You can download any of hundreds of attractive templates that are available on the Internet. Let’s download the Purity_III template, which is a free Joomla template. Its archive file is named purity_iii.v1.1.2.zip. Download it from www.joomlart.com/joomla/templates/purity-iii to a folder on your local disk drive.
Open the Extension Manager by selecting Extensions ➤ Extension Manager. Click the Install tab and, in the Extension package file field, click the Browse button to locate the archive file of the Purity_III template, as shown in Figure 9-2.
After specifying the template archive file, purity_iii.v1.1.2.zip, click the Upload & Install button to install the template. If the template is successfully installed, you’ll see the message Installing Template Was Successful, as shown in Figure 9-3. Besides the successful template installation message, the figure also tells you that the Purity III template requires a T3 plug-in to be installed and enabled.
To apply the newly installed template to your web site, use the Template Manager, which displays after you select Extensions ➤ Template Manager. The Template Manager opens; you’ll see that besides the four default templates provided by Joomla (Beez3, Hathor, isis, and protostar), a new template named Purity_III also appears in the list. Let’s select Purity_III from the list and click the Default icon (star) from the Default column to make it the default template, as shown in Figure 9-4.
After you make the Purity_III template the default template of your site, when you open the front side of the web site, you get an error message: T3 Plugin Is Not Enabled (see Figure 9-5).
Download the T3 plug-in from https://github.com/t3framework/t3/releases/tag/v2.4.8 into any local drive. The downloaded archive file is t3-2.4.8.zip. Install the plug-in using the Extension Manager, the way you installed the Purity_III template (see Figure 9-6).
The Purity_III template works perfectly after the T3 plug-in is installed. Now you’re ready to see the impact of the newly applied template from the front end. Open the browser and point it to the address http://localhost/joomlasite to open the Joomla site’s front end (alternatively, you can use the Preview button at the top right). Notice that the Joomla web site’s front end has changed, and the positions of all the web site contents (menus and other components) are set according to the layout specified in the Purity_III template (see Figure 9-7).
So, you see how easy it is to download and apply new templates to your web site. Now let’s make the web site capable of doing some business by selling certain products and services.
Source: Harwani B M (2015), Foundations of Joomla!, Apress; 2nd ed edition