Overrides, everyone! (Part 1)

Free YOOtheme template overrides for Joomla 1.5

Jan

Hi everybody! With our latest template release Way Beyond we started to deliver overrides for Joomla's core output! This means that now not only the layout of our templates is tableless but also the core components which Joomla usually renders as tables. We restructured the whole HTML output. Now it is semantic and easily styleable with CSS. We also deliver a single, cleaned up CSS file which styles our overrides. One of the most important changes is the way we use the page class suffix. It is no longer attached to the existing CSS classes, which was a nightmare for web designers. Instead, we now use the page class suffix as an additional CSS class in a container which is wrapped around the core output. This is awesome for web designers because this way you can override existing CSS styles for specific pages very conveniently. Also our CSS styles only apply to our overrides and will not affect any other HTML code. You should take a look at it yourself :-)

We think that we all would love Joomla to come with cleaned-up, tableless core components. That's why we contribute our overrides to the Joomla community. You can use these overrides for all YOOtheme templates we developed before 2009 and of course also for all templates you develop yourself. We focused on semantic, structured and easily styleable HTML output which makes our overrides a very good base to develop your own overrides. We know that many other template providers already started to use Joomla overrides, too, so you have to make sure that you do not delete any existing overrides when you add ours to a third-party template.

We would be more than happy if you got involved in this, too, and it would be amazing if you commented this post to give us feedback and tell us your ideas on how to improve our overrides. The whole core output/template overrides issue regards us all - every developer who has ever set up a Joomla site knows about the output issue. Maybe our overrides could become a basis for everyone's template development.

So let's get this started, download our overrides and improve the overall quality of your website.

In the next post on this topic we will explain the most important improvements in more detail. So keep checking back!

By Steffan | 21 January, 2009 | Posted in Warp

Comments (33)

Reed

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Have you suggested or submitted these overrides or a similar concept be added to the core of the Joomla project? It certainly seems like a great concept and one that would make website development and maintenance much easier. Something like this should be part of the 'core' so that everyone can benefit.

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Rene Kreijveld

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What a great solution! I have been using HTML overrides long time now to improve SEO but I have to say that this a really great set of overrides.

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Erwin

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Definitely looking forward to the next post! I can sort of see where this will give much more flexibility but need a little more explanation to tie it all together. Have used a little CSS overide but nothing to this extent.

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matthias.heppner

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Also definetely looking to the next post. The Availabality for template overrides of all Yootheme templates would be awesome. Can't wait to read more detailed instructions to that!

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ainul.jamal

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Guess I'm a total newbie with this ... clueless as what "overrides" are. Can someone point me to somewhere where I can read up on it? Thanks!

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aviva

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For SlowSteady: I suggest you start reading http://docs.joomla.org/How_to_override_the_output_from_the_Joomla!_core .If that makes sense Google for more.

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aviva

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http://docs.joomla.org/How_to_override_the_output_from_the_Joomla!_core that is. The previous got truncated somehow, sorry.

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aviva

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OK, it's too long for this blog. Try this one: http://tinyurl.com/a38gqp

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- ainul.jamal
  
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  Many thanks!
  
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ainul.jamal

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Oh and I was reading this: http://developer.joomla.org/component/content/article/165

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amystephen

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Thanks for sharing these. Much appreciated!

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punchdrunklove

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Ok maybe i got it. For example the extensions.css in the new "way beyond" is such an "overriding" ?

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ConnectedSailors.

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Hi all,

I use a YOOpage template on my site...and I wanted to add this overrides, but there were already some files on the serverm which I need to overwrite...and I stopped. What I need to do? For example joomla.css need to be overwrited, some folders from html folder also need to be overwrited. How can I add this overrides?

Regards,
Deniss
ConnectedSailors.com

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- sascha
  
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  I opened a thread in our forum about how to installt the overrides for YOOtheme templates prio 2009. Take a look at http://forum.yootheme.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14244.
  
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video tutorial

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video tutorial please

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Rene Kreijveld

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@video tutorial: It is not that hard... Install a new default Joomla 1.5.9. Go to /templates/rhuk_milkyway map. Delete html map. Copy the html map from the Yootheme template overrides download to the templates/rhuk_milkyway map. Copy the joomla.css file from the Yootheme template overrides into the templates/rhuk_milkyway/css map. Open templates/rhuk_milkyway/index.php in your editor. Between line 21 and 22 of index.php add this line: http://tinyurl.com/d7y4la Save your index.php en review the site... Look ma: no tables :-)

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- alexander.steinhardt
  
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  To Rene Kreijveld
  Hi, I would like to say folder instead of map. The line you recommend http://tinyurl.com/d7y4la links to the system folder. Is that correct?
  
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  - Rene Kreijveld
    
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    Whoops... link corrected. Just refresh the page.
    
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sascha

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We updated the overrides package to 1.5.1. We did just some changes to the newsflash module.

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- Rene Kreijveld
  
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  Sascha, I was at a SEO training yesterday. I got the advice for SEO sake, to add a title attribute to ALL a href tags. I created a small example for html/com_content/frontpage/default_links.php: http://tinyurl.com/csfkqjMaybe a good suggestion to review all lnks and add title attributes if necessary...
  
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  - sascha
    
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    Hi Rene, I agree with adding a title attribute if an image is placed inside the anchor tag to provide more information for the search engine. But is it really expedient to duplicate the anchor text and add it as title attribute? Do you have some good resources about this topic? Of course SEO specialists are welcome to share their thoughts :-)
    
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    - Rene Kreijveld
      
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      You may be right here Sascha. I've done some further research and adding a title attribute with the same text is less usefull... On images it's good though...
      
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amystephen

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The recent Joomla! Development Coordinator Summit has concluded and a blog has been published that includes plans for 1.6 and a list of "highly desired" for the release. Talented community developers are invited (and urged!) to contribute towards those solutions.

One item on that list is "Convert all layouts to semantic and XHTML Strict." It appears YOOtheme has already made HUGE progress towards that goal. Please consider helping make this work a part of Joomla! 1.6 core. Your contributions would help so many people and would be very appreciated. Also, please join the developer email lists mentioned in that blog to participate with others.

In advance, thanks for considering this request. It takes all of us to work together to make Joomla! better.

Coordinator Blog - http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leadership/724-development-coordinator-summit-summary.html

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- sascha
  
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  Hi Amy, thanks for the advice. We will contact with the developers as soon as our next template is ready...
  
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punshdrunklove

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the download link for the overrides doesn't work!

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- sascha
  
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  Thanks for reporting. Fixed!
  
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jgrego

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Wow, what a useful blog and comment trail. Just last night at our Joomla User Group meeting the topic of overrides came up and I had never heard of it and was interested in learning more. I think all of the above is a fast-track for me so thanks to all. I've learnt the most so far just by looking in the Beez template and seeing how the files have been changed. I'll be using overrides a lot more from now on...!

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dex

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thank you, thank you, thank you! what a lovely gesture to share these with us all. Very much appreciated.

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nico.pernice

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Thank You YOOTHEME. 6 months ago i've belived that YOO was the best joomla team out there. And is increasingly true.

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Kenny

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This is a very nice feature. Great work YOOtheme!

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killr

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Thanks for this yootheme!
I and im sure a lot of other people appreciate your contribution but would like to know what licence they are released under. More specifically, what am i allowed to do or not do with them? I did not see any licence file in the download and nothing seems to be mentioned in the blogpost?

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- sascha
  
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  It is released under GPL. Same as Joomla...
  
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Andrew

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perfect thank you kindly

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