Anahitapolis Blog

Shiraz: a template for Anahita ™

Template is important. It skins and renders all the application user interfaces and delivers all the things that we are all obsessed about: The User Experience, the Branding, and all those good things!

We’ve had a basic template for Anahita which was quite good, except that it could only be used in one configuration. Anahita also uses the more recent version of the Mootools javascript library and since Joomla! was using the old mootools 1.1 for a while, that meant a lot of existing Joomla templates and modules could not be upgraded to work with the Anahita social networking engine.

Now things have changed. The Joomla! team has finally, … FINALLY! came up with a solution to upgrade the mootools library.  Also the wonderful Gantry Framework was released by the RocketTheme which provides an awesome 960 standard grid system, a very snazzy administration interface, and a wonderful framework to help us build flexible templates that are great not only for a CMS but also for more sophisticated software such as social networks. After doing some client projects with the Gantry framework, we really liked it and we have decided to develop the new default Anahita template using the Gantry Framework. That is how the Shiraz template was born.

The Shiraz template for Anahita ™ provides almost all the key features and main positions that the Gantry framework does, in 12 column positions, as well as all the styling for the Anahita ™ and the following list of social applications:

• Anahita Social ™ Discussions
• Anahita Social ™ Photos
• Anahita Social ™ Groups
• Anahita Social ™ Projects

The Shiraz template is not a done and finished template. It is a blueprint for all the Anahita developers to learn how to customize the develop their own templates while exploiting all the features that the Anahita and Gantry framework provide. This also means that Anahita powered social networks can now use other great extensions that are being distributed via the RocketTheme.com website as long as they are using the recent version of Mootools library.

To give you an example we are currently using the Shiraz template and the RocketTheme’s RokNavMenu extension on the Anahitapolis social network. We will be testing and using more of the RocketTheme’s extensions on the Shiraz template once we have merged the Anahitapolis.com and community.anahitapolis.com websites in a few weeks.

This however does not mean that all the rest of RocketTheme templates that are built using the Gantry Framework will be able to render the Anahita user interfaces yet. That is because they are still missing the required Anahita styling. If you have noticed RocketTheme actually includes additional styling for all the 3rd party extensions that they are supporting.

Some Screen Captures

Here are some screen captures that I have prepared for you. You can click on the images and see the original size images on the flickr.com website.

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