Our most popular Joomla template to date is arguably Rational Magic and Dark Rational brings the same, no wait, more... features and enhancements making it our most flexible and sexy offering to date. Be warned though.... it's not called Dark Rational for nothing - it's a dark and incredibly shiny design to the end. Lovers of dark design will be in awe at first site (and who knows, maybe we can convert some of those non believers). ;)

The inspiration behind DarkRational

So, some of you may be wondering, why a dark version of Rational Magic? Well the answer is pretty simple...

It is no secret that I am a BIG fan of dark designs and when I was helping a customer with something in the forum, I noticed that in the header section of Rational Magic, where the vector landscape usually is, they had added a very nice image rotator on a dark background and it looked really slick. Tick tock, tick tock.... we had also just launched the superslider which would fit perfectly for my now ingrained vision for a dark version of this popular template. With the vision of a dark design fresh in memory, I set off to create a masterpiece that is soon to be revealed to the world. ;)

What's new in this version and what you will get?

Over the last few weeks, we have been working on some major updates to the Rational Magic framework and in particular a brand new menu system tightly integrated with Joomla's core menu which forms the base of Dark Rational. This includes a number of additions which are summarized below, but worthy of mention is, as you may notice at first look, the slick image rotator in the header, curtiosy of our new superslider module, perfect to add a image slideshow to your Joomla website. Lets not forget the 20+ ModFX styles that we have included for you to mix and match to your hearts content.

Here are some "new" things you will see in this template (plus all the goodness of Rational Magic)

• Based on new Rational Magic framework
• Includes our Brand new SuperDrop and Superfish menu tightly integrated with Joomla's core menu system
• Page class suffix feature for easily targeting elements on any page
• Komodomedia RSS Module
• Styling for superslider module for image slideshows
• Enhanced ModFX with loads more module suffix styles to choose from
• Enhanced SimpleContact module for displaying contact details to a module - not a super module yet... but will be when it's big!!

How to get notified when this template goes live!

There are a number of methods we use to notify the CMS and Joomla! community of a new release, each will depend on what you prefer. Below you will find a list of your top 4 ways of getting the news first - but it has to be said that the fastest way to be notified is to follow us on Twitter.

Joomlajunkie on Twitter: @joomlajunkies
Andrew (me) on Twitter: @pixelprodigy
RSS feed (via Feedburner): Joomlajunkie blog posts
Joomlajunkie newsletter: Sign up for newsletter here

When can you expect to see the light of Dark Rational you may ask?

As always, its hard to say due to the nature of our business, however we are progressing really well and the template will be released for first round testing very soon. Afterwhich it can take anything from 5 - 10 days, depending on how things go, but rest assured we are working like busy bees to get done.

While you're waiting for the template to be released - sign up for the Joomlajunkie template club