Joomla Templates Club 406,261 posts

[proxaal oxaal Friend proxaal oxaalJoin date: September 2014Posts: 71Downloads:0Uploads:5 Thanks: 3]

#212214

I think this looks good.

Just one thing; theres is a flash picture and I guess its not within the Flash Component from. Joomlashack. So I was hoping someone could tell me how to easy make a flashpicture like shown in the template. I have softwares like Flash 8 from macromedia and photoshop.

Best Regards,

Proxaal

[bernhar Friend bernharJoin date: July 2006Posts: 214Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 3 Thanked: 3 times in 1 posts]

#212215

Dear Joomlart-Team,

I have to admit that I have been sceptical like some others here when I first saw the screenshot. It looked not as versatile as I hoped it to be, but now – WOOOW – what an enhancement! Having just clicked through the demo I am happy to say that Antares might be your best work yet! The first layout looked a bit too colorful, fixed width and not usable for business, education or community sites. The enhanced version is such a great improvement that I am tempted to hope for such enhancements more often. 🙂

Congratulations and thank you very much for this fantastic December Template,

Bernhard

[forgestone Friend forgestoneJoin date: November 2006Posts: 11Downloads:0Uploads:0 Thanked: 8 times in 2 posts]

#212216

I, too, was sorely disappointed in the static image screenshot. The template in *that* preview looked like a basic reworking of the Joomla default. It was more attractive and clean, but I never would have touched it for any of my uses, and I would never have picked it for a client site.

However, the *LIVE* preview is a whole other thing. Especially in wide-screen mode, it’s very attractive. It’s still a “clean” basic Joomla, but it’s _really_ clean and looks _very_ professional. Light colors with all of the same content but plenty of white space, and dabs of color to help bring it alive.

The live preview looks better to me with Transmenu enabled, as it brings the menu into line with the banner size. The only thing I might do (and this may be easy already) is give a brief tutorial on how to change the menu bar above the header from rounded off to squared off.

As for the templates in general: I’m looking for templates usable for business. I would imagine many people are looking for ‘clean’ templates that are usable for such. Business, personal sites, etc. Gaming sites are unique sites, and while many people want to set up a gaming site, doing so in Joomla is something I find questionable in the first place. To me, when I make a gaming site I want it to not just look like nice colors and graphics in a particular layout. And, face it, all Joomla templates look similar if you’re looking at the big picture. They have to. It’s a CMS. It’s a compartmentalized layout, that’s just the way it works. Many people using Joomla are using it for non-gaming communities. For blogging. For family or personal or community or social organization sites. Many are using it for businesses, but public web sites and internal company sites. Many small businesses are using it. To me, this is Joomlart’s strength.

On the subject of RocketThemes, perhaps it’s taste but the demo Rocket Theme that was provided looks rather unattractive to me. Giant menu buttons, dark design colors from 1999, there are stylistic themes in the design but they don’t match, they’re not complementary to the overall look. The only thing RocketTheme has going for it is the xTrooper template, which it simply released variations of throughout November. And while the Trooper template is nice for gaming sites, that’s all it can possibly be good for. Move beyond that and into anything other than a gaming site and you’re looking at, well, take for example their October template named PixelPerfect. On the tech side it’s very nice, but it SCREAMS that it’s a template. It almost looks like a PHPNuke page. Several of their other recent “business” templates are more akin to the types of sites I’m sometimes hired to replace. They’re just not business-like sites. They may have some attractive elements, and they certainly make Joomla look better, but if someone said, “Do you want to buy, install and customize this template and then present it as your work and your choice to a group of businesspeople whether it’s as an intranet site or your proposal for their new web presence”? No way, no how.

They did do some good work with the Extremities II – Green template. It’s of limited use, but it is very attractive, in large part because they matched their color scheme to their images. The red and blue versions of the template are instructive in how color makes or breaks a theme, as they look terrible, yet the green is brought together perfectly. Same template, just different colors and images, totally different quality.

What RocketThemes DOES do very well, and I think this is probably what’s causing the “WOW” factor among people who are looking for that, is select vibrant, large primary images, and the site seems to be built around that. Look at their Technopia series, or Technozine. But if you get beyond the “WOW” factor, again, for something other than gaming they’re just not that suitable for many other purposes. Text is too large in the wrong places, links are too bold or mismatched in the wrong places, buttons are too large, colors are too dark, too much is going on. They’d have all been jaw-dropping 6 years ago and coud have found their way into business use then, but the trends for gaming vs professional have diverged too much.

To me, that’s where Joomlart comes in.

Not that I don’t have criticism, but it’s relatively minor. I wasn’t really taken by Sargas, I’m not sure I can use it at all. It’s pretty, it’s nice technically, but I couldn’t rol it out to anyone. Pollux is nice, not for me but it’s a nice template. I might have brought in (and there may be some relatively easy way to do this) a way to tint the component headers (Default J! Menu, Login Form, etc.) with some color as a variation. Kruger was an interesting concept.

Zibal and Polaris were what sold me, though. Obviously if you’re looking for gaming templates, they’re not it, but for business – any sort of business use, or slick personal use – wow, there’s just nothing else out there that touches them. There is another template site that offers some slightly more artistic twists on these types of templates, but they’ve also only got a handful of really good ones.

In the end, the subscription to Joomlart was worth just Zibal and Polaris, and the latest theme comes out much better in the live version than in the static preview image. If at the end of my subscription term I’m not really liking the new templates I’ll move on, and it still will have been a bargain. (I’m really hoping there will be new ones I like quite a bit, though.)

It’s not easy to design for Joomla, though. There are only so many variations on a theme that you can really come up with. We’re dealing with a content manage system here, after all.

The only thing I would suggest is possibly introduce more variations on the newer templates. The color choice button for each is very, very nice, however it would be interesting to see in some of these templates what your designers could do to show some variation, show people what might be possible or give them such. It would be much easier for them to do since they’ve actually designed the template and can easily make changes that would take others a while to figure out.

For example, with Sargas perhaps offer a variation (or a few) on the background header and tinting as well as the little images that rest on top of the menu, etc. Sometimes it can really help people to be able to ‘see’ what else they might do with a template, whereas with something like Sargas it’s really sort of hard to look at it as-is and imagine what you could do with it.

Something with the header image and theme of the new template would be interesting to see, too. For example, the existing template theme is “sporty” – light with neon-like colors and a swooshy graphic at the very top and sports images. Perhaps offer other theme examples such as “business” or “personal”, with other primary images (or rotating images) and a different graphic than the swoosh at the top, with different color palettes. I know it can be a pain to find images that will work on the same design for all the different color-button choices, so in these variants just pick “a” color to go with and disable the color button in the demo. (Note somewhere that the color-buttons are available, they’re just not show for stylistic purposes in the demo.) Let people see some of the possibilities right off the bat, help them along in their decision.

Granted, these are changes people can make themselves, but with such a large audience one template and theme can’t possibly appeal to all or even most, and in that case if Joomlart is saving the user several hours of customization work required just to see what the template might look like if it was a bit different – it might translate into more user interest and approval. (Even sales.)

Anyway, not ragging on RocketTheme or Joomla too much. To me, each is catering to a different audience. If you want gaming themes, RocketTheme is the way to go, and if you want other themes it’s Joomla. Both are good at what they do, respectively, and since both have their entire theme libraries online to demo live it should be clear to a customer which he wants to go with.

[jorisva Friend jorisvaJoin date: September 2006Posts: 9Downloads:0Uploads:0]

#212218

The only thing I don’t like is that when you increase the font size, the font of the menu on the left doesn’t increase & you can’t click anymore on the items that “popup” from that menu. I think also that if you made more variations of some templates like RT, you would attrackt more clients 🙂 But I really like this new template 🙂 I think I’m going to use it to update the design of one of my websites 🙂 It looks really clean & I like the flash animation 🙂

[ruskenb Friend ruskenbJoin date: September 2006Posts: 48Downloads:9Uploads:0 Thanks: 4]

#212219

Congrate! Hung.. this new design is marvelous. I knew u can do it. 🙂 !

[saolymp Friend saolympJoin date: September 2006Posts: 1Downloads:0Uploads:0]

#212220

<em>@offtheguide 4616 wrote:</em><blockquote>I like the new template. Very clean.
I completely disagree that the templates have been getting worse. I think the last few have been way better than any of the early ones. It is really a matter of taste I guess, but I think so far Sargas and Pollux have been the most innovative and beautiful JoomlArt has produced.
Zibal is nice and clean, but is not really pushing the creative envelope.
I am hoping that in the future we will see more of the Sargas style designs, with a really unique and strong artistic aesthetic, and some more templates designed for using with VirtueMart. (Shopping II is nice, but I think you guys can do better now!)
Keep up the good work!</blockquote>

I totally agree with you offtheguide. I love this template because its simple and clean. I’ve been waiting for something just like this. I am just waiting for it to be released before launching a new project. In life, you can’t always please everybody BUT variety is the spice of life! Congrats Hugh and the team. 😀 😀

[Khanh Le Moderator Khanh LeJoin date: November 2013Posts: 1884Downloads:41Uploads:31 Thanks: 44 Thanked: 203 times in 131 posts]

#212221

I am so excited that JA team effort has been useful to you! :laugh: It has been a very hard day for us when we all have worked about 18 hours today to deliver a template that you all like.

Thank you very much guys, your comments did make the Antares!
It is now almost 12:00 PM now I have to shut down for the night, the package will be uploaded to the server for you to download tomorrow, our team will be available at the office to work on Sunday to make sure that you can put a hand on the Antares as soon as possible.

[antoniu1 Friend antoniu1Join date: July 2006Posts: 349Downloads:0Uploads:5 Thanks: 29 Thanked: 40 times in 1 posts]

#212222

I think the templates are one of the best. I love the last four very much actually, so thanks a lot!!

Antares is a great one too and I AM going to use it for a website soon. The only thing I find unclear is the menu setup, I would appreciate a change of that.

Overall, this is a very personal and subjective matter and the negativity isn’t helping anyone at all.

I am amazed that some actually expect a ‘better’ template every time, according to his specific needs and that’s plain rediculous of course! It’s all a matter of taste, which isn’t truth. 🙂

Objectively, the one thing that IS missing in the later templates is contrast. ja sargas is a wonderful tempate, for example, but the missing contrast makes it fady. It is a wonderful template though and one of my favourites.

I think the elixer2.0 by rockettheme is a good example of contrast well used and that might be remembered. Also, please compare my website http://www.tomdekok.nl using ja spica with other templates and what you’ll notice is that my website is so damned clear comparing! A ja spica like tempate that doesn’t look squeezy would be very interesting!

Keep up the great work!
Tom

[Hung Dinh Friend Hung DinhJoin date: September 2014Posts: 4408Downloads:11Uploads:189 Thanks: 309 Thanked: 3310 times in 3 posts]

#212224

Thank you Tom,
Tired but excited today! So happy when you all enjoy the new one.
http://www.tomdekok.nl/ should be the best JA Spica implementation that I have ever seen. Congrats Tom

[fireman07 Friend fireman07Join date: October 2006Posts: 21Downloads:0Uploads:1]

#212225

so when is this going to be made available for download? EST

[Hung Dinh Friend Hung DinhJoin date: September 2014Posts: 4408Downloads:11Uploads:189 Thanks: 309 Thanked: 3310 times in 3 posts]

#212226

Will be available to download in about 12 hours from the time of this post 🙂

[antoniu1 Friend antoniu1Join date: July 2006Posts: 349Downloads:0Uploads:5 Thanks: 29 Thanked: 40 times in 1 posts]

#212230

Thanks for the wonderful compliment Hung! 😀

In explorer 6 the menu items that have a sub menu are not alighed correctly, too much space below. Perhaps you want to fix that before uploading the template?

Tom

[RTL Friend RTLJoin date: July 2006Posts: 15Downloads:0Uploads:0]

#212231

<em>@Hung Dinh 4656 wrote:</em><blockquote>Thank you offtheguide!
It is becoming harder and harder for us to live up to expectations of our current 4709, and this is also one of the reason we try to release 2 templates/month with different styles to suite more need of JA members
We are recruit more designers into the team in the new year, FYI :)</blockquote>

That’s good news. I’ve got a question, what are the specifications for being a Joomlart designer? I might be interested.

[dogtags Friend dogtagsJoin date: November 2006Posts: 47Downloads:0Uploads:0]

#212232

I LOVE the Antares template….because it is nice and clean and pro….nice work!

1. Can the Suckefish be horizontal (not in side bar but across header) ?

2. Can the Flash image be static instead? I’d like to use some static images

3. Could you use the image rotator to rotate some static images instead of the flash image?

Can’t wait for this template!!!!

Thanks 😀

[Hung Dinh Friend Hung DinhJoin date: September 2014Posts: 4408Downloads:11Uploads:189 Thanks: 309 Thanked: 3310 times in 3 posts]

#212234

<em>@DogTags 4710 wrote:</em><blockquote>I LOVE the Antares template….because it is nice and clean and pro….nice work!

1. Can the Suckefish be horizontal (not in side bar but across header) ?

2. Can the Flash image be static instead? I’d like to use some static images

3. Could you use the image rotator to rotate some static images instead of the flash image?

Can’t wait for this template!!!!

Thanks :D</blockquote>
1. It can be a good option but you will have to do some customization
2,3. Yes, the fading rotation of images can be a dynamic DHML which you can config. In fact it is a stand alone customed modudes that you can download in the Antares area. If you choose not to use dynamic rotation, then the header will be a static images that you can defined via CSS file.

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