J1.5:Customising the Milky Way template

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This is one of the most requested pages on this wiki. Can someone at least suggest one or more items that should be included on this page? Chris Davenport 13:38, 21 May 2008 (EDT)

Tutorial: How to replace the Joomla! logo.
Create a copy of the Milkyway Template > With Dreamweaver, create a copy of the MilkyWay template and replace the Joomla! logo Alessandro Rancati, 5 June 2008
Adding new parameters

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You asked for a list of what could be included in this document to be of help.  I'm including a list of what I've struggled with, including a couple of items I am still attempting to figure out.  I've also included some additional ideas for extended discussions.  Note, I have a fairly technical programming background (yet it's been several years since I've programmed other than html), and am still a novice at CSS, especially where the absolute positioning is used.

Time permitting, I'll plan to come back to add detailed information and steps for the parts I understand.  If you know how to do any of these and want to include the specifics, please feel free to do so.

Here is my list of what I've looked to modify in this template. Many I eventually found through hunting around and numerous trials. Others I'm still trying to figure out.

• Adjust colors and other attributes for various parts of a page display, such as:
  1) Color of the page heading.
  2) Color of the menu links, and behaviors when hover, or active, or visited
  3) Input boxes.
  4) The search box background and text colors.
• Modify footer content.  Add or remove parts.  Move footer outside of the main area (adjust the background so it appears separate from the main body).
• Here's one I haven't figured out yet:
  - How to move or modify the Copyright statement that appear just below the page content.  It appears to be part of the page content but really isn't.  I'd prefer to move this into the footer section, or at a minimum have a horizontal rule just above it.  Any ideas??? -- (You can edit the Copyright info in the theme's index.php, near the bottom.)
• Answer: You can edit the footer statment (the one which says Copyright © 2009 Your Site Name. All Rights Reserved. Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.) by going to the /public_html/language/en-GB/en-GB.mod_footer.ini file
• How to create a new style attribute and make it available within the administrator's edit content page.  This would be used so one section of text in the middle of a paragraph could be easily highlighted without just picking a different font/bold/italic/underline/color, and could also include a different size, something that is not available within the editor menus.  (Note, I tried utilising the various heading controls (h3, h4, h5) for this, except they each forced the associated text to a new line.  Maybe, an "inline" parameter will resolve this.  Still need to give this a try.)

Another discussion that might be helpful as a separate or extended article is a discussion of moving or removing certain content items.  This can be done in the template, or it can be done within Joomla just by selecting a different "position" for the module.  For the newbies, understanding the options would be a great help.

Also, a discussion on the images that make up the various components, such as the rounded corner borders around the menus.  Maybe someone wants square corners, or maybe they want very narrow (or simply lines) along the left, right, and bottom, and want a wider border along the top.  A discussion of the images used to create the border and how to edit them would be interesting.  (Note:  In the "how to edit", I suggest only recommendations that the size of each image be maintained, or a discussion that if the size is changed what might need to be altered in the template for the new sizes to work properly.)  This may appear to be outside the direct scope of Joomla, but can be helpful for those wanting a different look and feel, especially where the CSS and template updates are necessary.