A Joomla template is actually a series of files within the Joomla Content Management System (CMS) that control the presentation of the content. So, for all those uninitiated, a Joomla template is not a website in itself nor it represents a complete website design. It's simply a template, i.e., a basic foundation design that'll help you preview your Joomla website. In order to produce the effect of a 'complete website', the Joomla template works in tandem with the content stored in the Joomla databases.
What are the contents of Joomla template? Basically, any Joomla template contains design information, like stylesheets, images, JavaScript, etc. Simply put, Joomla template is a theme or a skin of your Joomla system. However, there can be only one Joomla template per page.
What's the purpose of a Joomla template? What effectively Joomla template does is to command Joomla where to place Components and Modules, and how to display the Modules. Users of Joomla 1.5 will be well aware of the concept of Joomla Chrome in that version. It is the process where Joomla templates were allowed to skin any component using new Joomla MVC structure. You can found pieces of Joomla Chrome in HTML directory of Joomla template. The visitors may be accessing all the pages or just one page of your website, but the same template will be used to design each of these pages. All the changes will be reflected on all the web pages.
Semantically Correct Code
A semantic webpage simply means that XHTML in the webpage describes only content and not presentation.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
CSS exists parallel to XHTML code and thus, it helps you to separate content from presentation, i.e., semantic code from CSS.
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