andreasviklund.com

One of the most common questions I get is "Why is template (x) not working with CMS (y)?". The answer is simple: The website templates templates contain no CMS-specific code, so they will not work with any CMS by default. You need to add the proper CMS functions to get the template to work with your choice of CMS, or find ported templates or themes that have already been customized to work with the CMS you want to use. Like the WordPress themes, which I have customized to work with WordPress.

Porting is done in different ways for different systems, and it is nothing I can do for you since I don't know how all the different systems work. To learn more about it, look for documentation on the website of your CMS (like the Codex for WordPress), or learn from templates and themes that are already available.

If you want to start with a simple and easy-to-learn CMS, then you should check out sNews. It usually only takes a few minutes to turn a website template into a dynamic CMS-based site. Here is a quick guide on how to use a website template with sNews. There is also good documentation to read on the sNews website, and a forum where you can find many tips and tricks. And not to forget, the beautiful free templates by Luka, which I recommend everyone to check out.

Rick Blalock of Beauty in Design has released another Joomla port: andreas02. It is the second release (the first one was andreas07), and more Joomla templates will be released as they are ported. Keep an eye on BiD's free Joomla templates page for future releases.

I would like to return a link to this new site, a simple but really useful link resource if you are looking for free website templates. I found the site in the referrer list in my site statistics, and it was a nice surprise. I really like the way that the logotypes are used, and the fact that there are no ads on the site. Unfortunately, the layout breaks in IE7, but that will probably be fixed soon…

I hope that OpenWebDesign.org will be added to the list as well, that would make the site even better. Go check it out!

New port: Andreas01 for b2evolution, ported by Danny Ferguson!

It is made from the oldest version of the template (v1.0) so the CSS has a few traps and minor errors. For example, the menu buttons break if the button text is too long. If you experience any problems like that, you can look for fixes in version 2.0 of the original template.

You can preview the skin live on the official evoskin site. For more info about b2evo, see b2evolution.net.

Just a little sign of life, here are some template-related links that may be worth checking out:

Blogger/Blogspot templates by Gecko and Fly
A site where you can find a large number of nice Blogger/Blogspot ports, including several based on my free website templates. What I really like with these ports is that many of them are modified, fooled around with and improved in different ways. For example, check out this lovely 3-column remix of andreas07.

Website Baker themes by Peter Mathijssen
Another collection of themes, but this time they are customized for the Website Baker CMS. Several themes are based on my templates, although Peter's ports are more faithful to the original designs. You can also find designs by other great template designers, such as Jenna, Pat and Luka. Well worth a visit, and a must-see for Website Baker users.

sNews.ca - An sNews portal site by Doug Brydges
sNews is a small and simplistic content management system by Solucija. It is lovely to work with, since it has a lot of very useful features for such a lightweight system. sNews.ca is a site dedicated to help people get started with sNews, and even though it was launched very recently it has a lot of useful material. The site is based on a modified version of my andreas04 template, and you can actually download a pre-configured version of sNews 1.4 with the customized design used as the default template!