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Kicking Ubercart up a notch

Posted May 19th, 2009 by steph

EDIT: Release is now up at http://drupal.org/project/acquia_prosper!

In partnership with Ubercart, Acquia, and Commerce Guys, TopNotchThemes is creating a free premium Drupal theme optimized for Ubercart e-commerce sites.

Our first community themes, Acquia Marina and Acquia Slate have been wildly successful, bringing more power, flexibility, and beautiful styling to thousands of Drupal sites.  We wanted to go further with a third theme and through our relationship with Ubercart, knew that this amazing suite of modules for Drupal needed the polished look and feel it deserves.

The theme will be optimized with the UberDrupal installation profile (based on Acquia Drupal) by Commerce Guys, who we’ll be working closely with to help turn this installation profile and demo site into something that really shows off the power of Ubercart.  Features here are to be determined, but will likely include things like ImageCache presets, blocks, Ubercart settings, and other contrib modules optimized for a full e-commerce site.

Now, we need your input to make this theme even better!  Here’s a list of the features and style we’re going to be aiming for, but we’d love to know what else you’d like to see in a killer Ubercart theme.  The initial design concepts are being started and we’ll soon set up a project page and post progress along the way.

Features

  • clean design, modern and monochromatic with limited color accents
  • includes the usual TNT theme settings, lots of collapsible regions, and theming for core/popular contrib modules
  • fixed or fluid width (via theme setting)
  • slideshow of featured products
  • drop down primary links
  • excellent navigation — secondary links, nested sidebar navigation, large footer menu styling
  • bidirectional/RTL theming included
  • Ubercart styling: product grid, images, product nodes, cart block theming, checkout process, etc.  Also integration with other popular Ubercart modules
  • matching invoice template

We’ve started collecting some examples of great, clean online store site design elements here in our Flickr stream.  If you have any of your own to share, please comment with them here, or tag with TNTubercart on Flickr.

w00t w00t! Can't wait to test drive the new theme. I don't think I mentioned it before, but there's actually a really sharp Ubercart store we might get some insight from:

http://www.cornerstonecookiegifts.com/

They've done some really interesting things all over the place. I could try to list 'em, but really you should just cruise around.

Thanks again for kickstarting this whole process!

By Ryan (not verified) | May 19, 2009 - 17:12

Wow, looks awesome so far. I'd even use this theme for sites that aren't ecommerce if I didn't have the time/budget to create a site with its own theme/look.

Do you guys think you'll be making theme based on any of the grid frameworks (such as the 960 grid)?

Thanks!

By Brian Puccio (not verified) | May 19, 2009 - 20:09

Thanks Ryan! Yeah I've seen the cookie site before, *really* nice.

Brian, we'll be hitting on all the standard Drupal module fare as well, so I think it will be popular for non-ecommerce sites too.

We've looked at grid stuff and my partner Chris (the more technical of us) has been tinkering with an experimental version of our base theme using a grid-based, faux absolute position layout. If it turns out to be an option that makes sense for our themes across the board, then we'll probably make the switch. So... it's a possibility, but not soon :)

By steph | May 19, 2009 - 21:43

Hi guys, that sounds pretty cool. I do a session at "LinuxTag 2009" in Berlin (June, 25th 2009) which is called "Ubercart, Shopping and more". If the theme is ready, I Will take it with me to the show and spread it out :-).

Tom

By Tom Freudenberg (not verified) | May 19, 2009 - 22:28

Hey Tom, just a quick heads up to say feel free to get in touch if you need anything from me for the presentation. I'm not sure how much I have in the way of actual resources, but I do have some high-res Ubershield images and would be happy to answer questions. : )

By Ryan (not verified) | May 20, 2009 - 07:29

Hi TNT Guys,
This is a great news, and collaborating with CommerceGuys, Acquia and Ubercart is the perfect team to achieve this.
Regarding feature, I think you should provide a demo store with a bunch of modules activated and showing your theme options. The problem with Ubercart (IMHO) is that there's so many options as existing modules but it's hard to figured it out.
I'm thinking here in Magento, they provide a sample data set which activate a lot of options and allow you to see what you can achieve with it.

I'll hope you can provide theming for
- faceted search terms
- suggested products (while viewing a product page)
- multiple images for a product (with some carousel)
- CCK fields for products and maybe the ability to theme product details, specifications, accesories on diferents tabs.

Will the theme be using color module ?

Thank you so much for your great work.

Bests

By Tostinni (not verified) | May 20, 2009 - 07:34

As a happy TNT customer and an Ubercart fan, I can't wait for the first release. Congrats to the team for this great contribution to the community.

By Gilles Bailleux | May 20, 2009 - 18:44

Sounds great. Any ideas on timings for when it might be available to use?
A

By Andrew (not verified) | May 20, 2009 - 18:43

Great ideas Tostinni! For faceted search terms, do you mean the Apache Solr search?

We’re looking at doing a premium version here on topnotchthemes.com that supports the color module, but we’ll pack as much as we can into the free one too :)

Andrew — I can’t give a specific date right now, but we’re in the design/feature spec stage now. We’ll be starting on the theming in 7-10 days, and doing pre-release versions on drupal.org along the way.

By steph | May 21, 2009 - 05:38

Fantastic. Hoping that it will fit in well with a business directory setup as well, but of course - do your best and we'll take it from there! Thanks.

By Drupal Philippines (not verified) | May 21, 2009 - 13:31

This was one of the things that I mentioned in my application for Drupal developer account. I noticed that there were no ubercart themes on Drupal.org.

It would be great if you can document the process you used to theme ubercart. I learned a lot about coding/theming by looking at your free themes.

Thanks,

By ytin | May 28, 2009 - 09:02

I'm not sure if Solr will be very relevant in a ecommerce situation but if it is, go for it.
I was thinking in specific "cck fields" restrictions while searching for a product. So you're looking at shirts and you got a bunch of shirt and then a block ala Solr appears and allow you to restrict by size, color...
Something like the "shoppong options" block here http://demo.magentocommerce.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=phone&x=0&y=0

Thank you very much.

By Tostinni (not verified) | June 1, 2009 - 08:26

Great ....
I am using the acquia marina theme. You have done a wonderful job to make such a wonderful theme, also in GPL.
Great guys .....
Best wishes for the future ..

Thanks
Hari K T
http://harikt.com

By Hari K T (not verified) | June 5, 2009 - 02:39

hi all, where can I download this template(Acquia Prosper) ?

By marco (not verified) | June 6, 2009 - 02:10

I would like to put in a vote for something similar to your 'sharp sales' theme. Works very nicely with Ubercart.

Any eta on when we might see something available? I'm currently looking for a free theme for a site so I'm a bit anxious.

By Anonymous (not verified) | June 6, 2009 - 13:05

Can`t wait. Screenshot on project page looks awesome.

By Doc (not verified) | June 16, 2009 - 08:56

Wow, this is pretty exciting!

Can't wait till there's something we can download, if only just a trial

Keep up the good work TNT!

Thanks again

~kraymer

By kraymer (not verified) | June 17, 2009 - 15:00

I agree, I can't wait to see this in action.

By Peter (not verified) | June 19, 2009 - 13:30

Hi Ryan, I missed your answer until tonight. Right now I am starting my trip to berlin. I am able to include one more screenshot to my presentation if you send me one by email. I need this until 9.30am MESZ.

Otherwise I will take it with me the next times :-)

Tom

By Tom Freudenberg (not verified) | June 24, 2009 - 16:57

Can't wait to have a look at this release, sounds like an amazing project. Please let me know when it's ready and online.
Thanks

By Ben (not verified) | July 6, 2009 - 04:27

Loving Acquia Slate and Acquia Marina

Would very much like to see the promised screenshots on "Pump Up the Volume" theme.

"and now with Ubercart styling (screenshots of e-commerce pages coming soon)!"

This is a deciding factor before purchase for me.

cheers

Craig Rippon
Custom Tees
Brisbane, Australia

http://www.CustomTees.com.au
Craig.Rippon@CustomTees.com.au

By Craig Rippon (not verified) | July 9, 2009 - 00:05

Great job TNT. Your work speaks for your name. I used the acquia marina theme and it was a superb.

Is the Ubercart theme ready for download and where do I download it from?

Thanks

By Julu (not verified) | July 18, 2009 - 19:33

First things first: Thanks for Acquia Slate!

Now, do you have an estimated date of release for Prosper?

Warm regards from sunny México!
:-)
Pepe

By PepeMty (not verified) | July 20, 2009 - 05:32

Do anyone know when the new theme will be available?

By Julu | August 1, 2009 - 11:21

It has been more than 2 months since the announcement. I wish they could release the first version earlier...

By Anonymous (not verified) | August 2, 2009 - 03:22

Hi Chris, Steph, Jay and Jeremy,

Thanks for the Pdf tuts, they helped alot.

Would be possible to give us an estimate on the Ubercart Theme? If you guys release a Beta I'm sure community can help to fix any outstanding bugs! Hopefully see the Uber-zen/e-zen/TNT-Ubercart theme very soon. Thanks.

By mark (not verified) | August 2, 2009 - 08:36

Early alpha is out but not publicly available. I signed up and have been playing around with it a bit. Some obvious bugs which they already know about but it is getting close to public beta according to them.

The hot:
selectable fonts and sizes, selectable fixed or fluid widths, selectable sidebar widths.

The not: Styling is kind of bland but it's still alpha so they may enhance it further. So far not up to par compared to the styling of Aquia Marina. Would have liked to see selectable colors but it's not really a complaint considering this is a free theme.

I will still use it as function is more important than styling and even a non-coder like me can alter the styling of a theme if I really want to.

By Anonymous (not verified) | August 2, 2009 - 14:23

Anxiously awaiting a hands on preview. Both for a potential UberCart site and to see what you have been working on with Fusion.

Thanks for your great work and setting the bar high for Drupal themes. It gives other Themers something to strive for.

To bad this thread has been found by so many SPAMers :-(

By MacRonin (not verified) | August 12, 2009 - 08:12

maybe its time to install mollom? :)

im looking forward to the theme. actually holding back the 5 to 6 upgrade untill i can get my hands on this one so i can see if going to ubercart will make my life easier.
what ive seen so far tells me that it will be :)

MrM

By MrM (not verified) | August 12, 2009 - 10:28

checked it out today and it is a nice concept!

http://drupal.org/project/acquia_prosper

its a bit raw yet, but im sure it will improve. gonna try a fresh install to see if that solves some of the issues i experienced with ie8 and opera..

MrM

By MrM (not verified) | August 21, 2009 - 07:30