These plugins will automatically generate the files (including the PHP, CSS and HTML code) contained in the default Joomla template structure, permitting the user to concentrate over the website layout appearance. In case of Komposer application, the plugin is called J!Template Builder and can be installed by using the Open File dialog, then the WYSIWYG editor must be restarted in order for changes to take place. It generates templates compatible with Mambo, Joomla! 1.0.x and Joomla! 1.5.3 (in legacy mode).

You will notice a new menu corresponding to this plugin on the Komposer main user interface. By pressing the Builder button, a popup window will appear. There are two steps to perform after the setup of a working directory: the automatic building of template structure and then the editing of template information. Then, the current document must be saved as index.xhtml Transitional (the settings are available under the Tools menu in Komposer).

The next operations deal with template layout design, like tables definition, colors, images and more. Corresponding to every template layout element, you must assign a certain Joomla! module position. This action can be easily performed with the help of J!Template Builder plugin menu buttons.

When you finalize the visual editing of the layout, by returning to the builder window, first press the Publish and Secure Template button, select all files minus index.xhtml and then press Build ZIP Install Package button. The Joomla! Template ZIP archive will be ready to install in the working directory established initially. The steps and operations necessary to automatically create ready to install Joomla! Templates are similar in the case of Dreamweaver WYSIWYG editor.