Installing a new theme in Magento

If you want to install a new theme or template for your store in Magento , two solutions are possible:

• You find a theme available on Magento-connect and use it to install it (see our article: Installing an extension with Magento-connect ).

• You manually copy the files of the theme you want to install Magento in the corresponding directories. The latter solution, we will study.

How Magento handles themes (or templates):

Management themes Magento is special, because when you start your shop, Magento loads the default theme and then charged over the theme defines you. Unless you changed the default theme, the theme of your shop.

This way of working, allowing you to be able to change easily, your theme. Just create it or create only that part of theme you want to change, to define in the administration of Magento and it will be loaded over the default when you start your shop, in order to replace the part of the default theme.
Three files are used by Magento for the management of these topics:

• The template file contains all the HTML elements in your chart (app / design / frontend / default / le_nom_de_votre_theme / template)
• The layout file contains XML files for configuration and positioning of elements in your chart (app / design / frontend / default / le_nom_de_votre_theme / layout)
• Finally, the skin folder contains several subfolders with images, style sheets and javascript files in your shop (skin / frontend / default / le_nom_de_votre_theme)

In our case we will install the theme called "Linen", which is free and you can find here: http://www.magthemes.com/free-themes/Linen-Theme_1.php. But the principle is the same with any other theme.

Once the zip file downloaded Magento theme, unzip it. Open the folder "LinenTheme_2.0", you will find our two folder: "app" and "skin".

Simply copy these two files to the root of your Magento site.

If you return to our two records storage areas, you'll find a new file was created: app / design / frontend / default / linen and skin / frontend / default / linen.

We just create our new theme in the administration of Magento.

How do we define our new theme in the administration of Magento

Appointment in the administration of your Magento website in the menu "System> Configuration> Design".

You must indicate in the first shop on what you want to work, simply select it in the box at the top left: Scope of the current configuration. If you leave the default configuration, all your sites (if you have several) will be impacted by your new theme.

Once the site is selected, indicate your new theme in the right side:

Simply indicate the fault zone, the name of your new theme: Linen.

How to refresh the cache of your Magento store:

Now you need to update the cache of your Magento store:
Go to the menu "System> Cache Management"

In the first field: The entire cache, select: Refresh.

The cache of your shop is well maintained and the new theme of your shop may appear.
So, your new Magento theme is now fully installed. You can use this relatively simple method with any other theme.

Here is the result!

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