Joomla is an open source CMS software. That encourages coders around the world to create modules and templates for Joomla. And there are enough templates available already. In this post I’m going to tell you how to install a new template into your Joomla 2.5 installation.
On my first post about Joomla, I saw you how to install Joomla 2.5 on shared hosting account (Read: Installing Joomla on Shared Hosting). By default, Joomla has couple of pretty basic templates to get you started. But if you want your site to look more professional, you should consider changing your site’s template to something professional. There are lots of free and paid templates available, use Google to find one you like. I’m going to assume that you already have a template.
Installing a template in Joomla is little different than other software. Normally you’ll expect an option to install a template in Template Manager; or just upload template to ‘templates’ folder on your hosting account with FTP. Things don’t work that way in Joomla. Joomla needs all its templates to register in the database. So templates don’t show up in the ‘Template Manager’ without a database record. The only way you can install a template is uploading it using ‘Extension Manager’ on the Admin backend.
Upload and Install Template
I’m using free template called ‘Clarente’ for this tutorial. First download theme files to your computer. The file usually comes as a .zip file. You have to make it a ZIP file if it’s not. After download, navigate to ‘Extension Manager’ under extensions tab. You’ll be give three options to install a new extension. We are going to upload our theme, so use browse button and select ZIP file from your computer. Then click ‘Upload & Install’.
Joomla will then try to upload your template and will add a record about it to the database. Page will be refreshed automatically and show you a massage if installation was successful or not. If it’s successful, you can find your new template under ‘Template Manager’.
Make New Template Default
Uploading template will not make any changers to your front end. You need to make it as default on your site. So navigate to Template Manager and click star make next to your new template’s name. Now it’ll be live on your site.