December and January are by tradition a time of looking back at what passed and looking ahead at what may come. We did the looking back a couple of weeks ago when we reviewed the '8+1 Reasons Why 2011 Was a Great Year for Joomla!'. That means it's now time to look ahead at what lies ahead for Joomla! in 2012.

Current state of affairs

Before we look ahead at what changes may come with regards to Joomla! templates in 2012, I think it's best to first have a look at what that current state of affairs is. Last year we've published a blog titled 'How Many Templates for Joomla! Are There?'. In that blog we analyzed several metrics such as the amount of available free Joomla! templates, commercial Joomla! templates and the distribution of these templates over each of the major Joomla! releases. In summary we found that in August of 2011 there was an estimated number of 4,726 free Joomla! templates and 3,402 commercial Joomla! templates (which gives a total of 8,128 templates) available on the internet. There was also a clear contrast between commercial and free templates in terms of their support for more recent Joomla! releases. It appeared that the commercial templates were leading with a big margin in terms of their support for Joomla! version beyond 1.5 (with 1.7 being the most recent release at that point of writing). (Image credits: ansik)

Another interesting article to read was the 'Top 10 Joomla! Templates for 2011' by Peter Bui. That article unveils some of the changes which are currently happening in the Joomla! template sphere:

• CSS3 styling
• Responsive designs
• Innovative use of typography
• Support for Joomla! > 1.5

Changes unrelated to Joomla!

Many of these changes are effectively unrelated to changes in the Joomla! sphere, but are instead driven by changes in the larger IT world.

Usage of CSS3

One of the changes is the improved support for CSS3 in web browsers. Now that even the latest release of Internet Explorer (with version 9 released on March 14, 2011) finally supports (some) CSS3 styling, developers are starting to use some of the awesome CSS3 features in their designs. With browsers increasing their support for CSS3 in every release - and over time more people upgrading to CSS3 compatible browsers - I suspect the usage of CSS3 in Joomla! templates will keep increasing in 2012. As long as that styling is applied in a way at which it doesn't harm the user experience of people using browsers that don't support CSS3 yet, I think that's a great development!

Responsive design

The usage numbers of smartphones and tablets is rising sharply in the last couple of years. This rise is even so sharp that the world's leading information technology research and advisory company Gartner predicted in 2010 that "by 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide". With so many screen resolutions to design for, a more suitable alternative started to emerge.

Ethan Marcotte who coined the phrase 'responsive web design' defined the concept as follows:

"Rather than tailoring disconnected designs to each of an ever-increasing number of web devices, we can treat them as facets of the same experience. We can design for an optimal viewing experience, but embed standards-based technologies into our designs to make them not only more flexible, but more adaptive to the media that renders them. In short, we need to practice responsive web design."

A responsive template for Joomla from JoomlaBamboo

This trend was picked up by several Joomla! template providers (and most notably by JoomlaBamboo) in 2011. Because it seems there is no end in sight to the ever rising numbers of smartphone and tablet users, it is only fair to assume that more people will feel the need for responsive Joomla! templates. As the laws supply and demand predict, this will mean that more template providers will start releasing responsive templates in 2012 as well.

Innovative use of typography

Another remarkable change (that was already upcoming in 2010, but has gained a lot of traction in 2011) is the innovative use of typography in Joomla! templates. This change can clearly be attributed to 'Hundreds of free, open-source fonts optimized for the web' or in other words: Google Web Fonts. Each of the fonts available in the directory can be added to your website with only a couple of lines of code and will be displayed correctly on a large majority of web browsers. Compare this to the era before Google Font in which you pretty much needed the web design equivalent of a degree in rocket science to display a non-standard font on a website, you can imagine why Google Font has supercharged the innovative usage of typography on the web. With new fonts added daily to Google Font and the support of web browsers increasing, it is very likely that in 2012 even more Joomla! templates than in 2011 will make innovative usage of typography.

Change related to Joomla!

But it's not only influences from the general IT world that are influencing the present and future of Joomla! template development. It's also the rapid changes happening within the Joomla! project that are changing the outlook Joomla! templates in 2012. Most of these changes will be caused by the new release schedule and most notably the upcoming release of Joomla! 2.5 in January.

Image credits: Jayneandd

Many templates will be upgraded

A common complaint voiced by many template developers after the release of Joomla! 1.6 and 1.7 was the short time these releases were supported. Converting their templates from Joomla! 1.0 or Joomla 1.5 to a later version would require quite some work, while at that point in time it wasn't even clear whether Joomla! 1.6/1.7 templates would be compatible with the Long Term Support release of Joomla! (version 2.5) that was upcoming. Now that Jean-Marie Simonet has stated that "It is expected that all extensions should work without changes for version 2.5." many template providers (even the less adventurous ones) will probably consider upgrading their templates to be compatible with the latest Joomla! version.

Separate the wheat from the chaff

On the other hand, the release of this new Long Term Support (LTS) version of Joomla! will also highlight which template providers are actively developing their products and which aren't. While the inactivity of the latter ones was 'masked' during the period at which only Short Term Support (STS) releases of Joomla! (1.6 and 1.7) were made, not supporting the LTS release Joomla! 2.5 will be a clear sign of inactivity for any template provider.

More template providers

With a more stable platform, currently in active development again (as shown by the various releases of Joomla!) more third party developers will likely be drawn (back) to Joomla!. I find it hard to judge whether this is a good or a bad thing for Joomla! users. While one could argue that it's great for them to have more choice, the already 8,000+ available templates will very likely already lead to choice paralysis and an increased number of templates will only worsen that problem. Add the fact that running a company in Joomla! template development is not exactly a simple thing to do, this new situation will likely result in many sub-optimal templates and template providers. Unfortunately the customers have very little ways to compare the template providers side-by-side, so pretty much has to trust its gut feeling in picking the right template provider and specific template for their project. Perhaps the (mythical) Joomla! Template Directory will change this after it has been released in early 2012?

If anyone has seen or heard anything significant of the JTD after this post please put those findings in the comments then.