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Acceler8 Changelog

  • Version 6.2.0.3

    Footer custom code. Code entered in the template's "Insert code into template footer" box was saved but never added to the page. It is now printed just before the closing </body> tag.

    Module hover colour. The hover background of the style 1 modules printed the colour setting followed by a fixed #84bc0b, which made the whole value invalid, so the setting was ignored. It applies now.

    Login form. The username box was narrower than the password field beside it; every field now takes the full row. The username and password fields are the same height.

    Second phone menu. The second phone menu button repeated the main menu; it now shows the site's Main Menu, with all its levels, on every page.

    Phone header. The phone menu script is updated to the current version: opening a phone panel no longer dims the logo and menu buttons, and tapping outside an open panel closes it.

    Phone spacing. On phones the contact page heading started 32px in (two paddings stacked); it now lines up with the text at 20px.

    Footer positions. The template tested its two footer positions with a Joomla 3 expression that Joomla 4 and later read as a single position name, so the test always failed; it now checks each position.

    Print view on phones. The print view had no mobile viewport, so on a phone it showed a shrunken desktop page; it now fits the screen.

    Error page. An error caused by a missing item no longer prints the server's file paths.

    Defaults for a fresh install. The site name / logo now links to the home page and the slideshow is switched on with autoplay (logoLinked, cam_turnOn, cam_autoAdvance default to on). Existing sites keep their saved settings.

    Quickstart. The search box returned No Results for everything (the search index was empty); it is built. The sample Atomic, Beez 20 and Beez 5 category pages showed broken thumbnails of Joomla 3 templates; the broken images are removed. A leftover backup table is removed from the database.

    K2 leftovers removed. The template still carried files and styles for K2, which is not part of the Joomla 5/6 template: the K2 Content module slider layout (html/mod_k2_content), css/k2.css and css/k2.print.css, K2 selectors in the colour presets and the template's own colour rules, and the K2 Items Slider styles in css/template.css. They are removed. The Slider Pagination colour option keeps working (it colours the product slider) and simply loses "K2" from its name.

    Shared stylesheet. The template's Bootstrap compatibility stylesheet is updated to the current version used across our templates. Your own template settings are not changed.

    Removed. 12 JavaScript and CSS files nothing loads (169 KB); 28 template options nothing read (old drop-down menu effect settings, the RSS switch the social links no longer use, and camera-slideshow settings the template's current slideshow never used); a reference to a module style the template does not have (login pop-up); stylesheet references to images that do not exist, and links to stylesheets that do not exist.

    Version 6.2.0.2

    Login fields on phones. The username and password fields were smaller than 16px on phones, so an iPhone zoomed the page in when one was tapped and did not zoom back out. Login, registration, profile and password-reset fields are now 16px on phones.

    Print view and pop-ups. The print view and pop-up windows loaded js/jquery-1.8.1.min.js and js/jquery.noConflict.js, which are no longer in the template. They now load Joomla's own jQuery.

    Template Options screen. The icons on the template's Options screen came from Font Awesome 4.6.3 on MaxCDN, which no longer serves it, so they were missing. They now load Font Awesome 6.5.2 with its version 4 name shims from cdnjs.

    Version 6.2.0.1

    Security. The template's menu layouts printed a menu item's note and link exactly as entered, so markup typed into a menu item's Note or Link field reached the page. Both are now escaped, as Joomla's own menu layouts do.

    Colours with transparency. A colour chosen with the colour picker's opacity slider (saved as an 8-digit colour such as #rrggbbaa) was replaced with black. Colours with transparency are now used as chosen.

    Version 6.2.0

    Joomla 6.2.0. The Quickstart now installs Joomla 6.2.0 (Joomla 6.2.0 release notes), and the template version is now 6.2.0 to match.

    Error pages. "Page not found" and "access denied" pages now show inside the template, with its header, menus and footer, and fit a phone screen.

    Quickstart. A fresh install no longer lists stale update notices.

    Version 6.1.4.1

    Quickstart fix. The Quickstart no longer fails to install on MySQL hosts with a "prepared statement protocol" error. Thanks to Iryna for reporting this. The template itself is unchanged apart from its version number.

    Quickstart. Removed leftover files from the quickstart's top folder.

    Version 6.1.4

    Joomla 6.1.4. The Quickstart now installs Joomla 6.1.4, a security and bug-fix release (Joomla 6.1.4 release notes), and the template version is now 6.1.4 to match. There are no visual changes. Installing the template update does not update Joomla itself; update Joomla from System → Update → Joomla.

    Version 6.1.3.7

    Fix. After the previous security update, print and email views, popup windows and the VirtueMart checkout step (pages served with tmpl=component) could return an error page. The template's component.php now defines the escaping helper it uses. There are no visual changes. Please update if you installed the previous version.

    Version 6.1.3.6

    Security update. Module, menu and tab titles are now escaped wherever the template writes them into your pages (module headings, title attributes and the mega menu), so a title containing a quote or markup can no longer break out of its place in the page. There are no visual changes. Recommended for all sites.

    Version 6.1.3.5

    Security update and colour fix. The site name and slogan are now escaped where the template writes them into image alt text. This release also restores colour settings (such as the cookie notice background and caption or menu backgrounds) that the previous update rendered as black. Recommended for all sites, especially those that installed the previous version.

    Version 6.1.3.4

    Security update. Every template setting that is written into your pages is now escaped for the place it lands in (HTML, attributes, CSS and JavaScript), so a setting value can no longer break out of its context. The error page now escapes its message and title too. There are no visual changes. Recommended for all sites.

    Version 6.1.3.3

    Fixed a problem where a large logo could fill the whole screen on phones. The stylesheet that keeps this template working with current Joomla was letting the header logo draw at its own full size on small screens instead of scaling it down to fit the space, so a logo wider than the phone screen — common, since logos are usually exported at 1500 pixels or more to stay sharp — pushed the header out and showed visitors a giant close-up of one or two letters instead of the site. Logos now scale down to fit on every screen size, and a logo already small enough to fit is displayed exactly as before. Update the template to pick this up; if you built your site from the Quick Start, a rebuilt one is on your downloads page.

    Version 6.1.3.2

    Maintenance release.

    • Updated the Bootstrap 2→5 compatibility stylesheet to the current version, bringing this template in line with the rest of the range.

    Both the template package and the Quick Start have been rebuilt for this release. Download the latest from your member area.

    Version 6.1.3.1

    Please update if you downloaded Acceler8 on 18 or 19 August 2026. The 6.1.3 package went out with a copy of our shared Bootstrap 2 to Bootstrap 5 compatibility stylesheet that was a week out of date, and with the older mobile-header script. Its release notes described fixes that were not actually inside the file you received. 6.1.3.1 is that same release with the correct files in it. Nothing you have configured changes; install it over the top as usual.

    This is a packaging correction plus a substantial catch-up of the shared stylesheet. Acceler8 goes from 85 to 106 layout-guard blocks, covering everything found across our template range between 11 and 19 August. Every item below was measured on a rendered page, not inferred from a file.

    Fixed

    • The log-in dialog's close button was a solid coloured block sitting on top of the "Login Form" heading. The Bootstrap 5 close control draws its × from Bootstrap 5's own stylesheet, which these templates deliberately do not ship — so it painted an empty box with no cross in it. The dialog now closes from a proper ×, and the button no longer covers the title.
    • The drop-down arrow beside the "Log in" button submitted the form with an empty password. Tapping it destroyed the dialog and dropped you on a page reading "Warning — Empty password not allowed." The control was a leftover from Bootstrap 2: nothing in a modern Joomla listens to it, and because it carried no button type it counted as a second submit button. It is now hidden, and the three links it was hiding — forgotten password, forgotten username and create an account — are shown as plain links in the dialog where they can actually be reached.
    • Joomla 6's passkey button drew an enormous black graphic across the log-in page. The "Sign in with a passkey" icon is supplied by Joomla as a drawing with no size of its own, and no template in this generation sizes one, so it expanded to fill whatever space it could find. It is now capped to a normal icon and takes the button's own colour.
    • The article information line ran off the side of the page. Written by, parent category, category, published, created, last updated and hits were laid out on one line that was not allowed to wrap, so on a phone the later items simply ran past the edge of the screen — and that was the whole of the page's sideways scroll. The line now wraps.
    • Icon buttons in the phone header could be completely invisible. Where the template's own stylesheets set a white icon colour, the icon landed on a white button and disappeared — the button was there, sized and tappable, and painted nothing. Icon colour is now decided by the button's own background rather than inherited, so account, search, social and menu icons are always readable.
    • The phone header icon row was unevenly spaced and clipped at both ends. Two spacing systems were fighting; the row now uses one, and the whole set fits and centres on a 375 px screen.
    • Pages could be scrolled sideways at tablet widths even though nothing visible overflowed. The drop-down menu panels are parked out of sight above the page, but only vertically — horizontally they still sat inside it and still counted towards the page's width. They are now parked out of the way in both directions. Measured on sibling templates as up to 230 px of phantom width at 768 px.
    • The controls at the top right of the desktop header were five different sizes on five different midlines. Register, account and search now share one box, one icon size and one baseline.
    • The legacy search field collapsed and cut off its own submit button. Bootstrap 5 measures boxes differently from Bootstrap 2, so a field sized the old way lost its padding out of its declared height and the row it sets was no longer tall enough to hold the button.
    • A navigation bar containing a floated item no longer pushes the next row of content sideways. Bootstrap 2 shipped a clear-fix on navigation lists that Bootstrap 5 dropped; without it the row below snagged on the menu and lost a column.
    • Breadcrumbs could run off the right edge on interior pages at 1024 and 768 px. The row holding them resolved to zero width, so the links had nothing to wrap inside.
    • Old-style grid rows on category and blog pages no longer collapse. Rows whose children are all floated took no height at all, so the row's own background painted as a thin sliver and whatever followed rode up into it.
    • The "+" expanders in the phone menu drawer had unreadable text. They took white text on whatever colour the template supplied, which on several templates in the range measured below 3:1. They now take a colour derived from their own background.
    • Registration and account fields were unusably narrow on a phone. Several were about a third of the screen wide with the rest of the width empty beside them, because they were sized for a two-column desktop layout that no longer applies once the form stacks. They now use the full width.
    • Social icons cloned into the phone social panel no longer bring the template's own positioning with them. On some templates that dragged every icon out of the panel it had just been put in, so the panel opened empty.
    • Tooltips, popovers, mobile menu and drop-down behaviour, phone header spacing, non-responsive page bands and full-height column panels all pick up further guards added across the range in this period.

    Changed

    • The compatibility stylesheet is now loaded after every other template stylesheet. It was previously registered through Joomla's document head, which placed it above the template's own hard-coded stylesheet links — so a large number of its corrections silently lost to the template's original rules and never took effect. This is the single change most likely to alter what you see, and it is the reason several fixes listed in earlier releases were not visible.
    • The mobile header and menu script is now the shared build used across the whole range (js/cs-mobile-generic.js, replacing js/cs-mobile.js). Behaviour is the same; the template now receives improvements to the phone header at the same time as every other template we publish.
    • The Bootstrap 2 to Bootstrap 5 compatibility stylesheet moves from the 11 August build to the 19 August build — 85 guard blocks to 106.

    Unchanged

    • The Quick Start still installs Joomla 6.1.3. Nothing in the sample site, its content or its extensions changed in this release — but the Quick Start has been rebuilt so that a new site started from it gets the corrected template files rather than the 18 August ones.
    • No template setting, colour parameter, module position or override changed. This release only replaces the compatibility stylesheet, the mobile script and the stylesheet load order in index.php.

    Most of the items above were found by walking rendered pages on other templates in our range during August — Encore, Energize, Oxygen, Vision, Progressive, Crystal, Impulsa and Diversity — and applied here preventatively as well as where they were measured on Acceler8 itself.

    Version 6.1.3

    Acceler8 6.1.3 is a maintenance release. It renumbers the template to match the Joomla version it is built and tested against, refreshes the Quick Start onto the current Joomla release, and brings the Bootstrap compatibility stylesheet up to the current shared build. There are no changes you need to make after updating — your settings, colours and menu choices carry over.

    Version numbering

    • The template version now matches the Joomla version it ships against. Acceler8 6.1.3 is the build for Joomla 6.1.3. The previous release of this template was numbered 6.1.2.3. This is a numbering change only — Joomla still treats 6.1.3 as newer than 6.1.2.3, so the update comparison in your Extensions Manager behaves normally, and nothing about how you install or update the template changes. We are applying the same convention across the whole template range so that the number on the download tells you at a glance which Joomla release it was tested against.

    Quick Start

    • The Quick Start package now installs Joomla 6.1.3. The previous Quick Start bundled Joomla 6.1.2. If you are building a new site from the Quick Start you now get the current Joomla release straight away, instead of installing and then immediately having to run a core update.
    • The Quick Start is a standard Joomla installation package — upload it, extract it, and run the normal Joomla installer in your browser. Akeeba Kickstart is not needed.

    Bootstrap 2 to Bootstrap 5 compatibility stylesheet

    • Brought up to the current shared build, adding twenty-five further layout guards since 6.1.2.3. These were found and fixed on other templates in our range during August, and are included here as a preventative update so that Acceler8 is protected against the same classes of problem rather than waiting for one of them to surface on your site. The areas covered are: drop-down menu behaviour and flow; mobile header layout, ordering and spacing; slideshow controls on touch screens, which are revealed on hover and so were unreachable by tap; social icon rendering where a template's own image sprite competed with the Font Awesome 6 glyphs that replaced it; tooltips and popovers becoming visible on the page before they were triggered; page bands that pin themselves to a fixed desktop width and so scroll sideways on a phone; grid children that lost their block display; and full-height column panels that clipped the content they were meant to wrap.

    What is not in this release

    • No template file other than the Bootstrap compatibility stylesheet changed between 6.1.2.3 and 6.1.3. Everything shipped in the 6.1.2.x line — the Joomla 6 native rebuild, the removal of the JavaScript errors that fired on every page load, the jQuery compatibility layer that keeps the slideshow and parallax bands working, the log-in dialog that now opens fully visible, the mobile overflow and drawer fixes, and the drop-down menu positioning corrections — is carried forward unchanged in this package.
    • Known limitation, unchanged and disclosed: the template still loads jQuery and a number of carried-forward jQuery plug-ins. These are dependencies the template genuinely uses, not dead code, and removing them is a larger piece of work than a maintenance release should carry.

    With thanks to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to the maintenance pass across our templates that several of these compatibility-stylesheet guards came out of.

    Version 6.1.2.3

    • Drop-down menus no longer appear open before you hover them. On some templates every sub-menu was drawn on the page from the moment it loaded. They are hidden again until you move the mouse over the menu.
    • Drop-downs sit directly beneath the menu they open from. They previously appeared a short distance below, and moving the mouse across that space closed the menu before you arrived. Sub-menus that open to the side are likewise flush against the column they come from.

    Version 6.1.2.2

    • Drop-down menus now sit directly beneath the menu they open from. They previously appeared a short distance below, and moving the mouse across that space closed the menu before you arrived. Sub-menus that open to the side are likewise flush against the column they come from.

    Version 6.1.2.1

    Maintenance release. This update is recommended for all users — it removes JavaScript errors that could stop other features on the page from working, and improves the template's behaviour on phones.

    • Fixed a JavaScript error that occurred on every page. A call to a jQuery feature removed in the version Joomla 6 ships was failing and preventing later scripts on the page from running.
    • Removed leftover calls to jQuery plugins that are no longer bundled. A call to a missing plugin stops every remaining script in the same block from running, so this can affect features that look unrelated.
    • Added a small compatibility layer for three jQuery methods that were removed before the version Joomla 6 ships, so slideshow controls and parallax backgrounds keep working.
    • Updated the Bootstrap 2 to Bootstrap 5 compatibility stylesheet to the current build.
    • The log-in dialog now always opens fully visible. Previously it could open with the page dimmed behind it but the dialog itself invisible.
    • Pages no longer scroll sideways on a phone, and the mobile menu, search and social panels are now sized to the screen rather than to the full page width.

    Version 6.1.2

    First Joomla 6 native release, and Acceler8’s first release under Cybersalt. Acceler8 has been brought forward from the previous download (04.11.2025 6.0.0) to Joomla 6.1.2. This release carries two passes at once: a Joomla 5 modernisation finished in July that was never published on its own, and the Joomla 6 work finished this week. Acceler8 keeps its own Bootstrap 2 layout classes and renders on Joomla’s Bootstrap 5 through a new compatibility stylesheet, so existing module and article markup keeps its layout. The release fixes the template on Joomla 6’s default settings, where every page except the home page returned an error. It adds a full phone layout, a new slideshow engine, a colour picker for every colour setting, Joomla’s native on/off switches, a favicon tool and current social networks, and makes the template’s own error page live. Every Joomla 3 API call has been replaced, the bundled Bootstrap 2, jQuery 1.x, camera, Superfish, Supersubs, Backstretch, DropKick, Selectnav and Internet Explorer files are gone, and setting values written into the page go through new escaping helpers. Across the template, 13 files were added, 40 removed and 10 modified (244 → 217 files). Your existing settings, colours and menu choices carry over. The template version now matches the Joomla version it ships with.

    Added

    Bootstrap 5 compatibility layer

    • New css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css (47 CS-PATCH blocks), loaded on every page with a file-time version marker. It maps Acceler8’s Bootstrap 2 grid (.row-fluid, .spanN, offsets, column stacking on phones), the hidden-phone / visible-phone utilities, collapse, tabs and the dialog shell onto Joomla’s Bootstrap 5, and keeps the page at the original 1170 px width on wide screens.
    • Bootstrap 2 rows used as plain wrappers keep their old layout under Bootstrap 5 (CS-PATCH: orphan-row-block), so the logo, menu, search and social links stay on one header bar.
    • Joomla’s own icon classes (icon-eye, icon-angle-left / -right / -double-left / -double-right and others) are mapped to Font Awesome glyphs (CS-PATCH: joomla-icon-classes-to-fa6). The password eye takes the button’s own text colour (CS-PATCH: icon-eye-currentcolor), so it shows on a white button as well as a coloured one.
    • A guard for Joomla’s featured-articles view (.blog-featured), so a single-column featured intro is not clipped to its title.
    • The Bootstrap 2 Glyphicons sprite, which Joomla no longer ships, is switched off (CS-PATCH: kill-bs2-glyphicons-sprite).

    Phone layout

    • New js/cs-mobile.js: at 767 px and below Acceler8 gets a 56×56 px menu button in the logo row that opens a slide-in menu drawer built from the site’s real nested menu, with + buttons to open each sub-menu.
    • One centred toolbar row inside the fixed header, under the logo: Section menu (the page’s sidebar menu, or the main menu’s top level where a page has none, with its sub-menus), Log in, Register, Search and Follow us (the social links, laid out in a row).
    • The phone search panel is full width and has a real Search button.
    • Open panels close when you tap the shaded area behind them, press Escape, or widen the window past phone size.
    • The logo sits centred in the phone header, and the page content starts below the fixed header.
    • All of this is hidden at 768 px and wider; the desktop layout is unchanged.

    New slideshow engine

    • The built-in slideshow now runs on Swiper 11.2.10, shipped in js/vendor/swiper/ (swiper-bundle.min.js, swiper-bundle.min.css), with its styling in the new css/slideshow.css. It replaces the unmaintained camera.js.
    • Slides cross-fade and loop. Your existing settings drive it: auto-advance (cam_autoAdvance), the slide time (cam_time), the transition time (cam_transPeriod), pause on hover (cam_hover), pagination dots (cam_pagination), previous/next arrows (cam_navigation) and pause on click (cam_pauseOnClick).
    • The slideshow keeps the height set by cam_height (a percentage of its width, as before) and cam_minHeight.

    Own error page

    • The previous download shipped its error page as error_.php, a name Joomla never uses, so visitors got Joomla’s plain system error page. It is now error.php and in use: “page not found” and other errors show the error code and message, a list of likely causes and a link back to the home page, styled with the template’s reset.css, text.css, typography.css and presets/style-error.css.

    Colour picker

    • New custom field fields/colorpicker.php with the bundled Coloris picker (js/coloris.min.js, css/coloris.min.css, js/coloris.LICENSE.txt). All 60 colour settings (e.g. sitenamecolor, slogancolor, color1, cam_loaderColor) changed from text to colorpicker, with a live swatch, transparency support and a picker that ships with the template.
    • New fields/adminui.php: a hidden field that styles the Options screen, so the Favicon tab’s help text runs across the top of the tab.
    • The template’s Details panel follows Joomla’s dark admin theme (background and text both switch), so it stays readable in dark mode.

    Favicon tool

    • New Favicon tab (fieldset faviconsettings) with a media field (favicon) and a crop tool (fields/favicontool.php): pick any image, drag a square over the part you want, and click Create Favicon. With thanks to Gianluca, whose favicon question inspired this tool.
    • index.php builds the full set through two new helpers, phFaviconSet() and phIcoBytes(): a real favicon.ico (16, 32 and 48 px), 32, 192 and 512 px PNGs and a 180 px Apple touch icon, linked automatically. With no image chosen, the template’s own favicon.ico is used.
    • 10 new language strings in en-GB.tpl_acceler8.ini (68 → 78), e.g. TPL_ACCELER8_FAVICON_TAB, TPL_ACCELER8_FAVICON_LABEL, TPL_ACCELER8_FAVICONTOOL_CREATE.

    Modern social network support

    • Five new social services, each with a URL field and an on/off switch: Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok, Discord (fields threads/threadsON … discord/discordON).
    • Twitter is now X: the twitter field is labelled “X (formerly Twitter)” and shows the X logo.
    • The header’s social links now cover 13 services (X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Discord, Vimeo, RSS). Each is a Font Awesome 6 glyph (fa-brands, fa-solid fa-rss) instead of a per-network PNG image, has a screen-reader label, and opens with rel="noopener".

    Fonts and icons

    • The front end loads Font Awesome 6.5.2 (all.min.css) with v4-shims.min.css from cdnjs.cloudflare.com, replacing Font Awesome 4.6.3 from the shut-down MaxCDN. The shims keep the template’s existing fa fa-* markup working.

    Security helpers

    • Three new helper functions at the top of index.php: phEsc() (HTML escaping), phHexColor() (colour values, falls back to #000000) and phCssDim() (sizes, accepting px, em, rem, %, vh, vw and other units). Details under Security.

    Changed

    Joomla 6 platform

    • Built for Joomla 6.1.2. templateDetails.xml now declares <extension version="6.1"> (was 3.10) and <targetplatform name="joomla" version="6.1" />, and drops the Joomla 2.5 DOCTYPE.
    • templateDetails.xml version 04.11.2025 6.0.0 → 6.1.2, creation date 03/03/2015 → 2026-07-07; the version shown on the Options screen (6.1.2 (2026-08-08)) matches. method="upgrade" kept, so an existing install updates in place.
    • The template renders on Joomla’s bundled Bootstrap 5 (/media/vendor/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css) through css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css, instead of its own Bootstrap 2 copy in css/bootstrap/.

    J3 → J4+ API migration

    • All 36 Joomla 3 static calls removed (JFactory → Factory, JText → Text, JHtml → HTMLHelper, JRoute → Route, JError::raiseWarning() → new \Exception()). These aliases exist only while Joomla’s Behaviour – Backward Compatibility plugin has its class aliases switched on, which Joomla 6 does not do by default. Calls before → after:
      • html/mod_k2_content/Slider/default.php 18 → 0.
      • The error page 13 → 0 (error_.php, now error.php).
      • component.php (print view and pop-up windows) 2 → 0.
      • html/mod_breadcrumbs/default.php, html/mod_login/default.php and html/mod_search/default.php 1 each → 0.
    • html/mod_login/default.php also falls back to $type = 'login' and html/mod_breadcrumbs/default.php to an empty $moduleclass_sfx, which Joomla no longer passes to overrides, instead of raising “Undefined variable” warnings; mod_login calls HTMLHelper by its correct name.
    • In all, 5 of the 30 PHP overrides under html/ were modified (the four above plus html/mod_menu/default.php, below).

    Log-in dialog on Bootstrap 5

    • The log-in dialog is a Bootstrap 5 modal (modal fade with modal-dialog-centered and modal-content, was modal ahide afade), opened with data-bs-toggle / data-bs-target, with a standard × close button (btn-close).
    • Both close controls use data-bs-dismiss="modal". The old Close link ran jQuery('#LoginForm').hide(); jQuery('#LoginForm').modal('hide');, and the log-in link toggled the form with jQuery as well; both are gone.

    Template Options screen

    • 90 field type changes in templateDetails.xml. The 30 remaining legacy class="switch" checkboxes (e.g. H1TitleImgText, RSSON, cam_autoAdvance, cam_hover, cam_navigation) are now Joomla’s native on/off switchers (35 in all with the new social switches), and the 60 colour settings are colour pickers.
    • Fields 161 → 166, fieldsets 7 → 8. Tab names are shorter: “Basic”, “Site Name & Slogan”, “Drop Down Menu”, “Header & Footer Custom Code”, “Built-in Slideshow”, “Theme”.
    • The Options screen no longer loads utils/admin-js.js from the template description, or the jscolor colour script from inside the colour fields’ help label.

    Fonts

    • The Google Fonts WebFontConfig JavaScript loader (which fetched webfont.js before any font could load) is replaced by a direct stylesheet link for the same Open Sans and Open Sans Condensed weights, with preconnect hints and display=swap, so text appears sooner.

    Menus, search, social links and background without old jQuery plug-ins

    • Drop-down menus open on hover through a short built-in script instead of the Superfish/Supersubs plug-ins, and stay open for 500 ms after the pointer leaves, as before. The column widths (dropdownhandler1–5) still apply; the opacity, height, width and speed animation settings (dropopacity, dropheight, dropwidth, dropspeed) applied only to those plug-ins and no longer have an effect.
    • The phone menu is the new drawer instead of the Selectnav drop-down list; its start-up call has been taken out of html/mod_menu/default.php.
    • The desktop search panel, the side menu panel and the “Follow us” list open and close through plain JavaScript instead of jQuery.
    • The background images of the story bands (story_image_top1 … story_image_footer) are applied as CSS backgrounds (background-size: cover) instead of through Backstretch.
    • The camera.js-only slideshow settings (transition effects cam_fx, the grid and slice options, the loader bar and pie, cam_thumbnails, cam_playPause, cam_portrait and the mobile hover options) no longer have an effect.

    Stylesheets and print view

    • component.php (print view and pop-up windows) no longer links the deleted css/bootstrap.css and css/responsive.css, and css/print.css no longer imports them or camera.css.
    • print.css, slideshow.css, the bridge and cs-mobile.js carry a file-time version marker, so changes show straight after an update instead of waiting for visitors’ browser caches to expire.

    Fixed

    • On Joomla 6’s default settings, every page except the home page returned an error. The breadcrumbs override, which is shown site-wide, called JText; with Joomla 6’s backward-compatibility class aliases off, that call failed on every interior page. It now uses Text, and the template no longer depends on the aliases anywhere (see J3 → J4+ API migration).
    • The password show/hide button and the pagination arrows (Previous, Next, First, Last) could show as empty boxes, because Acceler8 had no styling for Joomla’s own icon-* classes. They now draw Font Awesome glyphs, and featured articles in a single column are no longer clipped to their title. With thanks to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to this maintenance pass across our templates.
    • The Getting Help sample article showed a broken image: it pointed at administrator/templates/hathor/, an admin template Joomla removed several versions ago. The image has been removed from the sample content.

    Removed

    Legacy scripts and stylesheets deleted

    • Scripts (16, deleted from js/): jquery-1.7.1.js, jquery-1.8.1.min.js, jquery.noConflict.js, bootstrap.min.js (Bootstrap 2), camera.js, camera.min.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, superfish.js, supersubs.js, selectnav.min.js, jquery.backstretch.min.js, dropkick.js, jquery.dropkick-1.0.0.js, modernizr.js, selectivizr-min.js, flexibility.js.
    • Stylesheets (13, deleted from css/): the css/bootstrap/ folder (bootstrap.css, bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-responsive.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css, bootstrap-rtl.css, bootstrap-tooltip-extended.css), css/bootstrap.css, responsive.css, camera.css, and the Internet Explorer files ie.css, ie6.css, ie9-10.css.
    • No longer loaded: the remote html5.js shiv and webfont.js loader, jquery.easing.1.3.js (the file remains in js/), the Internet Explorer conditional comments, and the inline jQuery.browser detection block that only Superfish used.

    Old colour picker, switches and admin script

    • The whole utils/ folder: utils/js_colourchanger/ (jscolor.js, arrow.gif, cross.gif, hs.png, hv.png), utils/images/switch-background.png and switch-mask.png, utils/admin-js.js and the unused utils/bss_fontchanger.php, plus the colours_handlers field that started the old picker.

    Unused files

    • css/bootstrap.zip, an archive left inside the stylesheet folder.
    • error_.php, replaced by error.php.

    Retired social services

    • Four social slots removed with their switches: Google+ (gplus), StumbleUpon, Digg, Blogger.

    Security

    • Template settings written into the page go through the new helpers at 134 call sites in index.php: 45 phEsc(), 76 phHexColor() and 13 phCssDim(). They cover the colour and size values in the inline <style> block, the social link URLs, the logo and slogan image addresses, the theme preset name and the favicon links.
    • Site name and slogan text (H1Title / H2Title) are escaped, so markup typed into them shows as text rather than being added to the page.
    • Social links open with rel="noopener", so the opened site cannot control the Acceler8 tab.
    • index.php now starts with Joomla’s standard defined('_JEXEC') or die guard; it had none.
    • The quickstart no longer carries the previous builder’s site details. The earlier quickstart archives included a filled-in configuration.php (with a database password and site secret) and installation/extrainfo.json (the build server’s host and folder path); one also carried a user account belonging to an unrelated third party. The new quickstart contains none of these: it ships no user accounts, and the installer creates your administrator.

    Quickstart Installer

    The Quickstart is a complete Joomla 6.1.2 site with Acceler8 installed as the active template, with the demo content.

    • It is now a standard Joomla installation package that runs Joomla’s own web installer, replacing the previous Akeeba backup archive (.jpa), so Akeeba Kickstart is not needed.
    • Bundled extensions: Joomla 6.1.2, Akeeba Backup 10.3.7, Weblinks 5.1.0, Search 4.0.0, MCP for Joomla 2.4.0, StageIt 5.7.3. The templates/ folder holds acceler8, cassiopeia, cassiopeia_extended and system.
    • A clean starting state: the page-view counters on the 81 sample articles (14,822 views on the demo) start at zero, the footer copyright line reads 2026 instead of 2023–2025, and the 15 template overrides are marked as reviewed (no “changes found” warning).
    • Joomla’s post-installation messages arrive with only its four new-site advisories enabled (action logs, privacy, multi-factor authentication and automated updates), and Joomla’s Statistics plugin is set to never send data.
    • The Getting Help sample article no longer shows a broken image (see Fixed).

    Package format

    • Standalone template: Acceler8 now installs as a Joomla package (pkg_acceler8-6.1.2.zip, manifest pkg_acceler8.xml) that installs and registers the acceler8 template extension, replacing the bare acceler8.zip. It declares method="upgrade", so an existing Acceler8 updates in place, and <blockChildUninstall>true</blockChildUninstall>, so the template is removed through the package rather than on its own.
    • Quickstart bundle: Acceler8-6.1.2-Quickstart.zip, a complete Joomla 6.1.2 install with Acceler8 pre-loaded as the active template.

    Requires Joomla 6.1 or newer and PHP 8.3+.

    Still in use: Acceler8 still loads Joomla’s own jQuery for its equal-height columns script. Older plug-in files remain in js/ (owl.carousel.min.js, jquery.elevateZoom-3.0.8.min.js, jquery.nicescroll.min.js, jquery-eu-cookie-law-popup.js, scrollReveal.min.js, jquery.selectric.js, jquery.plusanchor.js, jquery.equalHeights.js, imgSizer.js, easypaginate.js, jquery.easing.1.3.js), but the template does not load them. Installing this update replaces the template files: if you have edited Acceler8’s files directly, back those up first. Settings stored in the Joomla administrator are not affected. We recommend testing any template update on a copy of your site first.
    Version numbering: from this release the first three digits of Acceler8’s version match the Joomla release it is built for (6.1.2 = Joomla 6.1.2). A later fix on the same Joomla release adds a fourth digit (6.1.2.1). The previous download was versioned 04.11.2025 6.0.0.

    Version 04.11.2025 6.0.0

    • Update - Template updated to Joomla 6.0.0
    • Minor Bugs fixed

    Version 26.06.2024 5.1.1

    • Update - Template updated to Joomla 5.1.1
    • Minor Bugs fixed

    Version 06/02/2024 5.0.2

    • Update - Template updated to Joomla 5

    Version 01.11.2023 4.3.4/4.2.0

    • Upgraded - Now compatible with PHP 8.2
    • Upgraded - Now compatible Joomla 4.3.4

    Version 24.11.2023 4.3.4

    • Fixed - Template updated to be compatible with Joomla 4.3.4

    Version 01.04.2023 4.2.8

    • Fixed - Template updated to be compatible with Joomla 4.2