You have the option to change the look and feel of your joomla website easily by customizing the joomla template yourself, or by using freely available joomla templates contributed by the joomla user community. There is a list of free joomla templates news at joomla official website, many third party joomla templates websites also provide free and paid joomla templates. Be sure to check through the template documentation for compatibility issue with your current joomla version before applying new template to your live joomla website.
Installing joomla templates basically involves three major steps :-
* download joomla template zip file
* set new file/folder writable permission after login to admin screen
* upload and install the new template
We will be breaking down the process in detail below.
- download joomla template zip file to your PC computer.
- login to your joomla administrator screen, the URL is similar to (http://pathtoyourjoomlawebsite/administrator/)
- select menu Site -> Global Configuration
- In the Global Configuration screen, click Server tab.
- Under Directory Permission section, click CHMOD new Files to 0666
- Under Directory Permission section, click CHMOD new directories to 0777
- Click Save button on top of screen to save the configuration settings
- Click menu Site - Template Manager - Site Templates
- In Template Manager screen, click New button on top of screen.
- In the Install new template screen, click the Browse button to bring up your local PC folder list
- Locate the template zip file you have downloaded and click Open to bring the path to the file back into the Install new template screen
- Click Upload File & Install, this process will unzip, upload the files and folders into your joomla website hosting account with the appropriate file/folder permissions set
- A status screen will be shown after the process completed, check to see if there is any error messages requiring your attention, if there is no error, click Continue to go back to the Template Manager screen
- Your newly installed template is shown in the list of templates, click the radio button next to the template name to select the template, and then click Default button to set the template as default template
- You are done with the installing new template process
Please do take note that different templates and your joomla customization (i.e. joomla extensions) may require your to make changes to this newly installed template, read the documentation at the place you download this joomla template to see if there is a need to make any manual modifications, as well as checking all your joomla extensions, apply those changes accordingly and your joomla website are now with a new look !
