Joomla Themes 2016
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- Yes
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- 70%
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- No
- 9
- 30%
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- Don't care.
- No votes
- 0%
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- Terp
- Elite Rocketeer
- Posts: 1720
- Thanks: 23
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They
now count Grav templates
toward the Joomla template releases. Talk about being disingenuous.
The side projects have gotten into the way of the "self-imposed deadline" for years, as they haven't delivered on time since, well, they started branching out into side projects and watering down Joomla templates to make porting them to other platforms easier.
Someone else nailed it—RT is no longer a Joomla templaate club.
Grav is their furture, not mine. Food for thought, guys. -
The following users have thanked you: Hartmut Schwab, djSoft
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- Ryan M Pierson
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 243
- Thanks: 164
- Technical Writer
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Terp wrote:
They now count Grav templates toward the Joomla template releases. Talk about being disingenuous.
The side projects have gotten into the way of the "self-imposed deadline" for years, as they haven't delivered on time since, well, they started branching out into side projects and watering down Joomla templates to make porting them to other platforms easier.
Someone else nailed it—RT is no longer a Joomla templaate club.
Grav is their furture, not mine. Food for thought, guys.
First, thank you for your feedback.
We do not count Grav as Joomla template releases. If you notice, the Grav templates were all released on Joomla and WP first.
All told, we released about a dozen templates in 2016 for Joomla. We did two releases in a single month, counting Helium which is a premium-class template we made available for free to help folks get acquointed with Gantry 5.
All of our new template development is done on Joomla first, then WordPress and Grav. But, make no mistake, Joomla as a CMS is losing ground substantially, which puts us in a position where we have to be open to additional platforms.
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Above is Google's trend line for Joomla.
At the end of the day, we are a business and one that has stay relevant in order to keep making Joomla templates at all. Joomla's market share in the CMS world is falling each year, and we've seen quite a few of our fellow Joomla template companies disappear over the past two years because they were locked to a CMS that has lost about half of its market share in short time.
We spent a great deal of time creating Gantry 5, not as a side project, but as an effort to revitalize the platforms we were developing for, especially Joomla. Joomla's feature set has continued to remain stagnant while new CMS solutions come online with new, more effecient development and usage solutions. Gantry 5 gives Joomla several of those modern features. Drag-and-drop layout control, menu customization, and visual control over style assignments.
This development took time. Not only to launch Gantry 5 but to spend time adding features that our customers at RocketTheme requested the most. Making Gantry 5 the perfect base for our product line is what kept members of our team up at night. Gantry 5 wasn't a side project, it was necessary to keep our Joomla templates fresh, efficient, and ready for tomorrow.
Grav, which is seen as a side project, and understandably so, isn't us turning our backs on Joomla. It's us using the tools we built with Gantry 5 and creating a modern CMS that fills a niche for our customers that Joomla and WordPress have simply become too large and cumbersome to fill.
It is our goal to continue to build the best Joomla templates out there, and now that we have launched our Grav club and Gantry 5 is reaching a point of maturity, our team is focused on contuing to do what RocketTheme has always been known for: innovate.
Joomla is still our first development platform. Today's release, which is only available on Joomla right now because we haven't finished it for WordPress or Grav, is just the latest example of our dedication to Joomla.
Thank you for your feedback. It will help us to create a better experience for you moving forward. I'm planning to release a blog post on our blog next week with more information. Thank you for your patience and for caring enough to share your insight with us. - Last Edit: 7 years 3 months ago by Ryan M Pierson.
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- Ryan Matthew Pierson / Technical Writer / Buda, TX USA
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- Brian Shea
- Sr. Rocketeer
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The market share of Joomla is a big issue that I think many people are ignoring.
Joomla is BetaMax to Wordpress. I always thought Joomla was better, and more thought out in layout control, but Wordpress had the better marketing (free hosting), and it had more support among graphic designers who could not fully understand the CMS concept at first. (I'm talking the early years when designers coming from the print world were still trying to understand the web)
Joomla screwed up big time with their upgrade/migration garbage. Not once, but twice, they made us jump thru hoops to upgrade Joomla to the latest version. I still prefer Joomla, but clients 'know' the Wordpress name, and can't pronounce Joomla.
So... even though I am not a fan of how complicated Gantry 5 is, and how RT has seemed to have tossed the concept of modules and components away for their Particles, I understand the need for RT to cover all bases.
Now, for a big benefit that is perhaps being overlooked by those not liking G5...
Once you learn Gantry 5, and deal with the steep learning curve (regardless of how 'easy' some say it is), the benefit will be that, hopefully, when our clients ask for Wordpress, us Joomla fans might be able to switch to the 'dominant' CMS easier.
I was actually looking forward to the Grav concept when I first saw it, as it seemed perfect for 'simple' sites, but again, it was way too difficult for end-users to learn. No normal person, anywhere, should ever have to know what a Twig is, or even what html looks like. Developers lose sight of that way too often, including RT.
So, for those not happy with G5, you are not alone, but you need to look ahead. Will Joomla be around 5 years from now? Or will it become just another UltimateBB, remembered by the few? Mambo is still around, I think, but does anyone care?
Wordpress is the leader, and probably will stay that way until something new shatters our current concepts.
Think of Gantry 5 as your early transition to Wordpress. -
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- Blue Dog
- Jr. Rocketeer
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Thannk you for your thoughtful post. I have been increasingly disappointed with RT over the last year and a half. Decisions, such as increasing time between releases WHILE creating templates more narrowly tailored to specific applications, have baffled me. Considered through the lens of 'covering all bases' helps me better understand these decisions. It also makes it much easier to drop RT.
RT was the 'gold standard' not long ago, and my confidence in their work made me lazy. I had stopped really looking at the competition. Their recent design and management decisions stirred me from my slumber - and for that I am glad. While RT has been busy with GRAV and G5, others have surpassed them in every way.
It was great while it lasted, but I will be dumping RT with zero remorse.
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- Ashraf
- Newbie
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- Just a question, can't the poll be restricted to users only and not to those who have a vested interest in Rockettheme, if not possible, can moderators and vested interested parties refrain from voting, to get an uncontaminated result from the poll.
- Last Edit: 7 years 3 months ago by Ashraf.
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- Ashraf
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- Ryan M Pierson
- Sr. Rocketeer
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- Technical Writer
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Terp wrote:
That, too, speaks volumes. Honestly, they don't care what WE think, irrespective of what they may type in the forums.
Not to disagree, but what you think is the primary topic of conversation in our internal chat. There isn't a member of our team that hasn't specifically referred to this post (and others). We, including the core team and moderators, are constantly discussing your feedback and how we can make things better.
But again, the question of the poll was whether or not we are neglecting Joomla... and to that I say that Joomla is our PRIMARY development platform. We release on Joomla first. We develop new templates on Joomla.
What would make this conversation more impactful and helpful to us improving our offerings are ideas about how we can make it better. What would you like to see? Do you have any themes or features that you want us to create? Are there any specific styles that you think should be present in an upcoming template?
Yes, the holiday months were not our fastest turnaround. A portion of our team were concentrating efforts on launching a new theme club. This club, as mentioned before, isn't going to replace Joomla, but to help keep RocetTheme relevant to our members that are already looking for alternatives to Joomla.
Your feedback ABSOLUTELY matters to us. It's our number one topic of conversation right now. We're talking to our designers about your ideas, and looking for any feedback here that isn't just "you don't care" or "I'm leaving." We need specific ideas. You give them to us, and we'll work to make it happen.
But we're not going to drop WordPress and Grav and only focus on Joomla. That can't happen. Joomla's market share has fallen dramatically over the past few years and the result is that many of our fellow Joomla template providers have shut their doors in the past 2 years. It would be very short sighted to see how many developers are choosing to move away from Joomla and not at least make an effort to offer an alterantive.
Joomla remains our primrary development platform. We continue to update our themes and extensions regularly (yes, even the Gantry 4 ones). What we need to know is what you'd like to see us create. Feel free to share ideas. Is there a design scheme you would like to see us incorporate into our own? Is there a feature that you've been dying to see us implement?
Tell us here, and we'll add it to our list. - Last Edit: 7 years 3 months ago by Ryan M Pierson.
- Ryan Matthew Pierson / Technical Writer / Buda, TX USA
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- Terp
- Elite Rocketeer
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Maybe I can find the screenshot of a job announcement the big guy posted a few years back when he started to outsource—to paraphrase, 'We develop templates WE want to create, not what clients want created.'
...but I digress and unsure why I even responded here; I hope it won't happen again. I'm removing the bookmark to the forums in hopes of hedging against future posts.
I'm sure I'll revisit the site occassionly to see a new template or two, but I have sooooo moved on that I feel dumb for even typing this reply.
Peace, guys.
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- Blue Dog
- Jr. Rocketeer
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Thanks for your thoughtful reply in this thread. While I can certainly understand the business decision to place market share at the top of a decision hierarchy, I would not. I disagree with the comparison offered by another poster between BetaMax and VHS. I believe a comparison between the historical balance between MacOS and Windows is more instructive. Joomla! has never been the appropriate choice for all websites, and I believe those who have used it as such may not be as well informed as they should be (Lord knows I have some five page Joomla! sites in my past). Similarly, MacOS was seldom worth the cost for a casual or business user. That said, for graphic artists, musicians, or other specific groups, the capabilities of a Mac easily justified the extra expense. Mac has never had a substantial market share, it has never been the cheapest, nor has it been the best for all applications.
I use Joomla! for certain content heavy sites because it is robust and modifiable, because I can secure it after code changes and plugin implementation better than alternatives, and because it is open source. I use Joomla! because I do know how to write some code, not so that I can avoid it.
I believe tempaltes should be more general, rather than more specific in purpose. I think it is better to allow developers to envision turning any template into a travel site, than to have a couple of templates that are purpose built for that application. The more RT moves down the road of narrowly applied templates, the more they will be lost among aggregators like TemplateMonster and ThemeForest.
For example, when I look at templates like Myriad or Anacron I can imagine any number of applications and there seems to be substantial variation in the underlying structures. In contrast, when I see templates like Sienna and Remnant I feel like I am looking at nearly completed designs that have almost identical bones.
I think RT would be better served by having a regular flow of general templates, in a variety of styles, that are known for having fantastic GTMetrix scores right out of the box. I also think the environment is ripe for bringing back a new version of Mission Control - this was particulalry useful for developers who wanted to brand their back ends.
To be honest, if RT was just building for folks like me (and I know you are not) I would prefer that every template use the same stock photos, so that performance and structure were more easily compared between templates.
All of that being said, I may not understand who your clients are. I assume that they are developers who develop dozens of websites per year and not end clients. I would assume that two websites built on your templetes whould only have a passing similarity. Perhaps that is not the case, and your clients are increasingly using your templates with only superficial/cosmetic changes. If that is the case, then I can certainly understand your decisions.
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- Ryan M Pierson
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 243
- Thanks: 164
- Technical Writer
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Blue Dog wrote:
Joomla! has never been the appropriate choice for all websites, and I believe those who have used it as such may not be as well informed as they should be (Lord knows I have some five page Joomla! sites in my past).
That's actually a major reason we created Grav. Joomla and WordPress are pretty heavy - especially for a simple, small website. Grav fits the category of sites that is a bit simpler than what WordPress is best for, but that would still benefit from a full CMS experience.
Joomla is great, but not necessarily for smaller websites. Flat-file CMS offers a quick and simple option that doesn't require a database, can be backed up and deployed using a single zip file, and is modular enough to be as basic or as full-featured as you need. Is it a replacement for Joomla? Hardly. There are still a LOT of reason you might want a larger more robust solution.
I use Joomla! for certain content heavy sites because it is robust and modifiable, because I can secure it after code changes and plugin implementation better than alternatives, and because it is open source. I use Joomla! because I do know how to write some code, not so that I can avoid it.
Blue Dog wrote:I believe tempaltes should be more general, rather than more specific in purpose. I think it is better to allow developers to envision turning any template into a travel site, than to have a couple of templates that are purpose built for that application. The more RT moves down the road of narrowly applied templates, the more they will be lost among aggregators like TemplateMonster and ThemeForest.
We totally hear you. One of the biggest questions we get is, "Do you have a template for ______?" The blank could be anything, from music to social aggregation. I received a very specific request for a template that is good for YouTubrers, just this week. We've always built our templates with a general use in mind.
Even though we have focused on creating useful particles for more specific functions, such as the booking particles in Sienna, our templates are still made for a wide general variety of sites. That's why we have demo pages, including Portfolio, Blog, etc.
But, I understand your message and meaning. Our latest template, Gemini, is a general design. It's a bit of a professional one, possibly suited more for architects and engineering firms than for musicians or hotels, but it isn't as targeted as Remnant or Sienna.
Blue Dog wrote:To be honest, if RT was just building for folks like me (and I know you are not) I would prefer that every template use the same stock photos, so that performance and structure were more easily compared between templates.
That is an interesting idea. I'll pass it along to the team, many of which will probably read your response on their own Monday.
Blue Dog wrote:All of that being said, I may not understand who your clients are. I assume that they are developers who develop dozens of websites per year and not end clients.
That is a good question. The best response I can come up with is: mixed. We have developers that make websites for a living, and they may be our largest percentage. But we also have a lot of hobbyists, freelancers, and small businesses that use our themes for one or two websites.
We have a lot of members that are extremely loyal to one CMS, while others bounce between them frequently. This makes our matching themes on multiple platforms a benefit for them and a perceived drawback for others. We do our best to make products that appeal to everyone over the course of a year.
Sometimes we hit that sweet spot that makes 51% of the folks happy, but if we kept making themes that appealed to that majority month-after-month, the other 49% would be disappointed. Add to that the current trend right now in Web design where everything is flat. That makes it very hard to come up with something unique when the whole Internet is obsessed with squares and solid colors.
We want to create templates that push the envelope, and it helps to hear about some of the design qualites y'all enjoy the most. - Ryan Matthew Pierson / Technical Writer / Buda, TX USA
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