Have anyone here used Joomla template from Rockettheme? All of Rockettheme's templates are based on Gantry framework, is that true? Can you share me the reason why you love Rockettheme templates and why not? I want to hear your experience about these templates.
I didn't like RT templates much due to Gantry framework. I always love to work with core Joomla and build custom Joomla templates.
Thanks for your answer JoomlaDesigner. But I think for a newbie or for a Joomla user not good at coding, it's too difficult to build custom Joomla template.
My opinion is that RT templates are the best ones on the market. They tend to be slow, but then again Joomla is slow anyway, and there are things like CSS Sprites which you can use to speed things up. The newest templates are much faster than the old ones. Only the newest templates are using Gantry framework, as far as I know. Try finding a better-looking template for Joomla than the RT ones, i don't think you can. If there were no RT templates, I'd be stuck with some ugly one. So, definitely RT gets thumbs up from me.
I disagree that Joomla is inherently slow. Like everything else, you need to do some optimization for best performance but you can get page load times down to very respectable levels. I do agree, however, that RT themes are a bit bloated which can make them slow. YooTheme is also good -- IMO better than RT. The Warp framework is fairly fast and being improved regularly. The only other source I go to for Joomla themes is ThemeForest. You need to really pay attention to reviews as the quality tends to vary on TF.
Joomla is inherently slow because, unlike a regular HTML/PHP/whatever site, it loads things you don't need. For example, instead of having a tailor-made Javascript menu, with Joomla you're loading the entire framework (Gantry, Mootools...) Yes, you can. It takes a lot of work to achieve instant loading of a Joomla site though. And, if you used the same optimization methods on a custom-coded website, the custom-coded website would still be much faster. HTML rules when it comes to speed. With Joomla, you need to do heavy optimization.
Joomla does not use Gantry (that is a RT thing) or any other frameworks. A plain Joomla site using one of the 'stock' themes is not particularly slow and can be easily sped up with minimal effort. Just for grins, I installed a plain Joomla site using the BEEZ theme and it loads in about 2 seconds on my LiteSpeed server. I do agree, though, that you need to do "heavy" optimization if you want to use a RocketTheme....
I didn't choose the right words, something was lost in translation. What I wanted to say is - when you load a menu with Joomla, you're not just loading the menu - but the entire engine of the menu. When you load an article - the entire engine loads again. There are redundant information which are loaded because they're running the whole show. 2 seconds? That's slow. And that's roughly the lag you're getting with Joomla, as BEEZ is the most basic template and is not slowing things down (like RT templates are). The two-second lag is all Joomla With HTML, the same thing would probably load in 0.5-1 seconds. Or less. Try it if you wish. HTML will always do the identical thing faster, because it's lean, and Joomla loads its massive engine first and then gives you the desired output information. That's where the lag is.
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No, that is the lag you are getting from PHP and MySQL. By the way, the average load time of dynamic websites across the Internet is a staggering 6 seconds, so 2 seconds is at least respectable. Of course. HTML can load extremely fast. But that is the point, is it not? If you want the power of a dynamic website you must use PHP (or another engine) which will slow down the web page. Also, just to be precise, Joomla does not load a "massive engine." Each page is parsed by PHP one line of code at a time. The only "massive engine" at play is PHP which is already "loaded" on the server. It is no different than "loading" apache to run an HTML page -- just an additional layer of application needed to run the website. None of that is unique to Joomla. Same issue with WordPress, vBulletin, etc, etc.
Rockettheme Templates are amazing but i think you should try Yootheme Template ( Beautiful, Fast & HTML 5 Support )
Their designs are nice, but yes, they feel bloated. Also, I am a member of their phpBB club, and the support sucks. The style I purchased shipped with tons of bugs, and questions in the private forums go unanswered for several days, sometimes over a week.
It's great to hear your experience Ray Baron and CafaMagician80. And I must say that I agree with Ray Baron. PHP sure will slow down the site but I think it still fine. Back to Rockettheme templates, I don't know coding and configure template from backend is really important with me. I've tried template from another template provider seems good for newbies: JoomlaShine. Here is the demo site: http://demo.joomlashine.com/joomla-templates/jsn_cube/index.php . They provide video tutorials about template configuration and it's very easy to configure. I need a template easy to configuration. Do you think it's easy to use Rockettheme templates?
The nice thing about Joomla is that you can customize the page layout almost regardless of the template. I say almost because I have seen some templates that limit the number and placement of modules. Modules are the "places" on the page -- you can think of them as blocks that make up the page layout -- and they can be hidden per page (hide on some, show on others); content can be selectively placed in module positions; and on some you can change the colors and fonts at the module level. You can even modify some elements of the block such as color or font. RocketTheme has this functionality, I believe. I know that YooTheme templates are very customizable, right down to the font and color combinations. So if you choose a template that is close to what you want, with most template vendors you should be able to make minor modifications without getting into CSS or code mods.
Thank you Ray Baron. I will also try both Rockettheme and Yootheme. The best way to know which is suitable for us is trying, right?
I have used RT themes for several years now and always been happy. Pretty decent support which is always important. Gavick and Yoo Theme also get a thumbs up from me. P
I have been using RT for more then 5 years they are very good, with gantry framework it now supports Android and iPhone theme autoswitch. I have not tried Yootheme I will see if I can use them for any of my website.