OpenCart Community

Can't understand the negativity about the Journal theme. I'm no coder so can't say anything about the code.

As a user I can only say this theme is great. Can do stuff with it that no other theme can. Asked the developer (quite a big one) of a previous theme I was using to make some custom changes to it. Part of it they werent able to because it would be way too complicated.

I have several other extentions using in combination with Journal. My experience is that in most case the work a lot better with Journal then with my previous themes. Now in most cases they work out of the box. In the past I had to contact the developer of these extentions because there would Always be something that wouldn't work as it should.

I'd love to get the suppport from other developers as I've gotten from Journal.

psxgamer: Glad to hear your Opencart site is working fine with the Journal theme.

That still doesn't change the fact that this web theme fails to fully comply with the OpenCart standards, as is evident from the clashes with other 3rd party extensions caused by this web theme.

psxgamer wrote:Can't understand the negativity about the Journal theme. I'm no coder so can't say anything about the code.

As a user I can only say this theme is great. Can do stuff with it that no other theme can. Asked the developer (quite a big one) of a previous theme I was using to make some custom changes to it. Part of it they werent able to because it would be way too complicated.

I have several other extentions using in combination with Journal. My experience is that in most case the work a lot better with Journal then with my previous themes. Now in most cases they work out of the box. In the past I had to contact the developer of these extentions because there would Always be something that wouldn't work as it should.

I'd love to get the suppport from other developers as I've gotten from Journal.

Do you have VqMod extensions or OcMod extensions

Vqmod.

I've got exactly the opposite experience. I've bought about 30 different extentions the last couple of years. I've had 2 other themes. When I added an extention in the past in 80% of the cases I would have to contact the developer because it would clash with my theme.

A complete other story since I started using Journal. First of all I could disable several of the extentions I bought in the past, because this function is build into Journal. So no longer need a seperate extention.

There are still extentions that won't work where I didn't even bother to contact the developer. Lots depends on the quality of the extention. There are 1000's of extentions. In my opinion there are a handfull of developers that just know their profession a lot better than the others.

When buying an extention from these guys they always seem to work fine no mather the theme I was using. The extentions I bought that didn't work were mostly from small developers with not a lot of sales.

As said I'm no coder can't say nothing about this side. But for me it seems Journal is well coded and will work with extentions that are well coded.

still i got my question do you use VqMod extensions and OcMod extensions together

Only Vqmod. Still on OC 1.5X so no need to use OCmod.

hi,
what do you think of the theme pavilion ?

sdoc wrote:hi,
what do you think of the theme pavilion ?

Hot. Garbage.

Qphoria wrote:Hot. Garbage.

Qphoria wrote:

sdoc wrote:hi,
what do you think of the theme pavilion ?

Hot. Garbage.

And that would mean?

Just had a PAV theme go tits up and I hate all the stuff these themes install. I haven't read all the comments but is there a place or a way of finding quality themes that follow the rules and are trusted by open cart.

I'm sad to say that I have never found a theme that follows OpenCart standards and is well-designed. That's why there are no real recommendations for good themes, because I'm not even sure they exist.

Journal is the most popular one, and while it generally works well, you'll have some issues with some extensions on it. For the most part it's fine, and due to its popularity it's probably the one I'd recommend at this point, but if you're handy with CSS I'd say just style it yourself based on the default theme. It's easier (and cheaper) if you know how to do that.

Another web theme which belongs to the category Avoid at all Costs:

http://321cart.com/up/

It replaces loads of Opencart core files, and will break many 3rd party extensions!

It is a shame there are so many 'poor' themes out there...... I had no idea until reading this thread. Originality and unique identity is such big thing when setting up an online venture.

I do like the idea of a better integrated OC approved theme or theme, perhaps with more functionality in the core OC without then having to buy extensions and personally I would be happy to support OC and pay for this as an option.

Being new to OC this thread has been a real eye opener for me regarding themes, as I am in the process of building an existing e-commerce site into OC due to its flexibility and extensions. Of the many options available it seems to be one of the best options available for small to medium size ventures where set up budgets are smaller.

I was thinking about using Journal 2 theme, I am less sure now having read this........ It appears to be dare I say it 'the best of a bad bunch' (I don't meant that to sound harsh) unless I go off and code something myself (which is probably slightly outside of my comfort zone) or have someone else code a theme for me.

Out of interest is there any 'love' out there for Big Shop theme? Or is that equally as bad as some of the others?

Thanks in advance.

Judging by the comment on themeforest, the Big Love theme suffers from the same issues as discussed on this forum thread, because it appears to be more than just a web theme, it will most likely cause conflicts with other 3rd party OpenCart extensions.

Things to avoid include:

• Does it have more than just a few template, image, and CSS files?
• Does it directly overwrite core OpenCart files?
• If it uses OCmod or VQmod, are these poorly written up?
• Does it add functionality or features which have nothing to do with a web theme?

What about sellegance? Do they follow the correct standards?

https://themeforest.net/item/sellegance ... me/1285060

While the sellegance theme looks nice it involves some heavily modified templates beyond what would have been necessary, especially for the product page. This is likely to cause conflicts with some other 3rd party extensions when they modify the same template files, e.g. the product page, too. Also, why is there a need for a web theme to include some non-theme related functionality, e.g. a blog-module? This theme appears to go beyond just doing it the CSS way only.

jiao wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 11, 2017 10:21 pm

What about sellegance? Do they follow the correct standards?

https://themeforest.net/item/sellegance ... me/1285060

Based my experience, i never get problem with sellegance theme. All my extension work fine on sellegance theme.
Based my experience, the most terrible theme are any theme from themeburn and rgen theme.

Thanks guys, I will stick with sellegance, it just looks so much better and will probably convert better too. Thanks!

IMHO the majority of OpenCart web themes are poorly written and should never have ended up in the OpenCart market place. As regards selligence: Just take a look at its demo site, e.g. its product page, to see how is uses a heavily modified template. Many of its changes could have been done with plain CSS.