I am very new to VM and still a beginner with Joomla. I have an existing site built with Joomla and want to add a 'store' to it. I have installed VM there and configured a menu item to link to it. Everything works, but ... I have a 'theme' for my site and VM inherits it - and it doesn't look good.
Can VM have its own theme? Or should I (can I?) make a new site in a sub-domain with a separate Joomla+Virtuemart installation?
If there is a sub-forum more appropriate, please let me know so I can move there. Thanks.
You can assign a different Joomla template (which you refer to as a theme) to the VM parts of a single website by using menu switching, where menu links are assigned within the template to VM pages. See https://docs.joomla.org/J3.x:Switching_templates
Alternatively you could use css and template overrides to style the default template files to suit and work with your existing Joomla template
Thanks very much! I'll look into the switching solution. As for your alternative, I know nearly nothing about CSS and, since this is a one-shot development for me, I don't want to have to learn too much that I won't ever use again.
In fact, for either case, I'm wondering if I should just buy a theme/template, if I can find something appropriate in the dozens of suppliers.
If you want a reliable template that is designed for VirtueMart and "normal" Joomla content without all the bloat that you get from many template developers, check out http://olympianthemes.com - the developer of these works with the VM development team so you can be assured of compatibility. Unfortunately too many templates are overloaded with bells & whistles to make them look good and exciting, but in use are very difficult to set up and even more difficult to update when necessary.
You say this is a one-off development, but do remember that you must regularly update Joomla, VirtueMart and any other elements used to maintain site security.