Best Themes by what measure?

Hello all,

I'm looking at starter themes for a new 1.5.5.1 site. I am sure we have all looked at the bazillion different "Best 17 OpenCart themes of 2012/2013" articles. :-) I have looked at many.

First thing that comes to my mind is 'best for what?'

I spent a bit of time reading the thread titled "Attn Theme Developers... We need an intervention". I can see that evaluation of a starter theme could encompass a lot of code areas that are simply not visible in a screenshot.

Are there any reviews of themes that include evaluation of the underlying code and the developer? Perhaps a history of maintaining a theme through upgrades? Who has the grooviest features while remaining standards compliant?

I did search the forum, but did not find anything that really targeted this. Perhaps it is there and my search fu is not strong enough.

Any help in this area is greatly appreciated.

Whether you restyle your own way, even to an extent that might require an utmost rugged individualist, or in effect copy what somebody else already did, even to an extent that might require a completely thoughtless copycat, what other people consider spiffy, cool, pretty, bold, edgy, or whatever poses an unnecessary diversion, and your title (by what measure) along with your own fancies, together lay out the terrain. As a pure guess here, you might try adding to your searches music and musicians, toward whatever other people think is whatever, but you'll be the one saying yup or noop to stages in your own cart.

I understand your point of view. :-)

It would be groovy, though, if there was a way to evaluate the theme code from a web standards view, an opencart gurus view and not just visually.

Thx

That's also valid, of course. I doubt that anyone has taken time to reckon usably thorough even if not comprehensive ratings on successive default and corresponding custom themes. A way out is to look at themes that grab you, run their names both here and in the great beyond, and see what turns up. You'd probably want to preshoot a porcupine.

It's a very valid point Webmaestro. Shoppica is probably one of the most notoriously problematic themes for mods yet it remains as popular as ever and has a 5-star rating. Even though it's well known among developers for being a huge headache buyers won't have a clue until they try installing a mod with template modification.

What can be done? I wish I knew. I think the "intervention" thread was an attempt to get some self-action from designers and didn't seem to accomplish much. You could try to get some developers and top-rated designers to review themes but at around $50 a pop for most themes that would take quite a lot of cash and a very significant amount of time.

Perhaps the best method is to create some metric which designers can voluntarily comply to, sort of like HTML doctypes.

@rph

The comments on the Shoppica theme are the fodder for this thread. The theme looks good and has a good rating, but if I hadn't heard any negative comments about how well it 'plays with others', I would never know.

I do some sites with Drupal. The developers there have style guidelines and standards for variables and such. A lot of the code gets serious peer review. Security seems to be checked quite well, too. All input is checked and sanitized. The API is pretty well documented. Yadda yadda.

That said, OpenCart just feels like a more focused and user friendly cart and I like it a lot.

I'm not interested in being a complainer. :-) I am curious to know if there is a dev resource for Opencart best practices. I would like to read it.

Search "Opencart best practices" yields "About 2,190 results (0.30 seconds)" at
http://www.google.com/search?q=Opencart ... encart.com
and can be refined with a few terms at a time to suit whatever kindles your fires as you sift through those.

@butte

Of course I have Googled... It is a huge reservoir of opinion, contradictions and unanswered questions.

I suppose it is a good reference if you are running v1.3.8.

The designer guide where I would expect to read something authoritative is blank, though.

http://docs.opencart.com/display/openca ... gner+Guide

I would expect to see a reference of css classes here. That is just one example.

It's a far cry from what I am familiar with. :-(

http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal

Implicit in my and rph's comments is that if you search for particular arrays of themes by name or by authorship along with 1.5.x, among others about technical and reliability matters that will come to mind, you'll tend to zero in on what's current as well as relevant to your interests. If it were unanimously of one mind, then I would be suspicious. (Both Microsoft and Apple have had their technical level wonders and their gaffes, for all due sighs and laughs both ways for each, but the overly devout lovers' and haters' extremes won't rule, nose counts won't rule, and somewhere in all that's said about their programs, technical evaluations often find jugulars to report as excellent or okay or not even half-baked in the British sense needing a little bit more work.)

As for a manual of how and why, a supermanual of best practices has not yet been compiled, even from among the documentation and tutorials and forums. There would also be limits to its own terrain, where one would turn to other on-line or (shudder) paper resources. I would not look to it for basics of html, css, scripts, operating systems, server hardware and control panels, etc., that are reasonably presupposed to be understood somewhat before installing and loading, and to be even further understood before functionally and prettily redesigning, the program in the first place, whether by oneself or by someone hired.

As for examples in the proverbial flesh, even standalone best examples of how and why to go their way have a few aspects that aren't best, because some aspects or instances of code aren't to the same standard. And "best" itself is conditional. What is variously deemed (from somewhere or another) "deprecated" changes from time to time (sometimes for reasons that themselves became "deprecated" as ill-advised approaches that were brief fads), and much of that is not necessarily "bad" in consequence. There is also the not at all inconsequential aspect of purpose, since in large geographic areas even in modernized countries, and among many large groups of people even in large cosmopolitan cities, both, not everyone is using current hardware and software. Catering to those people (such as by way of a shopping cart program) may well not be "best" done by currently "best" code (css and scripts require a certain level of both software and the hardware to run it).

Yup. opinions, contradictions, and unanswered questions will outnumber one-minded supermanuals that won't even be written.

Hi,

I have a template. I just want to know whethere the template is compatable with opencart or not.

http://sova.co.uk/sample2.jpg

PLEASE reply as it is URGENT...

Thanks in advance.

My guess from the image is, no. My guess from the landing page ("This domain is purchased by") is, no. If you have any idea who put it together, then ask him. My guess from anonymity of that person is, no.

If you happen to like what you showed us, then use a copy of the default (alongside the default subtree) and modify it to resemble somewhat the example.