My experiences with Presta and Themes

[dennix]

I don't have too much experience with Presta. Have been a Virtuemart user for some time.

I find there are hardly any unique templates for Presta. To me, 7 out of 10 look the same except for different colors.

The other problem I found is that adding a template is more work than just uploading the theme. You have to change some settings which are a bit hard to UNDO if you don't like the theme/template.

Do other users have the same experiences or am I missing the good stuff of Presta?

[jeckyl]

HI,

I would like to give my template vision.

Sometimes you can take some great template but they are badely programming and sometimes you can take good programming template with only colors changes.

Like another job, it's difficult to create a good design and good programming, but when i'm working on mine it's important to have both, because if you do that you keep the right way to create nice template with quality and simplicity.

You can took some great template but some people think it's the same job to create a template for eCommerce and information site.

[shacker]

I don't have too much experience with Presta. Have been a Virtuemart user for some time.

I find there are hardly any unique templates for Presta. To me, 7 out of 10 look the same except for different colors.

The other problem I found is that adding a template is more work than just uploading the theme. You have to change some settings which are a bit hard to UNDO if you don't like the theme/template.

Do other users have the same experiences or am I missing the good stuff of Presta?

The problem for this, is if you want a realy cool theme, you need to modify a lot of modules, and this remove all default instalation of presta. A theme only be A THEME, not a pack of modules, etc, and the idea is add some new modules to gine the theme more style, not rewrite existing modules.
You can use free modules like dgcraft, this modules are really beautiful, but requires a lot of modifications. The new themes we are programing, dont need to rewrite any module, comes with theme editor and work great.

You can see a demo here:
http://www.brigitta-fashion.hu/

This is the next step in prestashop themes, like wordpress themes

[Levi71]

Hello everyone,

I am the webmaster of the site : www.brigitta-fashion.hu
This is not a demo page, but Brigitta Fashion Ltd. - property.
If any questions, please write to....

[shacker]

another web with our theme editor:

www.mudanzalia.com/tienda2

[cruisedirector]

Hi there...I just had a look at your site....very nice layout....tiny problem....I don't wish to insult you......under your Templates you have "interior and forniture" You might want to change it to "furniture"
For Jewels...I would suggest "Jewelry"
Like I said a VERY TINY error....happens all the time when one has seen one's own site a hundred times you tend to miss the small thngs.
Cheers!

another web with our theme editor:

www.mudanzalia.com/tienda2

[shacker]

Hi there...I just had a look at your site....very nice layout....tiny problem....I don't wish to insult you......under your Templates you have "interior and forniture" You might want to change it to "furniture"
For Jewels...I would suggest "Jewelry"
Like I said a VERY TINY error....happens all the time when one has seen one's own site a hundred times you tend to miss the small thngs.
Cheers!

another web with our theme editor:

www.mudanzalia.com/tienda2

Thanks a lot , i change now, multilingual sites are hard to implement jaja

[cruisedirector]

Hi there...I just had a look at your site....very nice layout....tiny problem....I don't wish to insult you......under your Templates you have "interior and forniture" You might want to change it to "furniture"
For Jewels...I would suggest "Jewelry"
Like I said a VERY TINY error....happens all the time when one has seen one's own site a hundred times you tend to miss the small thngs.
Cheers!

another web with our theme editor:

www.mudanzalia.com/tienda2

Thanks a lot , i change now, multilingual sites are hard to implement jaja

My Pleasure....Cheers....

[dennix]

Thank you all for your views.

[Scott Meyers]

I find there are hardly any unique templates for Presta. To me, 7 out of 10 look the same except for different colors.

The other problem I found is that adding a template is more work than just uploading the theme. You have to change some settings which are a bit hard to UNDO if you don't like the theme/template.

Do other users have the same experiences or am I missing the good stuff of Presta?

Likewise. I browsed all themes out there, but I did not find any thing of interest to me. They are, as you said, look the same as the default except for different colors and/or minor layout changes. To modify the layout of the default theme, or create your own, is rather difficult and time consuming.

[shacker]

I find there are hardly any unique templates for Presta. To me, 7 out of 10 look the same except for different colors.

The other problem I found is that adding a template is more work than just uploading the theme. You have to change some settings which are a bit hard to UNDO if you don't like the theme/template.

Do other users have the same experiences or am I missing the good stuff of Presta?

Likewise. I browsed all themes out there, but I did not find any thing of interest to me. They are, as you said, look the same as the default except for different colors and/or minor layout changes. To modify the layout of the default theme, or create your own, is rather difficult and time consuming.

You need a lot of know for changing the theme (smarty, css, photoshop)

[keiichi]

I don't have too much experience with Presta. Have been a Virtuemart user for some time.

I find there are hardly any unique templates for Presta. To me, 7 out of 10 look the same except for different colors.

The other problem I found is that adding a template is more work than just uploading the theme. You have to change some settings which are a bit hard to UNDO if you don't like the theme/template.

Do other users have the same experiences or am I missing the good stuff of Presta?

The problem for this, is if you want a realy cool theme, you need to modify a lot of modules, and this remove all default instalation of presta. A theme only be A THEME, not a pack of modules, etc, and the idea is add some new modules to gine the theme more style, not rewrite existing modules.
You can use free modules like dgcraft, this modules are really beautiful, but requires a lot of modifications. The new themes we are programing, dont need to rewrite any module, comes with theme editor and work great.

You can see a demo here:
http://www.brigitta-fashion.hu/

This is the next step in prestashop themes, like wordpress themes

This is absolute right!

When you want to make a design for PS, you need first to decide wich modules you will be using.

[MrBaseball34]

You know, I'm not sure if any of you have dealt with PHPBB before but its themeing engine is FAR SUPERIOR to this product's piece of crap way of modifying a theme.

They require module authors to follow certain guidelines to their code so that themeing will work.

Also, their update process is a piece of cake, you can write code to add modify a module or theme using XML.

I really wish the developers here would get their collective heads out of their backsides and rewrite this application in a better manner using successful products, such as PHPBB, as a guide or they may end up the way of osCommerce, stagnant to a level of unusability.

Get rid of Smarty, too, it only complicates development. It was good in its time but now there are better and less intrusive and "cryptic" ways to do what it does.

Actually, I'd like to see this application built using CodeIgniter or some other MVC framework. That would REALLY help the developers that work on this system. The Views would be what changes for themeing and the Models and Controllers wouldn't have to change.

[Scott Meyers]

You know, I'm not sure if any of you have dealt with PHPBB before but its themeing engine is FAR SUPERIOR to this product's piece of crap way of modifying a theme.

Yes I did. PhpBB theme is easier to modify and/or design.

I am not sure if Prestashop (PS) can be classified as professional. To me, a professional shopping cart offers professional features, flexibility and control over the look, content, and functionality of the online shop. The backend of PS is powerful with lots of features, with PS you can control the content but not any of the other features unless you are CSS, Php, and JS savvy.

PS main idea is to build a shopping cart to accommodate every shipping and tax system in the world, yet powerful and flexible. This is too large of a project and too complicated. I wish they started small and added more features as they grow. With this wishful thinking, I am afraid they are doomed to fail. Until now, no body is able to write a decent theme, let alone modules to support missing or needed features to build a professional e-commerce web site. I am aware of the fact that there are many individuals who wrote all sorts of modules for PS, but I can not trust their software and whether it is secure.

And yes, security is another element I did not discuss here and it is one of my utmost concerns if I were to use Prestashop for my e-commerce web site.

[keiichi]

From the all opensource software that i've used I think Drupal's theming engine si the most powerfull.

phptemplete is so powerfull that you can override everything from a master template or "template kit" like the Zen template. You can start from a skelleton site then building your themplate.

I hope PS in the near future can implement something like that.

[vince123]

Well, it's hustle and bustle here, I like DG's themes

[vince123]

Thanks for all for your views

[cercamon]

There was a mention to Drupal theming engine... is there anything close to it in Prestashop???

I'd like to override some hardcored PHP functions as I do in Drupal.
I just need to create a template.php file in the theme folder, and rewrite the PHP core function there.

Is this possible in Prestashop by any means?

[MrBaseball34]

There was a mention to Drupal theming engine... is there anything close to it in Prestashop???

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[cercamon]

Was it so funny? I didn't realized

But still, the question remains unanswered...

[keiichi]

I think MrBaseball34 is ironizing about that PS will never have template engine like Drupal.

[cercamon]

Yes, I guess so. I must admit my original post might was a bit provocative

Nevertheless, I wanted to assess where are the limits in terms of flexibility to override core functions.

It's well known that if the framework (i.e. Prestashop) is built taking flexibility as a principle, then it's quite easy to shape it into anything you imagine, and still be in safe position in terms of security upgrades.

To be sincere with you, I want to avoid headaches... but the truth is that I already had to modify some core files in order to adapt PS to the needs of the shop.
Therefore I'm REALLY INTERESTED in understanding the real limits of overriding in PS.

[keiichi]

I think the big problem with PS is the module templating; I mean, whe you need to adapt a module designed to work only in the left or right side of the template is dificult to implement for someone new to PS.

In the other hand a theming engine like drupal's relies in 4 or so .tpl files, and beliveme that is POWER!