Electra Shop Energize Themes Templates Changelog

This is the first release of ElectraShop from Cybersalt. ElectraShop is a VirtueMart template, so it ships against Joomla 5.4.8 with VirtueMart 4.8.0 rather than Joomla 6 — Joomla 6 removes a compatibility layer VirtueMart still depends on, so a Joomla 6 build is not possible until VirtueMart itself moves. Because this is the first release from us, everything below is new to the template: the front end has been modernized, the phone experience largely rebuilt, and a number of faults fixed that stopped parts of the store working at all.

Added

• The cart is now reachable on a phone. It has been moved into the row of controls beneath the site name, sized and coloured to match the buttons beside it. Previously it stayed where the desktop layout put it, underneath the menu button, and the two overlapped.
• Previous and next arrows on the slideshow, on both desktop and phone. They are always visible rather than appearing on hover, which makes them usable on a touch screen.
• A compatibility helper that repairs pop-up dialogs written in the old Bootstrap 2 shape so they open and close correctly under Bootstrap 5. It applies to every dialog in the template, not just the log-in box. Where a dialog has no close control of its own in the markup, it still closes with its footer button, by tapping outside it, or with the Escape key.
• Matching sub-menu formatting in both phone menus — the same indentation, active-item weight and expand controls whichever menu you open.
• Sub-menus can now be opened from a sidebar menu on a desktop, not only from the phone menu.
• ElectraShop now ships as a proper installable package. No package manifest had ever existed for this template.

Changed

• The template reports version 5.4.8 everywhere it is shown: the installer manifest, the description panel in Template Styles, the file header, and the cached record Joomla's admin actually reads.
• Built and tested against Joomla 5.4.8 and VirtueMart 4.8.0.
• The Bootstrap 2 to Bootstrap 5 compatibility layer was brought up to the current build, gaining every guard the rest of the range already had — layout grids and spacing, text sizes, tabbed panels, pop-ups, menus, icons, the slideshow and the shop's own product grids, as well as modals, overflow, forms and the phone header.
• The phone chrome was brought up to the current build.
• Pages now lead with their own content on a phone. The sidebar's modules used to stack above it — on the account page you landed on a menu, a category list and a random product before reaching your account details. Nothing has been hidden; the modules now follow the content instead of preceding it.
• Category tiles show their picture edge to edge. They were being forced into a square and then not filled, which left thick empty bands of colour above and below every photograph. The category page is now considerably shorter.
• Text-entry fields on phones are set at a size that stops the browser zooming in when you tap one — and, having zoomed, leaving you on a page wider than the screen.
• Bullets no longer appear beside products, manufacturers or carousel entries — nor beside breadcrumb steps, the links in the account pop-up, or the social icons in the phone panel.
• The stranded “Follow Us” pull-tab has been removed from the foot of the phone page. It only responded to hover, which a touch screen never sends, so it could never do anything; the social button in the header already covers it.

Fixed — the shop

• The log-in form no longer fails on Joomla 5. The VirtueMart log-in template called behavior.formvalidation, which Joomla 5 removed — the page returned a fatal error instead of a log-in box. Replaced with the current equivalent. Thanks to Zoltán for reporting this.
• A second retired call in the product-details view has been removed on the same code path.
• The cart contents no longer print beside the cart button. VirtueMart builds that summary into every page expecting it to stay hidden until asked for; it had been showing permanently and widening the page.
• The cart panel no longer opens by itself on a phone. A blank white sheet used to cover the page from the header down on every load, hiding the products behind it.
• Tapping the cart on a phone shows the basket. It used to open a narrow grey strip you could not read, half of it off the side of the screen.
• The cart summary opens centred on the screen at every size, instead of hanging off the right-hand edge.
• The product tabs show one panel at a time. Best Deals, Hot Offer and New Items had all been rendering at once, one under another, making the front page several screens longer than it should be.
• Product rows take their proper height. They had been collapsing to a thin sliver, letting the next section print on top of the products.
• Product tiles keep the shop's own sizing, so a row of them reaches the edge of the column instead of stopping short.
• The product sections fill the page width. “Latest products”, “Featured products”, “Customers choice” and “Special offer” were each leaving a strip of empty space down the right-hand side.
• Products show two to a row on a phone, at equal height, with every Add to Cart button on a common line. They had been stacked one per row in a narrow column with the rest of the width unused. This applies to every product list the shop draws, not only the front page.
• Registration and profile fields fill the screen on a phone. The store builds those forms as a table, so several fields rendered about a third of the width with empty space beside them.
• The currency chooser reads properly. Its label was jammed against the left edge of the control and long currency names ran underneath the arrow.
• Client logos pair up two to a row instead of stacking one per line.

Fixed — the header

• Everything in the top bar sits on one line and at one height. The five links share an even rhythm — there had been a wider gap in the middle where two separate menus met — the search mark sits beside the last of them rather than stranded in the middle of the bar, and the account, register, search and cart controls now share a single centre line. The whole group is centred in its bar instead of clustered near the top of it, and the cart no longer sits behind the menu button.
• The controls at the top right share one size. Their heights and icon sizes had varied by up to sixteen pixels, so the row read as several unrelated things.
• The desktop search box sits in the middle of its bar, not against the top of it.
• The phone header's buttons can be seen. The account, search and social controls had been painting white on white; their symbols now always contrast with the button they sit on, and the Register button no longer renders blank.
• The phone's control buttons fit the screen and are evenly spaced. The first and last used to be clipped at the screen edges, and the gaps between them varied.
• The menu button's bars are centred in it, it sits in the middle of the branded bar rather than hanging off its bottom edge, and the X it becomes when opened now closes cleanly.
• The plus control that opens a sub-menu can be seen. It had been painting white on a similar colour, so the only way to find it was to guess.
• Desktop drop-down menus stay open as you move down into them. There had been a dead gap between the menu bar and the panel below it that closed the menu before the pointer arrived.
• Side menus stack their links again. Every menu module in a sidebar had been laying its links out sideways across the column.
• The site name and slogan appear at the top of the phone layout, without the band of empty space that preceded them.
• A menu heading no longer sits on the phone layout labelling nothing, left behind when its links moved into the slide-out menu.

Fixed — search, forms and dialogs

• The search box is a usable size. On a phone it opens as a full-width panel with a finger-sized field; on a desktop it is a proper drop-down rather than a narrow sliver.
• The phone's search button shows a magnifier. It had been rendering as a blank square, white on white.
• The search button is no longer cut off at the bottom, and it sits against its field instead of being pushed away from it.
• The Smart Search field and its button sit on one line.
• Contact and other component forms stack to full width on a phone, with finger-sized fields.
• The account pop-up's close button works, and the console error it caused is gone. Both were one fault: the dialog was written in the Bootstrap 2 shape, and Bootstrap 5 stopped part-way through opening it, so the panel appeared but its dismiss wiring never ran.
• The pop-up's close control looks like a close control. It had been painting as a solid coloured block over the dialog's own heading, at the top left instead of the top right.
• The Login button has space above it in the account pop-up, instead of sitting flush against the password field.
• The dead arrow beside the Log in button is gone. Tapping it submitted the form with an empty password and threw you onto a warning page; the three links it was hiding — forgotten password, forgotten username and register — are now shown in the pop-up.
• The account dialog fits the screen without scrolling, its fields have room to breathe, and its close control is large enough to tap.
• The account page's log-in form is usable on a phone: full-height fields, a full-size button, and the “Remember me” box beside its label rather than orphaned on a line of its own.
• Modules no longer stack above the account and registration forms.
• The passkey sign-in icon is icon-sized. It had been expanding to fill its button and printing as a large black shape over the log-in area.

Fixed — the page

• The page no longer scrolls sideways at any screen size. Menu panels parked out of view, a collapsed breadcrumb row on interior pages, and an over-wide search field had each been widening the page at phone, tablet and desktop widths.
• Breadcrumbs stay inside the page on interior and account pages, and read as one line rather than one step per line.
• The slideshow always draws its picture. It had been collapsing to nothing while still reserving the space, so the top of the page looked blank.
• Slides sit at the top of the slideshow. They had been pushed down by about a third of its height, leaving a white band above the picture and cutting the slide's button off the bottom.
• The slideshow picture fills its box instead of leaving a strip of background along the bottom, the slideshow sits below the header rather than starting underneath it, and its caption stays in its half of the picture instead of printing across the product image.
• The slideshow's position markers are round dots on a phone rather than numbered squares, and they sit inside the picture where they can be seen — they had straddled the bottom edge, white against the white page below.
• Icon fonts no longer 404 on every page. The stylesheet referenced an icon font from a folder Joomla 4 removed, costing four failed requests per page load.
• Pagination arrows render instead of empty squares.
• The show-password control renders as an eye rather than a bare dot.
• Featured articles are no longer clipped to their headline on the front page.
• Article details wrap onto as many lines as they need. Written by, Category, Published, Created, Last Updated and Hits had been squeezed onto one line and run off the side of the page.
• Social icons show, one per link. The old styling pushed them nine thousand pixels off-screen along with their link text, and where they did appear the old image-strip icon painted behind the new one.
• The social panel on a phone shows its icons, on one row, instead of opening empty with its contents dragged outside it.
• Social icons sit centred in their circles.
• Headings keep the same side margin as the text beneath them on a phone, instead of running to the very edge.
• Module content fits the screen on a phone. A desktop-sized margin was taking about a sixth of the width and cutting the last item off the edge.
• The empty band under the breadcrumbs is gone on phones — it was reserved for a search box the phone layout now puts in the button row.
• Footer menu links are visible again on a phone, footer social icons are centred, and the back-to-top button is round with its arrow centred.
• A tabbed module's tabs share one line instead of wrapping onto three.
• Stray tiny text near Joomla's own modules is gone. Labels meant only for screen readers were being painted on the page.
• Vertical whitespace has been reduced throughout the phone layout.

Known limitations

• The “Register” heading on the VirtueMart account page appears above an empty area. VirtueMart emits that form with no fields on this view; registration has its own menu entry, which the phone's register button already links to.

ElectraShop remains on Joomla 5 for as long as VirtueMart requires the compatibility plugin. That plugin is enabled in this build by design; disabling it will break the store.