I want to become a GetSimple theme designer

[Heavyweight]

Hey there,

I find GetSimpleCMS extremely attractive for some reason and plan to start using it from now on or when I start my business to be more precise. Now I have a little issue.. I'm a designer and I know nothing about coding (xhtml and basic css aside. nothing about php - which I assume is needed to integrate designs with the getsimplecms code, ye?) but I'd like to start doing some themes for GetSimple. For simple reasons..

1. I can tell there's a lack of themes here and it sorrows me to death that *some other* CMSes make a fortune while this one here is just a tiny and independent simple CMS.. I want to be a "core contributer" for once this CMS becomes dominant(2015?)

2. I plan to start(ASAP) a small web design and multimedia business and my market group would fit extremely well for GetSimpleCMS - small-to-medium uo-30 pages businesses. So i'd be using this as my only CMS and that would also include creating themes for my clients.


BUT.. now as I said I'm not very code-savvy, perhaps someone can guide me to the right direction? Let's say I have a flat out .psd design file. What's next?
I'd be glad if people would be more direct than "pick up this php book" cheers. Any help will be greatly appreciated. If the community can help me make that far then I can start giving back to the community via free themes. I hope this made sense to everybody and apologizes for any grammatical errors that might've taken place here.

/GetSimple's Wiki doesn't suffice for me. I'm reading http://get-simple.info/wiki/themes:creation to 1:1 but that's all php/code talk to me, nothing about the design transfer into code. I assume it starts with image slicing.

-Heavy

[Connie]

when this WIKI does not help you, is too complicated for your level of experience, what kind of web business do you want to run?

Each system has it's own system for templates, you will encounter this kind of "php / code talk" with WP, Joomla, CMSMS, Drupal, Typo3 ... the list is long and there are thousands of hungry, savy designers / developers out there ... so you must keep up with them or you will have no success ;=(

if that is too difficult for you, you should start to learn, without that knowledge you will be lost

nothing about php - which I assume is needed to integrate designs with the getsimplecms code

no, you just must be able to save a textfile with the extension .php
and you must be able to copy and paste some template tags into your layout

first steps?

- design a layout with stylesheet for a static page. If you have a PSD, I am sure you can export that to a static HTML file, yes?
- study existing themes
- save your layout as standard-template for GS
- replace the different elements of the layout, f.e. navigation, with the template tags
- test in GS

if you have questions, ask them here and show how far you have come ... you are welcome!

[m1k3y]

There is also a video tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w66yY4Qs...re=related

If you know html GetSimple suits perfect for you, php isnt needed

[Heavyweight]

Connie thank you for the depthful answer, I do also believe that this might be "too complicated for my level" but I'm not afraid of challenges and I'm here to learn. I'll follow the steps you listed down and see where it'll go. Studying other themes is an actually great idea - why didn't I think of it. As for my business idea would be creating full sites for starter or small businesses, the design part but it would be integrated with a CMS so the clients could maintain it themselves. On top of that logo, banner, print design services.. I'm a Photoshop-guy but I'd like to at least learn how to integrate CMSes into designes.. Because CMS web packets vs static pages are like 3x in price difference.

m1k3y Thanks a heaps! I'll definitely watch this through and take notes.
Got to say I admire this community already.


I'll come back with some more silly questions when I'm stuck somewhere.