Why are people hiring theme developers?
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The docs suggest that anybody with a HTML template can easily make a Concrete5 theme out of it. If that's the case then how come people are paying people just for the HTML -> theme part? Is there something a bit more advanced that I should know about converting template to theme, before committing to using Concrete5?
HTML and PHP is no concern, so it sounds like I should be fine. Cheers!
Hi McIntyre1994,
The docs and videos do suggest that anybody with an html template can make a theme for concrete5. Although, to set it up properly for Concrete5, it doesn't happen in a number of seconds.
As long as you have some html knowledge and CSS knowledge, you can build themes straight off the bat. If you need to brush up on some skills, go tohttp://www.w3schools.com
Concrete5 uses php to get it all to work, although a very handy skill to have, it is not essential (I don't know php and have built 4 sites with C5 now) and if you ever need help there is always someone on here that can help you out.
The best place to start is going and checking out this How-Tohttp://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/designers/making-a-t...
Just understand that a 'theme' is like a folder that contains all your different types of pages, called 'page types'. Page types are different layouts for the theme. So you might have a theme designed. When you choose the theme in the C5 dashboard, you then tell it what kind of layout you want it to have (you need to design these page type layouts) - examples are 'right sidebar', 'left sidebar', 'full'. You don't have to have all of these designed for your theme - you could just have one layout, but it is good practice to make them all- especially if you want to sell themes in the marketplace.
As for your comment/question about people posting jobs to convert html to themes, there could be different reasons. But one of the reasons could be that the designer is working on multiple projects and does not have time to put it together - so hire someone else, and why not, it's how you grow your business if you are a designer. Also remember that not all people on c5 have html knowledge. Some are business owners who may have purchased a html template elsewhere, and would like to use it for the company site etc rather than pay huge amounts of money for developers etc etc.
All you need to know is, it takes a little patience at first, but it is really good once you get going. Invest the time, invest the resources, and ask us all for help.
Good luck!
The docs and videos do suggest that anybody with an html template can make a theme for concrete5. Although, to set it up properly for Concrete5, it doesn't happen in a number of seconds.
As long as you have some html knowledge and CSS knowledge, you can build themes straight off the bat. If you need to brush up on some skills, go tohttp://www.w3schools.com
Concrete5 uses php to get it all to work, although a very handy skill to have, it is not essential (I don't know php and have built 4 sites with C5 now) and if you ever need help there is always someone on here that can help you out.
The best place to start is going and checking out this How-Tohttp://www.concrete5.org/documentation/how-tos/designers/making-a-t...
Just understand that a 'theme' is like a folder that contains all your different types of pages, called 'page types'. Page types are different layouts for the theme. So you might have a theme designed. When you choose the theme in the C5 dashboard, you then tell it what kind of layout you want it to have (you need to design these page type layouts) - examples are 'right sidebar', 'left sidebar', 'full'. You don't have to have all of these designed for your theme - you could just have one layout, but it is good practice to make them all- especially if you want to sell themes in the marketplace.
As for your comment/question about people posting jobs to convert html to themes, there could be different reasons. But one of the reasons could be that the designer is working on multiple projects and does not have time to put it together - so hire someone else, and why not, it's how you grow your business if you are a designer. Also remember that not all people on c5 have html knowledge. Some are business owners who may have purchased a html template elsewhere, and would like to use it for the company site etc rather than pay huge amounts of money for developers etc etc.
All you need to know is, it takes a little patience at first, but it is really good once you get going. Invest the time, invest the resources, and ask us all for help.
Good luck!
HTML and PHP are no issue, but I'll definitely read over that link you provided for making a theme properly. Thankyou very much! :)
If you're handy enough with HTML that you can build the HTML, then creating a template is easy. I say that because there are some "difficulties" like cutting it up into different parts (e.g., header and footer) and ensuring that tags you opened get closed. Or putting the <?php $this->inc('footer-required.php') ?> in the correct place, as per the instructions.
Other than that, I would say that the only "advanced" stuff is when you get to putting blocks into the template (e.g., hardcoding the autonav). But, these days, you can use global areas for most of those use cases.
James