Themes and template: dynamic or static?

[fatroy05]

Hi everybody

 

I am just moving the first steps in prestashop and have a question about template/themes.

 

I bought one and was shocked to see that it offers almost no support towards dynamic content.

 

Is this the way it usually works? Like i should buy a theme and in addition a module to grant me access to dynamic content to fill the menus/sliders?

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question.

 

Thanks.

[razaro]

Hi and welcome to forum.

 

It depends on theme you have bought. Some themes provide demo data, what you say dynamic  content, 

that allow you to make exact same appearance as demo.  But note all that content you will have to change

it just give easier way to follow theme design.  Also most of the themes have good documentation about

how to set each module.

[fatroy05]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

 

What i mean is, is it going to be possible to get a module integrated to get the actual data i need in the theme?

 

Right now even if the front office can effectively show a menu with brand images, categories list(each one on its own link) and brand names on the side i have to manully put in ALL this info in the backoffice for each category/brand. All of it consisting in static information(basically no access to database).

 

• Is it normal that a theme for prestashop that handles/creates such menus is sold without implementing a way to access actual data?

 

• Is it possible to get other modules for this purpose that will work together with the theme at least? Like instead of putting href = "static_category_link" in this theme backoffice i could put something like href="{$category[2]->link}"   ?

 

Because if i can't the theme is totally useless and i can't think of any e-commerce website that could get a real use out of it.

[razaro]

OK I did not understood question fully.

 

It depends on module but also note that static link can be just HTML but still that field is saved in database.

Some modules have option to choose category and it display link similar like you mention. Also some have options

to choose top category and then they display all subcategories dynamically. So you do not need to change links if you move from 

developer server to production.

 

So it does depends on module included, but you can use any other module instead but with some styling adjustments I guess.

 

Some modules offer back office demo so you can test but for themes that is rarely a practice. Though documentation is available in most cases.