While Joomla has just celebrated its 18th anniversary, Templatejoomla is celebrating its first anniversary. And in one year, a lot of very interesting things have happened. In this article, we will come back to this first exciting year but we will also tell you about the present and the future of the Joomla templates directory.
Templatejoomla anniversary: the review, the present and the future!
Flashback on this first year
First of all, we would like to start by sharing with you, some highlights of these 12th first months of Templatejoomla's life.
This journey have been amazing, exciting, inspiring, motivating, and most of all, high on emotions thanks to you!
2178 templates added, thousands templates updated.
That's sounds incredible but yes, we've added 2178 templates and updated thousands articles in one year. And even if it is a very demanding job to check for new templates and for updates (we didn't counted how many hours we've worked), we'll continue to do it as long as possible. For you and for Joomla.
Many design and features improvements submitted by the Joomla community.
Creating a community project like this directory means that it's essential to listen to the public and the users. Initially, this templates directory was created to help users to find their Joomla 4 template and we must provide them, the best and easiest solution to find it. The search bar, the quickstart pack icon, the filter for the framework, etc. all these features have been added thanks to the Joomlers who contacted us to submit their ideas.
Many articles published about this directory.
Sign of a popular success, there are already many articles published on Internet about Templatejoomla and we are very proud and grateful about this incredible recognition from the international community. This means the world to us!
Tens (hundreds?) of very enthusiastic feedbacks received from users, developers and Joomlers.
That's the most unexpected part of this first year and we are still humble and speechless when we receive so many positive feedback and encouragement from users. Thanks to all these compliments received, we have enough motivation to continue working for years to keep this directory up to date for all of you.
What we've learnt creating the Joomla Templates Directory?
Listing templates like we do at Templatejoomla is not just about adding items into a directory. For us, it's also getting to know an industry, discovering who its players are and communicating with them, etc. because without them, Joomla would probably not be the CMS we know.
If we aim to help the Joomla templaters, we must first learn and understand who they are, how they work, and what is their market.
This templates directory was expected by the Joomla community since ages.
Yes, and for an reason we don't know, there was never a official templates directory, like Joomla created one for the extensions. This templates directory was expected by a large part of the community. The previous similar projects are all abandoned, in the best of the case. Now, there's Templatejoomla and we do our very best to maintain it updated and online as long as possible.
We've discovered many "invisible" Joomla templates developers.
Next to the heavyweights of the templates industry, there are many talented templates developers we didn't knew. At Templatejoomla, we are proud to highlight them - on the same level as the most famous templaters - because they also contribute to the Joomla ecosystem with their templates.
There are more than hundred others Joomla 4 templates not listed.
Today, we estimate there are probably more than 250 others Joomla 4 templates. What are we waiting for adding them? Generally, we've contacted the developers but we haven't received the required informations to add their templates in the directory. Sometimes, we haven't even receive a reply. To encourage the addition of new Joomla templates in the directory, we have created a submission form (see below).
Tons of Joomla 3 templates won't be upgraded to J4.
I swear, this is only sad point of this article. Many developers have decided to step down and they haven't upgraded their templates to J4. We all know some of them but there are tens others that will probably diseaper - with their templates - in the next months, years.
What we've changed in V2 and why?
Because a good website is still under construction and because we really want to offer you the best templates directory, we've visited many online directories (not necessarily about digital stuffs) for months. We've looked at their best practises, their design options, the features they have and we haven't, etc.
After several months of observation and reflection, we have decided to improve and add the following points:
Header text, search bar and filters moved verticaly in the left column on the homepage.
Because these changes are on the site's homepage, this is the most visible point but it's also a major improvement for the usability of the search and filtering features.
The header text was important at the beginning of this project but even if the directory start to be well known, we've kept it and moved it in the left column.
As it's usually displayed on ecommerce and directories sites, the search and filters features have been moved on the left column, where users expect to find them.
Last point, we've decided for this layout because this design gives more place to the templates. Previously, only 4 templates were visible above the fold on desktop. Now, you should have 6!
Templatejoomla, version 1
Templatejoomla, version 2
Created and added a new "Submit Template" page with the Joomla default contact form.
Listening and envolve the Joomla community is fundamental for us and that's why we're happy to give you the possibility to submit templates. You only need to fill a form with the required informations and we'll manage the next steps. If you have many Joomla 4 templates to submit, contact us directly on our email.
This page is the Joomla default contact form with few custom fields and it does the trick, isn't it.
Templatejoomla, submit form
What is the future of Templatejoomla?
No one knows what tomorrow will bring but today we garantee you that:
- the Joomla Templates Directory will be online in 2024, maintained and regurlarly updated. Thanks to you and the all community, many new Joomla templates will be added and updated in the next days, weeks, and months.
- we'll keep on listening to your advices and notices to improve the directory. Don't hesitate to contact us if you want to help us!
- as promised last year, Templatejoomla will donate on the 1st November, 20% of the affiliates commissions received in the 12 last months to the Joomla project.
And what about Joomla 5?
This new major version of the CMS should be release in few weeks now. And we are very excited about this new milestone for our beloved CMS. Of course, all the Joomla templates compatible with Joomla 5 will be added or updated in the directory.
Thanks to Mera, Elisa, Crystal, Anja, Luca, Bojan, Maik, all the templates developers, all the visitors of the directory, and all the members of the Joomla Community who support this project.