In this series, I will explain how to build a custom theme using the popular open source e-commerce framework OpenCart. In the first part, I will explain the basic structure of an OpenCart theme.
Before continuing, I assume that you already have a working OpenCart installation on your local workstation. If this is not the case, check the OpenCart online documentation and set it up (as doing so is beyond the scope of this tutorial). Once you have a working OpenCart installed, you're ready to get started!
OpenCart is built using the MVC design pattern, allowing separation of concerns between data and presentation. As a theme developer, you don’t have to constantly worry about tweaking the files that contain your application logic and template code.
OpenCart provides a very clean directory structure in terms of framework organization. All files related to the backend interface are placed in the admin
directory. The files for processing the front-end interface are placed in the catalog
directory. But what we're really interested in is the catalog
catalog, because eventually we'll end up with a custom front-end theme at the end of this tutorial series.
Model View Controller (MVC) is a very popular design pattern in the field of software development. OpenCart just adds another element to it: Language, which is why we call it MVC-L.
In our case, the view
section is where we put all of our theme-related code. In this quick overview of the catalog
structure, we'll see how OpenCart works its magic.
The default OpenCart theme is located in the view
directory. This is what we'll explore in this section. Going deeper still, there are two directories: javascript
and theme
.
Now, we assume that all required JavaScript files are placed in the javascript
directory. Sometimes there are exceptions, in which case we can also place stylesheets and related image files in this directory. For example, OpenCart provides the colorbox library, which includes more than just JavaScript.
What we are really interested in is the theme
directory. Looking further, there is a directory called default
, which is the only built-in theme provided by OpenCart. Don't be overwhelmed by the deeper thematic structure, as we'll explore it in more detail soon. Now, see what the structure of the theme looks like.
For example, if you take a quick look at the account
directory under the templates, you'll see that most of the files are related to the user screens on the frontend. We will discuss this in more detail in the next article.
As I mentioned before, OpenCart provides a great way to organize your template files. In this article, I will try to explain what is inside the template
directory. Before proceeding, it is worth noting that although OpenCart comes with a bunch of built-in modules that provide the functionality required for a basic shopping cart, you can also develop your own modules as per your custom requirements.
With that said, let’s take a closer look at template classification.
specific template files. For example, when you visit the My Account page on the frontend, you should find the template associated with it under
catalog/view/theme/default/template/account. Later in this series, we'll learn how to find a specific template file by looking at the url path of that page.
Summary
In the next part, we will learn how to Open shopping cart. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to leave your Comment!
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