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 .

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’.
So, 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 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.jpg image in media directory for theme preview.

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

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.

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.png 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 : http://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 .
Now 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:

Now, Refresh your cache from admin->config ( ir required deply static content from command line as described above .)

Now , it will show new background color .

note :
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

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. http://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
[Package Name]\[Theme Name]/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.jpg is exist in

For example my default.xml file looks like below within body tag

That’s it initially it took long steps but just for the first time.
If you want to create another theme having some experience , it doesn’t take too much time .
Feel free to put below any comments ,I will try to reply soon .