Nova Documentation

Introduction

This document covers the installation and use of this template and often reveals answers to common problems and issues – we encourage you to read this document thoroughly if you need an in-depth guide on how to use the template.

If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this document, feel free to ask via ticket support system: Ticket System

To get access to the ticket system, create an account on this page: Create an Account

Installation

The section will help you with steps to install JL Nova template – Quickstart and Manual installation.

Which installation method you should use depends on the current status of your site. Also, before installing either the template manually or the Quickstart Package, please make sure you meet the Joomla! and the template requirements.

JL Nova template is built on Gantry 5 Framework so it requires Gantry 5 Framework to be installed and enabled in your system.

You can download the gantry 5 framework here http://gantry.org/downloads#joomla Download Gantry 5 Framework

Requirements

JL Nova template is native with Joomla 3. Please make sure your system meets the following requirements:

Apache 2.2+ or Microsoft IIS 7 (Apache strongly recommended)
PHP 7+ (PHP 6+ Recommended)
MySQL 5.1+
Joomla 3.4+

Also, please have a look at the Gantry5 requirements. Basically, they are the same as the above, but you will find some additional details there.

Quickstart Installation

Why Quickstart

The quickstart allows you to replicate JL Nova demo to your server. It means, after install the quickstart, you will have a site exactly the same as the demo site.

Download JL Nova quickstart package, upload to your server and extract it.

Step 1 Configuration: add Site name, Admin email, Admin username and password

Step 2 Database: select database type, host name, database username, password, database name & table prefix

Step 3 Remove/Rename “installation” folder: for security purpose, you need to rename or remove the “installation” folder

Detail documentation with screenshots

Manual Installation

Manual Installation refers to installing the template on your Joomla! powered website. This means you already have a website with content items, modules, extensions, so you just decided you want to improve the design of your website.

You can find step-by-step instructions as well as a video instructions regarding the Manual Installation in the Gantry5 Documentation, in the “Installation” chapter.

Install Gantry 5 Framework

Step 1 Install Gantry 5 Framework

From your back-end setting panel, go to: “Extensions → Extension Manager”, browse Gantry 5 plugin installation package then hit the “Upload and Install” Install gantry 5

Install JL Nova template

From your back-end setting panel, go to: “Extensions → Extension Manager”, browse JL Nova template installation package then hit the “Upload and Install”

Step 2 Set default template style

Go to: “Extensions -> Template Manager”, set JL Nova template style as your default template style.

Update

Updating the template

Updating the template is really easy. Here are the steps you need to perform:

Download the new version of the template from the “Download” section on our website
Go to “Extensions” → “Manage” and click on the “Browse” button
Select the template file you downloaded in step 1. It will usually be called tpl_it_NAME.zip
Click on the “Upload & Install” button

Gantry5 Framework update

This is just a simple one click task. If there is a newer version of the Gantry Framework released you will notice that in your Joomla Admin as well as in the Template Manager. Then just click on the button.

You might also want to read the “Updating” and “Updating Themes” chapters in the Gantry5 Documentation.

Gantry 5 Basics

Gantry has an extensive set of documentation, describing every option in Gantry. You can find the documentation on http://docs.gantry.org/gantry5/basics.

Gantry 5 Documentation

You’ll find tutorials on many different topics, including.

All the basics
Creating your own Particles and Atoms
Creating your own layout presets
Advanced use of the Layout manager
Advanced theme customization
Creating your own themes
And much more

Key Features

Included 75+ PREMIUM Particles / Atoms

The theme/template already included over 75+ Gantry 5 particles and Atoms by JoomLead to build your content.

All these particles and atoms work out-of-the-box with any Gantry 5 theme on Joomla, WordPress and Grav.

Learn more

Template Features

Responsive Layout
4 Preset Styles
Fixed Sidebar
Block Variations
Custom Typography
Unlimited Positions
Custom Section Variations
Custom Particles
Social Icons
Mobile Menu
Coming Soon Page
Font Awesome Icons

Gantry 5 Core Features

YAML-based Configuration
Twig Templating
Powerful Particle System
Visual Menu Editor
MegaMenu Support
Off-Canvas Panel
Ajax Admin
Layout Manager
Inheritance System
Fluid Width Option
Fixed Width Option
SCSS Support
Sophisticated Fields
Unlimited Undo/Redo
Styles Panel

Preview UI Typography

Typography is an important instrument in not only the site design, but how your content is portrayed and utilized by your visitors.

Inheritance

Nova takes full advantage of Gantry’s new inheritance system, making it easier than ever to configure and manage your website through synced particles, atoms, sections, and layouts. Save time by using inheritance to avoid repetitive changes!

Styles

The Styles administrative panel gives you the ability to quickly and easily configure settings related to the appearance of the Gantry-powered theme. This includes being able to switch between pre-configured presets, as well as to refine the look of an outline using a set of style settings linked to the theme.

Detailed documentation can be found here http://docs.gantry.org/gantry5/configure/styles

Nova Layout Manager

The Layout Manager in the Gantry-based theme administration interface provides several options for setting up the layout of the theme’s Outlines.

Base Outline

This page will acts as the global default for any gantry pages. This is where global style, particle defaults, page settings, and layout options are set. For more information, please take a look at Gantry 5 Inheritance. To edit this page, go to Outline -> Base Outline -> Layout Tab

Home Layout

Using this layout for any pages that require multiple positions/sections, example Home, About, Services, etc… The home page is designed using this layout. To edit this page, go to Outline -> Home -> Layout Tab

Other presets

The template itself support multiple layout preset, you can choose the special layout preset for special pages to suite your needs. Example: You can load different layout for Blog layout (2 Columns left/right, 3 columns and 3 columns left/right)

Changing content via Layout Manager

You can change the content that used for whole pages like Logo, Menu and Bottom, Footer information.

Navigation Content (Logo and Menu)

Go to template settings -> Base Outline -> Layout. Here you can change the content info for Opening hour and social icons. Just click the “settings” icon then modify logo image or select main menu.

Footer Info

For more detail about Positions with Gantry5, please take a look Positions

Variations

The Section settings give you the ability to change the way a particular section renders and behaves on the front end. You can set the layout type, add custom CSS classes, or set HTML attributes, Style Variations, Background, Parallax and do things like change the way the section looks.

The following settings can be found in the Layout panel -> Section settings. Just click on the settings icon right next to the name the section to open the section settings

1. Padding Variations

Set the vertical padding of the section using the Padding setting. A collection of utility classes to add spacing between sectionss and their content.

Padding Variations

Style	Description
Default	Create default horizontal layout sections: Padding values default: 70px
X-Small	Add this class to decrease a section’s padding to a minimum(20px).
Small	Add this class to decrease a section’s padding (40px).
Large	Add this class to increase a section’s padding (140px).
X-Large	Add this class to further increase a section’s padding (210px).
None	Add this class to remove a section’s padding.

2. Predefined Section Styles

To apply different background colors for section

Gantry5 Section Variations

Style	Description
Default	Adds the default background of your site – often white or light gray.
Muted	Adds a muted background – often slightly darker than the default background.
Primary	Adds a primary background – often a vibrant color.
Secondary	Adds a secondary background – often dark gray.

3. Text Color

By default, content looks great on any section style. There are two cases when you might want to adjust the text color.
After picking a background image, you have to select the appropriate Text Color depending on whether it’s a dark or a light image. Only choose Light or Dark if Default doesn’t look good.

Text Color

Style	Description
Light	Light text color.
Dark	Dark text color

4. Background Settings

Select a background image for section with multiple options like parallax, image size, positions, blend mode, overlay and so on…

Style	Description
Background	Select the background image for section.
Image Size	Determine whether the image will fit the section dimensions by clipping it or by filling the empty areas with the background color. By default, the image will not be resized.
Position	Set the initial background position relative to the section layer. By default, the image is centered.
Image Effect	Add a parallax effect or fix the background with regard to the viewport while scrolling.
Image Visibility	Display the image only on this device width and larger. This is useful to hide background images if the content becomes illegible on small viewports.

There are three options of how to recolor the image in a different tone.

Style	Description
Background Color	Use the background color in combination with blend modes, a transparent image or to fill the area, if the image doesn’t cover the whole section.
Blend Mode	Determine how the image will blend with the background color.
Overlay Color	Set an additional transparent overlay to soften the image.

The Parallax settings allow you to animate the background image depending on the scroll position of the document.

Style	Description
Horizontal Start	Animate the horizontal position (translateX) in pixels. Min: -600 and Max: 600.
Horizontal End	Animate the horizontal position (translateX) in pixels. Min: -600 and Max: 600.
Vertical Start	Animate the vertical position (translateY) in pixels. Min: -600 and Max: 600.
Vertical End	Animate the vertical position (translateY) in pixels. Min: -600 and Max: 600.
Parallax Breakpoint	Display the parallax effect only on this device width and larger.

Positions

JL Nova comes with unlimited module positions. Thanks to the awesome Gantry 5 framework you can now easily create as many module positions as you want. You just need to go to the Layout Manager, drag and drop the “Module Position” particle wherever you want it to be and set the module position name.

After that, you can assign your Joomla module to the position that you created before.

Learn how to create any positions quickly without coding here.

The best thing you can do (and actually you MUST do) is to install the Quickstart Package and see how everything is configured and what module class suffixes are used for each module.

Customization

All your customization (custom code) should be placed in your “Custom Style Sheet” file. This is the custom.scss file. By default, the custom.scss file does not exists, so you will need to create it. You need to create this file in root/templates/TEMPLATE_NAME/custom/scss. You will find all details in the Gantry5 Documentation, in the “Adding a Custom Style Sheet” chapter.

Build Demo Pages

This section will help you understand about the Demo pages for Nova. How to design, reuse the content from quickstart package. Instead of starting from scratch, use our pre-designed pages to jumpstart your design process or get inspired.

Recreating features of the demo site used to show off some of the more interesting aspects of Nova can be done fairly easily. All you need is the right particles and settings, and you should be able to reproduce most (if not all) of the elements found in our demo site.

Note: We have made presets available for several of our additional demo pages, including: About Us, History, Menu, and Gallery. For Outline tutorial(creating, duplicating, and accessing your outlines.), see this documentation

To see full outlines, go to template settings -> Outlines

Example Home Page Layout

To access Home layout and modify the sample data for home page, Go to template settings -> select Home outline from dropdown -> Layout tab

Scroll down then click to the setting Icon () to change/replace the content for home page. Do the same steps for other pages.

If you have any specific request or feedback as well as suggestions, feel free to drop us a line in Ticket System. We’ll try to cover them all.

Let us know in the Ticket System