Joomla 1.6+: template changes and updates
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- Created on Wednesday, 18 January 2012 00:03
In case you have not realized Joomla has made some major changes to the code base and template construction from version 1.5 to 1.6; for use web designers and coders this affects the way we construct the template and plugins that are installed into the site. I have learned the hard way that the TemplateDetails.xml file has to be updated, you have to be more precise with how you specify the folders and files that are going to be installed with the template zip file.
The other big change is that there is some PHP include that is required to make the template work. I have learned that this is important if you just do a straight port of the Joomla 1.5 template to Joomla 1.7 the template will not display some of the content. A simple JHTML tag was used to assign the display position of the content, and that's it.
<jdoc:include type="modules" name="bm-topquote" style="none" />
This is what you have to do now, there is some PHP include that is now used with the JHTML code; this helps the template read the new changes to the Joomla 1.7 CMS system.
<?php if($this->countModules('bm-topquote')) : ?>
<jdoc:include type="modules" name="bm-topquote" style="none" />
<?php endif; ?>The changes are not big but it took me time to figure out what has changed. The other effect that all the changes have on the Joomla 1.5 install is that you have to update the plugins, this is fine if the developer of the plugin has updated the code base. If there is no 1.7 compatible plugin available, you will have to locate a new plugin for your content and do the work of porting over the information to the new module.
Right now I am having to reconfigure the website to fit the new version of Joomla.
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