Joomla Site Templates: Architecture Advise

Question

Our client provided us with html templates to turn into a Joomla template, problem is their designs are not Joomla Template friendly where a lot of the html design are not consistent with structure.

Currently the only solution we have is applying a template structure pattern that fits the most amount of their design and have seperate joomla templates to take care of the ones that doesn't fit.

We have the generic Joomla Template configured with different positions for each div and assign each article to its respective position in the template.

Some articles though have menu modules within them so our solution is to split the article into two position and define positions for each menu module.

1. Is this method better than defining module positions within an article content to render menus within an article?

2. Is there a better way of showing articles in specific div positions than having each article be represented by a module to render in a specific div (position) in a template?

Right now our current way of rendering an article(s) content to a specific position is to create a module (moduleAsArticle) and define that module a position. Create An Article -> Assign A Module To It (moduleAsArticle) -> Define that module a position

Answer 1

1) Create a Menu from "Menus->Menu Manager" with Menu Items linked to the articles for which you want to show the Menu. In "Extensions->Module Manager" edit the new menu module you just created and assign this module to show only to the Menu Items in the new Menu.

2) I am not sure how much this will help you but you can use Article Anywhere http://goo.gl/Ow78 it is a plugin that allows you to insert articles anywhere on your site. So you can place articles inside modules or in other components or where ever. You can use JU News Ultra it is a module which support numerous functions like different template for "very copy of the module, image resize(thumbnail), characters limit for intro text and title ...

My advice is to talk first with your client to reach a compromise with the design because if the site is so difficult to convert into Joomla templates then probably it will be confusing to it's visitors.

Answer 2

You could also checkout the Gantry framework RocketTheme is developing. It is based on the 960 Grid System, and has some neat feature which I think may meet your needs more elegantly. For your case, you can set different layouts per menu item from within the Admin / Template. And it has 65 base modules in the Gantry code, which you can throw around rather easily.

BTW - can you provide the URL of your client's site?