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I love checklists. And goals. But even more than both, I love checking off goals on my checklist.

One of this month's goals was to release the WhiteSpace 2.0 template. So as I check off this goal on my list, let me introduce you to some of the new things found in the WhiteSpace 2 template.

I got some really good feedback on the 1.0 version of the template. I got a few really good ideas from people; some made it in and some didn't.  I even had a few ideas that didn't make it in.  A good number of ideas came from the book Beginning Joomla! Web Site Development by Cory Webb. He's got a chapter in there (Chapter 8, to be specific) that had a lot of great ideas of things to stick in templates, so thank Cory by going and picking up his book.

Here's a rundown of some of the things that are new w/ this template:

Logo Parameters

Probably the coolest feature for the general Joomla user will be the new logo options in the Template Parameters. In WhiteSpace v1, you were on your own to change out the header logo. Now, you can choose to use either an image or some text in the logo spot.

If you navigate to 'Extensions' > 'Template Manager' > 'WhiteSpace', you'll see the parameters available for changing. The "Logo type" parameter will determine whether an image is used or whether text is used (the options are "Image" or "Text"). If you choose "Text", then the template will use the text entered into the "Logo text" parameter field. Pretty cool, huh?

Of course, if you wanted to use an image, upload a new image here:

/templates/whitespace/images/logo.png

Overrides

As promised, I threw a few overrides into the mix as well:

• com_contact
• com_content
• com_weblinks
• mod_breadcrumbs

There were quite a few more that I wanted to squeeze in but ran out of time.  You know how that goes. For you developers out there, here are a few other things I included:

•  A component.php file
• A tag (how did I forget that the first time around?)
• A prettier offline.php file
• A prettier, though incomplete, error.php file

One thing you'll notice that's missing is the dropdown menu. Believe me when I say that I tried to implement a quick CSS dropdown menu system, but hit more bugs than I had time to squash. That will have to wait for the next version.

This template has a boatload of module positions making it pretty flexible. Here's a guide for you:

Drop me a note if you're able to put WhiteSpace v2 to good use.  Feel free also to leave feedback here if you have suggestions for future releases. If you have trouble, I'll do my best to help out, but the template is released pretty much as-is. 

Download the WhiteSpace v2 template.

Cheers.