Theme Creation Tutorial

Well I started this thread so I should respond..
A number of people including nopCommerce indicated that they were either planning or writing tutorials for this.

Read the entire thread...

thanks,

ps: I hope somebody WRITES it up! :)

I think this is one area where nopcommerce lags behind other platforms.  The fact that virtually nobody is out there making a few bucks selling themes (or tutorials) speaks volumes.  

I do hope that the developers looks a simplifying the theming part of nopcommerce to make theme creation more easily accessible.

I'm a nopCommerce beginner (but have a big experience in  ASP.NET). When I created my first theme, I even did not think about any tutorials. Maybe it is typical Russian behaviour - we read instructions only when somethig is fully broken.

But, seems to me, everything is clear enough. For example, how to document this part of css:

---------------

/*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

  MASTER PAGE WRAPPERS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*/

.master-wrapper-page
{
  margin: 10px auto;
  width: 960px;
}

--------------------


“Class master-wrapper-page defines properties for Master Wrapper Page”? Funny, no?

From my point of view, the only really helpful thing is something like “theme tester”. I can forget about some pages or controls. So, in the Perfect World, it could work like this:

1.  I upload my theme to nopCommerce site.
2.  The site shows me step-by-step wizard with *all* store pages using my theme
3.  I just look at the page and click “Next” button if it seems to be fine.

Sergey is right.
People like me, with almost non existant asp.net or web experience, actually need ASP.NET / CSS / WEB Tutorials.

To be fair, nopCommerce is fine by itself.
Perhaps what's needed for the newbies like me is a gui to create Themes.
That perhaps better define the needs of people like me.

Well, lets start with the basics first: asp.net and css :)

Worth asking...

In place of a tutorial that may or may not suit your specific design/store, what if we were to setup a theme/template fixed price to complete your custom design theme for you and install into your NOPcommerce store?

I just thought this was worth asking in place of tutorial. There are many skill aspects that come into play when designing themes. These include graphic design, browser compatibility, NOPcommerce feature set or custom features etc.


1. How much would you pay for a professional to complete the design theme for you?

2. How long would expect to wait?

3. Which browser do you expect the design to work in? i.e. IE7, 8, 9 & Safari & Firefox & Chrome?

4. What features would you expect as standard?

5. Do you prefer the fashion theme/features to the standard nopcommerce?

ActionWebsites wrote:

My to cents:
One has to separate theme (design and distribution of controls/objects) and features. Features should be discussed separately.
Designs can vary very much in complexity, so it may be difficult to set a standar price for ANY design. For instance one design could be simmilar to the standar NOP themes with just a change of colours, fonts, images and logo. Such a design  could be implemented in an hour whereas ther could be other that could take days to develope

eadameg wrote:

While I completely agree with you...

If we could perhaps have some examples of designs from the community and reach a sort of common price point we may be able to play a numbers game essentially with a fixed price.

Of course we'd detail the layout & feature change limitations etc associated with such a fixed price.

We were already considering creating a fixed priced theme store for NOPCommerce anyhow but since this discussion came up I thought it worthwhile to chime in.

Probably see a 3 price points to cover most common requests -

1. Basic logo, colour and image changes. This would cover the small customisations and make each store a unique design. i.e.  https://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/10525/is-anybody-interested-in-a-new-theme.aspx

2. Header, Footer, background and side columns design with logo, colours and image adjustments (no feature adjustments). This would cover the medium customisations and create excellent branding and a truly unique design.

3. Full blown customisation perhaps leveraging or developing similar to the lastest fashion theme by Just4Design. This would cover mid-large customisations, very unique designs and a great deal of layout repositioning with minimal feature changes. i.e. https://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/9887/premium-fashion-theme-with-additional-features-released.aspx

Of course there are always price on application projects that don't fit such commoditisation of NOPCommerce sites/themes but we're talking about covering the larger percentage of small to medium customisations.

For feature requests those would simply be a fixed price per application request.

Anyone else think this has merit to commodotise the themes and pricing structures accordingly?

ActionWebsites wrote:

Thats a wise standarisation of theme customisation that might work

I have changed few things in the theme especially using CSS.
I have also create a new design for the my new theme but I have no idea , how to add the controls in my design?
I will pay $20 if a proper theme creator tutorial (book + video) will be provided for the community of nopCommerce.

Regards.

AXIOM

mwoffenden wrote:

What about me ! :)

I know a few bugs exist in Theme 02, but I'm hoping to sort them out over the weekend.