Meet Morph – the Joomla template development framework
The time has finally come for me to publish the first official blog post of a series about our new rapid template development framework for Joomla… code named Morph. Not to be confused with our once favorite plasticine character from the 1970’s by Tony Hart, well.. not in looks at least but in flexibility and character, you can bet on it.
Some days ago, first news of Morph broke to the public via our newsletter and on twitter and we are very pleased with the response so far.
It’s easy to see that the Joomla community is hungry for something different and something new. The component world has been exploding with innovative new extensions for Joomla lately, now its time for a new era in Joomla templating.
This blog post will be one of many in a series of blog posts about Morph, within which we will cover every angle of Morph - from the methodology behind it to the way it will work, function, operate as well as its features and benefits to our members.
In the meantime, head over to the subsite we have created specifically for Morph where you get a summary of some of the main features and screenshots of Morph in action.
I am sure you all have loads of questions so to get this all started, let me provide the answers to some of the most common questions we have been asked thus far about Morph.
What is Morph?
To put it very simply, Morph is an incredibly powerful template (for Joomla, for now), venturing into a realm of possibilities no template to our knowledge has ever ventured before. That said, it is not your average template… it is oooh so much more.
Morph installs like any other Joomla template, just as users are used to. However, there are a vast number of crafty changes to the structure of the template files and folders, extending it from your average template into a rapid template development framework for Joomla – a framework with the aim to rapidly reduce development time by separating the beauty from the brawn.
Morph allows developers to focus on integrating the design knowing that all the power they need is at their fingertips to use it at any stage within their project.
When is it coming?
We are all burning the midnight oil to get Morph ready for the first private beta which will be available to a select group of users as well as our Platinum club members in the next 10 – 14 days.
After this it will not be long until Morph is made available to all JoomlaJunkie club members.
What does Morph cost?
Morph will be available for download to all JoomlaJunkie club members. If you are not a member, then you can head over to our club to get an idea of the prices available for each of the packages.
We offer a discount for all Platinum memberships, new and renewed, up until the moment Morph private beta is released. Use the code FDF42 when you sign up or renew and you’ll get 20% off the regular Platinum membership price.
What makes Morph so different?
Morph is designed from the ground up to be completely scalable, extendable and usable by everyone, from beginners to advanced, but advanced users will get allot more out of Morph by tapping into more advanced features that will allow fine grained control on a per page basis.
One of the core principles in Morph is that the structural elements and the visual elements are completely separated. This creates a single powerful core that contains ALL of the core features, but has no visual appearance at all.
A visual enhancement layer is then added on top of the core that adds all of the colors, images and styles – giving the final look and feel of a particular website. This visual layer is added by installing something we call themelets (also known as child themes). The beauty is that any themelet will work on top of Morph and inherit any of the multitude of features available in Morph’s core.
This separation of structural and visual elements allows developers to rapidly create a new website for themselves or their clients without having to re-integrate the features over and over.
To sum it up: With Morph you can focus on the unique aspects of your project without re-inventing the wheel, thereby speeding up the entire process.
What next..?
On the note of themelets, I am pleased to say that not long from now (we’re talking only days), everyone will be able to vote on the designs for our up-and-coming themelet designs we have in the works (stay tuned for the release). Here is a preview of our very own dedicated themelet voting website:
In the next few blog posts we will focus on the concept of what a framework is and why we chose to build one and then onto some more exiting information about Morph and what benefits it will have for all types of users etc.
That’s all for now folks… stay tuned for Part 2: “What exactly is a framework?”
Tags: development, framework, Joomla, Morph
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Hi guys,
I know you’ve been working very hard behind the seens and I’ve been waiting to see the unveiling of Morph and the themes to follow.
Are all of your themes being redeveloped to use morph or are you all designing all new themes for the Morph Framework?
I’ve saw the design samples on Flickr and was in awe. All I can see is beautiful!!! You guys have done an outstanding job. You should get quite a bit of feedback and subscribers.
Hi Lanesa,
We are all super excited to unleash Morph to the community and soon some people will be getting their hands on Morph for beta testing. We are currently doing stress testing and ironing out any major bugs as well as creating enough documentation for the beta round etc. There are also systems we need in place for the launch etc to assist with managing the beta phase.. all of this is a lot of work and we are getting some pretty late nights in and cant wait for everyone to see Morph.
Our plan is to over time convert all existing templates (1st generation) to Morph, users will be able to vote (on our soon to be launched, dedicated themelet voting web site) which ones they want first. Some templates will be easier than others, but Morph is built to adapt to various layouts to help implement various types of designs. This is very exciting for us, because it means that we can breathe new life into our older templates by making them themelets, as they will adopt all of Morphs features.
Im very glad you like the designs on flickr, these are only a handful that are in the design phase, I hope to add much more over the coming weeks.
Thanks for your feedback and support,
Andy
Guys this is awesome. I can see this really changing the way templating is done in Joomla! Compared to other frameworks, Joomla! already had one of the more powerful yet easy to use. This will just take it to a whole other level.
Can’t wait to check it out.
I can’t wait to get started with this.
Yeah me too, I cant wait to use it.
Hi there,
Morph is really taking off and more themelets are being created as we go. Please check out http://www.joomlajunkie.com/templates/morph/morph.html for much more info about the Morph toolset and more. :)
Cheers,
Tess
Tess´s last blog ..New stable version of Morph, Configurator and Vanilla now available
I’ve always been a huge fan of Joomla!, awesome to see Template with new offering such creative templates very cool one.
Hey, I just wanted to drop a note and say nice post!
As we can see, I think we’re all a bit excited with this innovative framework. However, I concerned with how certain plugins (virtuemart in specific) would be tied in? Is a social networking/ e-commerce attainable within Morph?