Your thoughts about a new default template for nopCommerce 2.70 (or 2.80)

Hi,

As some of you may know a new default template is planned to be added in the upcoming version 2.70. The current template is quite poor and outdated (see demo here).

I was looking for a new new design for a long time. I must also confess that I don't want to design it from scratch and currently I'm playing with some templates from TemplateMonster e-commerce directory. It has a lot of great themes. Of course, once a template is chosen, it'll be bought out from templatemonster (so nobody else will be allowed to use it).

With regards to theme categories. I think a computer store is the best choice for the default template. And here is one of the templates I like very much. I already integrated it into nopCommerce (alpha. just some main pages). Please find screenshots below:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/33/67916648.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/853/26752830.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/94/77883004.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/267/56356229.png/

The store on the screenshots does not contain appropriate sample data because it's a computer store theme. But of course, it'll be done if the theme will be chosen.

Please share your thoughts.

P.S. This is not the final choice. As I've written I'm still playing with different themes.

UPDATE 1: A new theme should be well tested before being added into official packages. And testing can take a lot of time. That's why, maybe, the new template will be added in 2.80. And 2.70 will still have the old darkOrange one. But this new theme could be released separately and be downloaded from the extensions page AFTER 2.70 release. What do you think?

UPDATE 2: Please read about one more option here

UPDATE 3: Please share your thought about IE6 support. Find more info here

UPDATE 4: Please test the new theme before it's released. More info here

its nice, professional and simple.

http://www.elaamart.com

Well it certainly ticks the 'rounded corners' and 'gradients' boxes which seem to be the fashion at the moment and look at some of the other options I'd have gone with something similar

A "trendy" suggestion would be to use larger, fatter input elements.  The tiny default ones look very dated and I find tedious at times to use.  Of course this will make screen real estate more of a premium but it will also make nop "jump" out a little.  IMHO.

t

If we are looking for a more modern template to use, I personally like this one http://www.templatemonster.com/magento-themes/41640.html. Under the "New Products" section put it into a slider so that products can be scrolled through and rename it to Featured Products and change the top menu with the My Account, My Cart, etc. a little and it would be a great default template for a new nopCommerce site!

I like the idea of it being a separate download. It will be even better when we add the ability to search extensions and install them directly from the NC admin interface.

SilhouetteBS wrote:

I like that one too!

SilhouetteBS wrote:

SilhouetteBS wrote:

I agree with both posts

eadameg wrote:


I agree with eadameg ;)

joebloe wrote:

Not a ton to add other than I'm sooo happy that a new template is being worked on.  I do agree with Joebloe that it would be great to leverage a more updated, fresher web 3.0/social feel to it.  The tiny fonts remind me of Times New Roman that give me the eeebie jeebies.