Complete Magento2 Theme Development ( HTML to Magento2 Theme )

Magento 2.0 Has a different theme structure than Magento 1.x. Like Magento Module ,Magento 2.0 it must have a Namespace/Vendor name to create a theme. You can also download this magento 2 theme for learning purpose from here . I am Pawan Kumar an experinced freelancer website developer and designer working since 2009. Today we will create magento2 theme from scratch. Lets take a look app/design/frontend in the folder we will find a folder Name Magento which is the vendor name. Now we will create our theme in our Vendor Name. Lets create a directory name 'United' which is our vendor name under 'app/design/frontend'. under the 'United' directory create the theme that you want . lets create our theme name 'mytheme'.

create Magento Theme

We will create our theme 'mytheme' under 'United' directory. Under 'mytheme' directory we will create

So, our theme folder structure will same as following.

Lets describe the theme structure. If you see the root directory there is no 'skin' folder. so the web directory will work as 'skin' where we will place css,js,images folders. lets open the theme.xml and add the following code

Lets describe the code . 'title' tag is the title of our new theme and the parent them will play as base them in magento 1.x. Our parents theme located under vendor/magento/theme-frontend-blank. The new feature of Magento 2.0 is we can use any theme as our parents theme. after complete the theme mytheme we can create our another them mytheme2 using mytheme as a parents. add a preview.webp image in media directory for theme preview.

composer.json

Now in the composer.json file we will add the following code.

registration.php

Now in the registration.php file we will add the following code.

This will register your theme in the system. so the theme.xml and registration.php will be the main file of your theme. In etc forder you can add a view.xml Copy form vendor/magento/theme-frontend-blank/etc folder Product image sizes and other properties used on the storefront are configured in a view.xml configuration file. It is required for a theme, but is optional if exists in the parent theme.

create 'images' folder

Now create 'images' folder inside 'web' folder Example: /app/design/frontend/United/mytheme/web/images/ In the Magento application, the default format and name of a logo image is logo.svg. When you put a logo.svg image in the conventional location, which is /web/images directory, it is automatically recognized as theme logo. It is displayed in your store page header once the theme is applied. In your custom theme, you can use a logo file with a different name and format, but you might need to declare it. Declaring theme logo To declare a theme logo, add an extending /Magento_Theme/layout/default.xml layout. For example, if your logo file is logo.webp sized 300x300px, you need to declare it as follows:

Declaring the logo size is optional.

Clear the cache from magneto admin panel. Then From Content->Configuration-> Edit 'Default Store View'   Select it from dropdown and save the settings. If any issue with static content deply , follow below steps

Command to deploy static files :

php -f magento setup:static-content:deploy note : right click /bin then select 'Open command window here' , before using command ,you must have already installed composer in your system. If you have not installed composer ,download from here https://getcomposer.org/Composer-Setup.exe (for windows) Now you are with your new theme mytheme !!!!.

Add our custom css file

(ref. include css : https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.0/frontend-dev-guide/css-topics/css-themes.html) Copy folder 'Magento_Theme' from 'vendor\magento\theme-frontend-blank\' to your theme folder example path :app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\Magento_Theme Remove 'web' folder from 'Magento_Theme' folder .

Open 'default_head_blocks.xml'

found under app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\Magento_Theme\layout and add below code to

section So after adding it looks like

Now, Create 'css' folder inside \app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\web

After create a file 'customtheme.css' in the 'css' folder example path :\app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\web\css\customtheme.css then put required css ex:

Refresh your cache from admin->config

( it is required to deploy static content from command line as described above .) Now , it will show new background color . note :

Edit your css

If you want to edit your css example inside \app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\web\css\customtheme.css, Magento load css from deployed contents resides under pub\static\frontend\\en_US\css\ So, first make changes in this deployed folder then after finalizing it copy this css to original theme location's css (under app/design/frontend/)

Understand how magento templates,layout loads

1st default template file is vendor\magento\module-theme\view\base\templates\root.phtml magento 2 builds html structure from xml files next important file to build page-wrapper, columns is vendor\magento\module-theme\view\base\page_layout\empty.xml Then it loads files from below folder according to page request vendor\magento\module-theme\view\frontend\page_layout

Customizing layout for our theme

Copy folder 'page_layout' from vendor\magento\module-theme\view\frontend to app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\Magento_Theme

Add our own div with class or id

Now, if you need to add our own div with class or id ,we have to declare inside files as container or block inside app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\Magento_Theme\layout or app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\Magento_Theme\page_layout example inside these files :

ref. https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.0/frontend-dev-guide/layouts/layout-extend.html ( Note : you must clear your cache , put some block inside containers from admin Content->widget . Consider if you editing previously created widget ,it does not work because it created for another theme . So do create new widget by selecting our current theme . ) customize global containers/blocks of our theme inside default.xml located under app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\Magento_Theme\layout\ create global container (for all pages ) ex:

So, files looks quite similar below

HTML to Magento Theme

• Copy your css files code to the file created in previous step i.e customtheme.css in our example inside app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\web\css
• Copy your HTML template's images to app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\web\images
• Start customizing files located under app\design\frontend\United\mytheme\Magento_Theme according to our HTML's template div, class requirements . Here we have to add,alter containers or blocks in these files . Explained in above steps of 'Customizing layout for our theme' .

Hide some block

You can hide some block given by magento ex:

Move block from one container to another

Sometimes we need to move from one container to another ,So follow below ex:

To call a custom phtml file (in xml layout , CMS block , phtml file )

In xml layout file

If block called in another block as shown below

then you have to call it in header.phtml file ex:

In cms blocks and cms pages

In a phtml file

or

In above all conditions test.phtml should located in path /Magento_Theme/templates/html/test.phtml

Call Magento CMS block (of admin blocks) to phtml file

Above 'homepage-banner' is the block 'identifies' name .

Call Magento inbuilt blocks

Put below in default.xml layout file ex:

Then call below in footer.phtml

note : check our magento themes for reference

Add a static image on PHTML file and CMS Blocks

in phtml file

in CMS block

You have to take care for header_r_banner.webp is exist in