Orion Joomla! Template Setup & Documentation

Last Updated on Wednesday, 13 October 2010 17:52

Once you've purchased the Orion Joomla template and have installed it on your Joomla site, you may be wondering how to get it to look like the demo (or at least close to it). This article is here to help you understand your new template and get you started customizing it to your preference. We'll start from the top and work our way down.

To adjust the Orion template parameters, visit your Joomla administration panel and navigate to Extensions -> Template Manager.

Logo & Header Settings

Orion Template ParametersIn the Orion template parameters (shown left), you can choose between Text or Image as your header style. Choosing "text" will display a styled version of your site name and tagline/slogan. The second option (image) will allow you to display a graphic logo which you will need to create in your preferred image editor. We recommmend a 32-bit (transparent) PNG image. The image should be named "logo.png" and uploaded to your templates/orion/images/style{*x} directory.
{x} refers to your default "Theme Style" e.g; style2.

Before uploading your logo, take note of the height and width (in px). You'll need to enter these dimensions in as well. The next setting below specifies the SIte Title and Tagline. You'll want to fill this in regardless of your header style as it is used for SEO in your template.

 

Menu Setup

In some instances, your main menu may not automatically display properly by default. The main menu is a module in your Module Manager. To put the menu in its correct position, go to Extensions -> Module Manager -> Main Menu. Make sure the following settings apply:

Enabled: Yes
Position: set to “menu”
Menu Style: List
Always show sub-menu Items: Yes
!-Menu Class and Module Class Suffix should be left blank-!

To use sublevel menus Expand Menu, Activate Parent, and Full Active Highlighting should all be set to true as well. For more info on sublevel (dropdown) menus, follow the general menu setup information.

 

Modules

Templates have varying Module Positions which allow you to display secondary content in a sidebar, for example. Orion supports multiple module positions [view]. There are no extra parameters needed in order to configure the modules in Orion. Just publish and go. The left and right sidebar widths can be changed in the template parameters. You can specify the width of any two-column layout.

Simple Slider Module

Orion Slider Module ParametersTo install the slider module included with the Orion template, go to Extensions -> Install -> Browse to the mod_st_slide.zip file and upload. Now, go to your Module Manager (Extensions -> Module Manager) and select the Simple Slider module from the list. You'll see a set of paramaters (left) which control the display of your Slider. Note: This module should be published in the featured position.

Display Modes:

  • Graphic
    • Each slide is displayed as a full-sized single graphic image.
  • Icon
    • Each slide is displayed with an icon to the left or right of your text.
  • Simple
    • Simple heading and text. (no image)

You can specify height, width, and various navigation presets as well. The images, text, and links for the slides are displayed in the Advanced Parameters accordian below. The slider allows for up to 5 slides at a time.