Apr 29, 2011
Apr 26, 2011
Warp6 Administration
Download it here:Here we go with our new theme admin and configuration UI of the Warp6 theme framework. Yes, you heard right! Warp6 now comes with a nice and unobtrusive UI for the theme configuration. We know we are late to the party but we wanted to make sure to get it right from start. Basically we didn't want to change the native theme configuration UI of WordPress and Joomla too much because everyone is familiar with using them. But on the other hand we wanted to implement some new features to improve the overall user experience. So we created a very slick and clean UI implementation. It focuses on simplicity and integrates perfectly in the Joomla and WordPress administration while supporting every framework feature on both platforms.
User Interface
The new UI uses the latest HTML5 and CSS3 techniques. Everything was kept lean and clean. On the theme configuration page you'll find a tabbed interface with three sections: General, Profiles and Mobile. Each of them groups different settings:
General
The general section allows you to edit the "global" settings of your website: Set the default theme profile, allow dynamic profiles, show an browser upgrade message to someone still using a IE6 browser or add your personal Google Tracking Code.
Compression
Like with Warp 5.5 you can combine, minify, cache and compress (gzip) style sheets and JavaScripts of a theme automatically. Further you can enable the Data URIs feature which allows to include images in the CSS so there are no extra HTTP requests required to load them.
File Verification
The file verification feature helps you to easily keep track of all modified theme files. With just a click it can tell you exactly which theme files have been modified or deleted, even a few weeks or months later when you might have forgotten that you have changed something somewhere! Great is'nt it ?
Update Notifications
Keeping your theme up-to-date is as easy as it can get, that's why Warp6 has automatic update notifications like it's predecessor. The notifications are smart enough not to bother you with any messages unless an update is available for your theme.
Profiles
Warp 5.5 introduced presets which are a custom set of configuration settings. We have been using them to create all the style variations for our themes. For example they define the theme colors, backgrounds and fonts. Also you can easily switch between the different variations. Unfortunately there was no easy way to assign different settings to certain menu items or a section of your website. In Warp6 we reworked the presets and we created a new feature called profiles.
A profile can define different settings which are sorted into three main groups: Style, Content and Layout. You can create new profiles, edit already existing ones and assign them to any menu item. Yes, you read it right. Assign any profile to any menu item directly from your theme configuration with just a few clicks. Thats not all, profiles have the ability to inherit defined settings from the default profile. This way you can easily make small changes or tweaks and apply them to a page or section of your website!
Style Settings
The style settings are all about the overall look and feel of your website you can choose from the different styles, colors and fonts.
Content Settings
This settings group lets you change content related things like date or the to-top scroller. It also allows you to hide the main system output, this is really great when you want to build a page which only uses modules or widgets!
Layout Settings
The layout setting panel is all about the themes sizes and positioning! You can set the overall width and the sidebars width and ordering as well. Also the module layouts can be set here, as we have mentioned before you can position equally sized modules right next to each other or stack them on top of each other.
Conclusion
We used new Warp6 configuration UI for some time now and it just feels right. Everything is simple, clean and it blends in perfectly to Joomla and WordPress. We know you will like it as much as we do! Up next in our blog post series we will unveil details about our new mobile theme.
Download it here:
Apr 24, 2011
Apr 23, 2011
Apr 17, 2011
Apr 13, 2011
E-Commerce 3 Icon Set
Download it here:Today we released our new club icon set: E-Commerce 3! This is the third part of our e-commerce series. For this icon set we focused on shipping and storage icons. One of the highlights is our new truck icon. We spend a lot of time working on all the details and are pretty proud how great the truck looks at 512 pixels! The second highlight is the parachute box icon. We had some concerns because of the different perspective of this icon but we are really suprised how well this worked out. The icon set also includes a pallet and sack barrow with different boxes as well as a shopping bag in different color variations. This makes 13 altogether. All icons come in 32-bit transparency PNG file format and in 8 different standard sizes, ranging from 16x16 to 512x512 pixels. It makes a total of 104 newly handcrafted icons which are of course optimized for each specific size.
Head over to the new e-commerce icons and join the icon club!
Download it here:
Apr 12, 2011
Inside the Warp6 Framework
Download it here:Let's kick off our Warp6 blog post series in which we take a closer look at the overall framework structure and how everything fits together. This first post shows the basic file concept of the Warp theme framework and how to use it. Okay, let's start!
The Framework
The Warp6 theme framework is the next step in evolution succeding our version 5.5 released in August 2010. Like its predecessor, Warp6 is a lightweight framework which provides a solid tool set for solving repetitive tasks creating themes. The Warp6 framework has HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP helper classes to cover all aspects in theme development. It's really portable since all framework related files are kept in a single place, a folder called "warp". This folder resides directly in every theme. There are no dependencies on other components or plugins. Nothing needs to be installed or maintained separately.
Warp6 can be split up into three layers. The first layer is the core framework which provides the base CSS, a JavaScript effects library and a collection of PHP helpers. Each part of the core framework is universal and designed to work on every supported system. The second layer is the system depended layer, which provides the individual system implementation needed to seamlessly integrate with a particular CMS. This layer makes Warp6 adapt to a certain system to form a consistent API for theme development. The third layer is the theme specific layer, this is where all the individual theme files go. It's the working place where all the themes custom HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images are being stored.
The Cascade
To provide as much flexibility as possible we implemented a special file cascade into Warp. If you include any file like CSS, JS or template PHP files Warp6 looks successively in specific folder for the files and the first file found will be loaded. Here is the cascade:
- theme folder
- specific system folder, for example warp/systems/joomla.1.6
- warp framework folder
This gives you full flexibility to override any important theme related file. In the following we will give a short overview about the most important files if you want to customize a Warp6 theme.
Template Files
The main template file /layouts/template.php is the heart of every theme, it provides the complete HTML markup for the base theme layout. This is different from standard Joomla templates or WordPress themes where the index.php is the main template file. Second important file is the /layouts/template.config.php which includes some layout calculations and defines all the themes CSS and JavaScripts.
Modules
Modules or widgets can be displayed in different styles with additional icons and badges. The /layouts/module.php takes care of displaying all these module variations. Depending on the selected style the module.php loads the right HTML markup from predefined module templates. Further the framework comes with three commonly used module layouts equal, double and stacked, which are used to position modules next or above each other. It's also possible to extend them with your own custom module templates and layouts.
CSS
The CSS files are divided in three different layers and are placed in their respective folders for theme specific /css, system depended /warp/systems/joomla.1.6/css and framework styles /warp/css. Including these files is really easy because Warp6 also uses its file helper to locate them across the different folders. All CSS files are modular and well structured with the name of each file naming its purpose. We will do a dedicated blog post about the CSS framework soon.
JavaScript
Warp6 also provides a library of JavaScript effects used in dropdown and accordion menus, the AJAX search or the mobile theme. The JavaScript files are also structured and stored in their own folders for theme specific /js, system depended /warp/systems/joomla.1.6/js and framework scripts /warp/js. All scripts are configured in a single file /js/template.js. This file is used to enable or disable effects which will be loaded with the theme.
System Markup
Every system has a set of layouts which defines the HTML markup for the core CMS output. For Joomla these are typically the HTML overrides that are used by the theme to render the content component or modules like the login or search. The Joomla 1.6 files are located in warp/systems/joomla.1.6/layouts. In Wordpress the layouts provide a HTML markup for the different pages like blog frontpage, the archive or a single post. The Wordpress files are located in warp/systems/wordpress.3.0/layouts. To keep things simple, Warp6 basically uses the same HTML output for all supported systems. Regardless of what you are viewing, articles of a category in Joomla's content component or posts from a category in Wordpress, Warp renders the HTML. This allows to create universal CSS rules which apply for both CMS platforms.
Conclusion
This overview shows the key concepts of Warp6 like the layers and the cascade and how the files and folders are structured. As you can see Warp6 is a modular, flexible and extendible theme framework that provides a rich toolset for developing Joomla 1.5/1.6 templates and Wordpress 3.x themes. It's up to the developer what features he uses. Only select those tools that you are actually needing. In our next blog post we will talk about the "Styles" feature another addition to Warp6. Stay tuned!
Download it here:
Apr 11, 2011
Apr 8, 2011
Warp6 - Engage!
Download it here:Surprise! We are very proud to announce our next generation theme framework: Warp6! Over the last 6 months we worked hard on it and put all our efforts into making it the state of the art theme framework. Often people think that theme frameworks are overdone with a lot of bloated code and too much features which slow the site down. Be relieved, Warp6 is quite the opposite! It's created from developers perspective - simplified, no magic, just a great toolset to develop cross-platform themes. We believe that Warp6 is the fastest and slickest theme framework to date. For us everything is done the way it should be.
Here are some key facts:
- Warp is located in it's own folder in the theme/template folder
- No dependencies on extra components or plugins
- It's the same Warp folder for any system like Joomla or Wordpress
- It's stand-alone and can be updated by just replacing the Warp folder
- If you create a theme it works easily on all supported systems like Wordpress, Joomla 1.5 and 1.6
- It can be extended to work on other systems
- We will provide a minimalistic Master theme for all systems
- It's completely built on the latest web techniques like HTML5, CSS3, PHP 5.2+, jQuery 1.5+
One thing to remember: Warp6 is a toolset to develop cross-platform themes. You can use the provided tools and features but you don't have to. It's a fast and lightweight theme framework which is well designed and coded.
Release date and whats next?
Warp6 and its Master theme will be our May club release and will hit the streets on May 1st. Until then we will provide a series of blog posts about all the features and details how Warp6 works. At least 2 posts will be published each week. Here are some key features we will cover: HTML5, CSS3, Mobile, Child Themes, CSS Framework, Theme Profiles, Administration User Interface and much more...
We are very thrilled about Warp6 and we hope you are too!
Download it here:
Apr 1, 2011
Milk template
Download it here:Milk template is our latest fresh and friendly design and a good choice if you are looking for a clean and lightweight template, that presents you and your content in the best light. We took all the best from previous business like releases like Enterprise, Studio, Way Beyond or Phoenix, to combine them to a exciting new experience. Its shiny look and feel fits perfectly to our Iconsets available.
Milk comes with 10 bright color variations and 6 discreet background textures you can individually apply to them. This makes it pretty easy to create your own unique design! Another interesting aspect beneath a broad range of module variations available, is the ability to wrap top and bottom modules with a box that also adds a hover effect to them. Milk is build with the Warp 5.5 theme framework which utilizes the latest web techniques and is available for Joomla 1.5, 1.6 and WordPress 3.0.
Feature list
- A variety of template color variations
- Lots of modules with color variations, endless combinations with icons and badges possible
- Built with the Warp5.5 template framework
- Utilizes different webfonts
- Compact size, using minified CSS/JS, gzip and data-URI's
Download it here:
Mega Template
Download it here:Please welcome MEGA, our latest template beauty. Tired of your old fashioned website? Then MEGA is the right choice for your next project. It comes with a broad range of lovingly designed backgrounds, a fresh body font called "Comic Sans" and a bunch of really cool animated GIFs. This awesome technique allows you to bring life to your website very easily.
But thats not all: MEGA is our first template that brings your visitors the ultimate multimedia experience - now you can even play your favourite MIDI songs in the background! Your visitors will love it!!!
Feature list
- Rock solid nested tables layout
- Make your visitors groove with midi background music
- Incredibly detailed animated GIFs
- Built with Pulse Framework
- Looks great in IE6
- First time featuring beautiful "Comic Sans" Font
Download it here:
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