I have been wondering how prepared Template Clubs such as Rocket Themes were for the imminent release of Joomla! 1.6 and had a discussion today with Andrew Eddie, Core Team Member at Joomla!

Here are key question and answers from the conversation on Linked in:

Q: re you anticipating that the 1.6 upgrade will also require new templates or will the 1.5 templates continue to work?

Andrew: Template upgrades are going to be interesting because the default styles are going to change. There will be like a legacy pack of layout overrides that we'll supply but I have no idea how reliable that's going to be. Any template that uses it's own layout overrides should be in a good position but we just don't know yet.

Q: I guess that subscribers to template providers such as "Rocket Themes" should also be in a good position, assuming they would provide new 1.6 versions of existing templates as soon as possible following the release of 1.6, similar to them previously offering both 1.0 and 1.5 versions of the same templates during the previous transition period? Would that be a fair assumption?

Andrew: I really don't know. I just hope we see the template clubs engaging in the process more. The response so far has been pretty quiet seeing as the default style and structure is going to be turned on it's head.

Q: How long do the template clubs have to get ready before the expected release date of 1.6? What's the latest expected timeframe?

Andrew: There's no known release date for 1.6 yet. My guess is (and it's just a guess), maybe Feb next year for stable?? They (Template Club Developers) should start getting involved by joining the CMS developer list and make sure they are following the threads concerning layout design. There are a few floating around.

Original article: http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticl ... ws_discuss