Extend Changelog

Updated 6 November 2026 · in Changelog

• 6 November 2026

  Version 6.2.0

  First Joomla 6 native release. Extend has been rebuilt for Joomla 6.2.0 + PHP 8 + Bootstrap 5. The previous download is the vendor's 5.1.2 package (extend.zip, version string 26.07.2024 5.1.2, a Joomla 3 template), and every “before” number below is measured against it. Every Joomla 3 class call is gone (46 → 0), MooTools is no longer used, the template options use Joomla's own on/off switches and colour pickers, every template setting written into the page is escaped, the desktop page is 1170 px wide instead of a fixed 960 px, and there is a new phone layout with a slide-out menu and a row of fingertip-sized buttons. Joomla 6's Bootstrap 5 replaces the template's Bootstrap 2; the template's own markup keeps its Bootstrap 2 classes and renders through a compatibility stylesheet. The Camera slideshow stays. Template files: 329 → 288, with 11 added, 52 removed and 25 modified. The template version is now 6.2.0, matching the Joomla version it ships with.

  Added

  Bootstrap 5 rendering through a compatibility stylesheet

  • index.php loads Joomla 6's bundled Bootstrap 5 (/media/vendor/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css) in place of the template's own Bootstrap 2 sheets (css/bootstrap.css, css/bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css).
  • New css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css, revision 2026-10-24.163, linked after the template's own sheets. It lets Extend's Bootstrap 2 markup (row-fluid / spanN columns, the hidden-phone family of responsive classes, tab panes, collapse, .well, .page-header) render correctly on Bootstrap 5, maps Joomla 4+ icon classes (pagination arrows, the password eye) to Font Awesome 6 glyphs, and makes the log-in pop-up work on Bootstrap 5's modal. Extend's own additions to it are kept as marked blocks: extend-phone-logo-visible, extend-desktop-header-controls, extend-desktop-header-midline, extend-desktop-fixed-container-width, extend-tablet-fixed-boxes-fluid, extend-phone-fixed-boxes-fluid, extend-social-new-network-squares, extend-phone-account-content-first, extend-phone-menu-orphan-title, extend-login-remember-20261020, extend-form-field-width-20261020, extend-phone-slideshow-fit-20261020, extend-phone-content-inset-20261020, extend-phone-404-content-first-20261020, extend-article-info-20261020, extend-desktop-stray-menu-close-20261020, extend-tablet-search-inset-20261020, extend-phone-inset-20261031, extend-phone-edge-20261031 and extend-std-20261103.
  • New css/bs2-donor-base.css, loaded after Bootstrap 5 and before template.css: the vendor's own Bootstrap 2 form rules and base typography (336 rules, without the responsive parts). Bootstrap 5's reset would otherwise remove the 10 px heading margin, the definition-list margin and the list indent the design was built on, and shrink the sidebar log-in fields. Text, password and e-mail fields keep the vendor's 174×30 px size on desktop.
  • New js/cs-jq-compat.js, which restores the jQuery 1.x calls that Joomla 6's jQuery 3.7 removed but the bundled Camera slideshow still makes.
  • Font Awesome 6.5.2 (all.min.css + v4-shims.min.css from cdnjs) on the front end. The template's fa fa-* class names keep working through the shims. The old Font Awesome 4 link (font-awesome.min.css) pointed at MaxCDN, which no longer serves it, so the icons on the template's Options screen were missing.

  New phone layout

  • New js/cs-mobile.js. On phones (up to 767 px) a menu button in the header, filled in the template's red (rgb(145, 0, 0)) with white bars, opens the main menu as a slide-out panel. Submenus open in place, one branch at a time, behind visible “+” buttons. This replaces the old selectnav drop-down for the main menu.
  • A row of 44×44 px buttons under the header in the same red: log-in, search and the social links, plus a second menu button that opens the sidebar's Main Menu with its sub-levels. Opening a panel dims the page below the button row only, so the logo and menu button stay clear, and tapping outside an open panel closes it.
  • The log-in pop-up opens above the logo instead of underneath it, and the registration form is inset 20 px on both sides, like the log-in and password pages.
  • On account pages (log-in, registration and the rest) the form comes first on a phone: the breadcrumb band with the first four custom modules, the sidebar Main Menu and Log-in form, and the lower dark band (#deep-box) now follow it.
  • The page has no 20 px side gutter on phones (cs-no-bs2-gutter on <body>); the cream content panel keeps the design's own inset, headings, the breadcrumb and footer titles start at the same 20 px inset as the page text (two paddings had stacked), and the copyright line no longer touches the screen edge.
  • The slideshow no longer leaves an empty grey band above the menu bar on phones, a long breadcrumb trail wraps instead of running over the next heading, and the template's own 404 message appears first under the menu bar.

  Favicon

  • New Favicon tab in the template options (fieldset faviconsettings, fields favicon, faviconspacer and favicontool, field class fields/favicontool.php). Pick one image and the template outputs the icon set (phFaviconSet(), phIcoBytes() in index.php); the template's own favicon.ico remains the fallback. With thanks to Gianluca, whose favicon question inspired this tool.
  • 10 new language strings (TPL_EXTEND_FAVICON_*, TPL_EXTEND_FAVICONTOOL_*). The language file goes from 66 to 76 strings.

  Modern social network support

  • Eight new social services, each with its own URL field and show/hide switch: Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest and Discord. They are drawn as Font Awesome 6 glyphs in the same coloured squares as the existing icons (extend-social-new-network-squares).
  • The Twitter slot now shows the X logo (fa-x-twitter). The full set is X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, Pinterest, Discord and RSS. Links open with rel="noopener".

  Template options (administrator)

  • Custom CSS field (customcss), and support for a css/custom.css file. The file is loaded only if it exists and is deliberately not listed in templateDetails.xml, so a template update can never overwrite or remove it.
  • New fields/colorpicker.php with the Coloris picker (js/coloris.min.js, css/coloris.min.css) for the template's colour settings: 25 colour fields now use it.
  • New fields/adminui.php: help banners in the options run the full width of the form instead of wrapping into a narrow column.
  • Template options: 111 → 116 fields, 7 → 8 tabs.

  Module styles

  • New js/cs-module-toggle.js (3,203 bytes), loaded from index.php with <script defer>, for the collapsible module styles (see Fixed).
  • html/layouts/chromes/ holds vmdefault.php and slides.php (both now escape what they print) and the two collapsible chromes, toggleModule.php and toggleModule2.php.

  Changed

  Joomla 6 platform

  • Built for Joomla 6.2.0 (previous download: Joomla 3.10), with no need for Joomla's Backward Compatibility plugin.
  • templateDetails.xml version 26.07.2024 5.1.2 → 6.2.0, creation date 29/11/2012 → 2026-11-06, extension version 3.10 → 6.1. The version shown in the template description matches (6.2.0 (2026-11-06)). method="upgrade" is kept, so an existing install updates in place.

  J3 → J6 API migration

  • 46 Joomla 3 static class calls → 0. Each moved to its namespaced Joomla 4+ form (JText → Text, JFactory → Factory, JHtml → HTMLHelper and the rest). The log-in override (html/mod_login/default.php) held 20, the error page (error.php) 13 and index.php 7; html/mod_menu/default.php held 2 and html/mod_breadcrumbs/default.php and html/mod_search/default.php one each.
  • The search override reads the module class suffix from the module's parameters instead of a Joomla 3 variable.
  • 17 of the 28 PHP overrides in the previous download changed.

  Template options (administrator)

  • The template's on/off settings, which were legacy type="checkbox" fields, are now Joomla's radio switcher (for example H1TitleImgText, H2TitleImgText, RSSON, cam_autoAdvance, cam_fx_multiple_on, cam_hover). The template has no legacy checkboxes left: checkbox fields 32 → 0, switchers 0 → 32.
  • Colour settings changed from plain text boxes to the colour picker (for example bodybackground, bodytextcolor, buttonscolor, buttonscolorhover). Text fields 63 → 40.
  • Defaults for a fresh install: the site name / logo links to the home page (logoLinked), and the built-in slideshow is switched on with autoplay on desktop and phones (cam_turnOn, cam_autoAdvance, cam_mobileAutoAdvance). Before, they were off (no default). Existing sites keep their saved settings.

  Menus and scripts

  • MooTools is no longer used. The two collapsible module styles and the module-chrome functions in html/modules.php ran on MooTools, which Joomla 4+ does not load.
  • The desktop drop-down menus are driven by CSS and a small hover script in js/cs-mobile.js instead of the Superfish / Supersubs scripts.
  • The background images use plain CSS backgrounds instead of the backstretch plug-in, and the select-box styling plug-in (dropkick) is no longer used.
  • The print view (component.php) loads Open Sans 300/400/800 (and italics) from a direct <link> instead of the WebFontConfig script.
  • js/: 28 → 8 files (camera.js, camera.min.js, coloris.min.js, cs-jq-compat.js, cs-mobile.js, cs-module-toggle.js, jquery.easing.1.3.js, selectnav.min.js). Scripts no longer loaded: html5.js, imgSizer.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, modernizr.js, selectivizr-min.js, superfish.js, supersubs.js, webfont.js. Scripts newly loaded: cs-jq-compat.js, cs-mobile.js, cs-module-toggle.js. jQuery itself is still used on the page (Joomla's copy) by the Camera slideshow, and selectnav.min.js is still loaded. jQuery calls in the template's own code: 21 → 4.

  Look and layout

  • Desktop width. On screens 1200 px and wider the page is now 1170 px wide, like the other current Energize templates (it was a fixed 960 px page); the inner boxes keep the design's own inset and the 920–1000 px background artwork is stretched to match. Screens from 980 to 1199 px keep the fixed-width layout.
  • Tablets and phones. The design's fixed-width boxes (.box-3d and .box-3d1 at 960 px, #nav-line at 910 px, the #deep-box strip at 900 px) now follow the screen at 767 px and below and at 768–979 px, so the page no longer scrolls sideways and the Custom Module 7 and 8 text is no longer cut off mid-sentence on a phone.
  • Headings, definition lists and lists keep the vendor's spacing on Bootstrap 5 (css/bs2-donor-base.css, above).
  • Log-in and registration fields, the contact form and the sidebar log-in are one size, and the show-password eye sits inside the password field on the same row. The sidebar log-in keeps “Remember Me” on one line at every width.
  • Article info lines are 20 px apart again (Bootstrap 5's reset had spread them to 28 px) and “Category:” gets a Font Awesome folder icon (extend-article-info-20261020).
  • On tablets (768–1023 px) the search field is 20 px off the screen edge instead of running to it.
  • The desktop Login and Register buttons in the top bar line up with each other and keep the vendor's button size (extend-desktop-header-controls, extend-desktop-header-midline), and the social squares are drawn as white Font Awesome glyphs.
  • Drop-down menus no longer close before you can reach them: moving the mouse from a menu heading down to its drop-down crossed a gap where neither was hovered. The whole path is now hoverable; the menu's spacing and appearance are unchanged.
  • Phone menu button filled in the button-row red (rgb(145, 0, 0)) with white bars; it was a see-through outline.

  Fixed

  Logo and slogan

  • The logo and the slogan both link to the home page. The slogan had no link at all, and the logo's link setting had no default. The link is now on unless you switch the logo link off (logoLinked), also for a template style that has never been saved. The slogan link keeps the slogan's colour and has no underline (cs-slogan-link in index.php).
  • On a site installed at the domain root, the logo link pointed at the current page; it now always goes to the site's home page.

  Pages that failed on Joomla 4+

  • Error page: error.php used JError and JText (13 Joomla 3 calls), which Joomla 6 no longer provides (and 4.x and 5.x only with the Backward Compatibility plugin), so a missing page could end in a fatal error instead of the template's error page. It is rewritten on the namespaced API. A missing item asked for by id now answers with the proper 404 page instead of a 500.
  • Collapsible module styles (Toggle Module): they open and close again. The toggleModule and toggleModule2 chromes ran on MooTools, which Joomla 4 and later cannot run, and the script that replaces it was never loaded. A small built-in script (js/cs-module-toggle.js, 3,203 bytes), loaded from index.php, now opens and closes them; the chromes print data-cs-toggle for it.
  • Print and pop-up views: component.php gains a phone viewport tag, loads Open Sans, and no longer shows stray letters beside “Written by”, “Published” and “Hits” (the template drew its old icons with an IcoMoon font that no longer exists).
  • Script errors on every page: orphaned jQuery plug-in calls (supersubs / superfish, jquery.mobile.customized, jQuery.browser) are removed, and jQuery(window).load(…), which jQuery 3 no longer supports as an event alias, is replaced.
  • Slideshow: the Camera slideshow calls jQuery 1.x functions that jQuery 3.7 removed. js/cs-jq-compat.js restores them.
  • Log-in pop-up: its markup moved to Bootstrap 5's modal (data-bs-toggle / data-bs-target, btn-close). Bootstrap 2 marks an open dialog .in and Bootstrap 5 marks it .show; the compatibility stylesheet handles both. data-bs-* attributes in the template: 7 → 12.

  Page layout and content

  • Stray “×” beside the main menu: the close button of the old selectnav phone panel (.menupanel .closemenu) showed beside the desktop menu. It is hidden from 768 px up.
  • Template Options screen: the icons load again (see Font Awesome 6.5.2 above).

  Maintenance pass

  • The @font-face in css/template.css pointing at Joomla 3's media/jui/fonts/ IcoMoon font, which Joomla 4 removed, is switched off (commented out), which ends four failed requests on every page.
  • Pagination arrows: Joomla 4+'s icon-angle-left / -right / -double-left / -double-right buttons had no mapping in the template's icon CSS, so they showed no arrow. They now show Font Awesome 6 arrows. The password eye (icon-eye, icon-eye-slash) is mapped the same way.
  • Featured articles: in a one-column featured (home) view, tall intro articles were clipped to their title. They now show in full.
  • Search button: a global button margin could pull a search button away from its box; search buttons now have margin:0.
  • Version display: the version in templateDetails.xml and the version shown in the template description now agree (6.2.0).
  • Dead MooTools-era code: the chromes in html/layouts/chromes/ and the functions in html/modules.php no longer use window.addEvent or Fx.Slide; modules.php is removed (see Removed).
  • With thanks to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to this maintenance pass across our templates.

  Removed

  Files removed (52)

  • Bootstrap 2: css/bootstrap.css, css/bootstrap.zip and the css/bootstrap/ folder (bootstrap.css, bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css, bootstrap-responsive.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, bootstrap-rtl.css, bootstrap-tooltip-extended.css), and js/bootstrap.min.js. Joomla 6's Bootstrap 5, the compatibility stylesheet and bs2-donor-base.css take their place.
  • Internet Explorer and old-browser files: css/ie.css, css/ie6.css, css/responsive.css, js/selectivizr-min.js, js/modernizr.js, js/flexibility.js, js/imgSizer.js, and the Internet Explorer conditional-comment links in component.php.
  • jQuery and plug-ins (js/ 28 → 8 files): jquery-1.8.1.min.js, jquery.noConflict.js, dropkick.js, jquery.dropkick-1.0.0.js, jquery.selectric.js, jquery.backstretch.min.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, jquery.nicescroll.min.js, jquery.elevateZoom-3.0.8.min.js, jquery.equalHeights.js, jquery.plusanchor.js, jquery-eu-cookie-law-popup.js, easypaginate.js, owl.carousel.min.js, scrollReveal.min.js, parallax.js, tipz.js, superfish.js, supersubs.js.
  • Stylesheets nothing loaded: css/blog.css, css/slideshow.css.
  • html/modules.php: Joomla 3-style module chrome functions built on MooTools; Joomla 4+ uses the layout chromes in html/layouts/chromes/. Also the whole html/_mod_menu/ folder (5 files), a Joomla 3 menu override Joomla never loaded, and html/com_content/category/blog_item.zip.
  • js.zip (an archive copy of the js/ folder).
  • utils/admin-js.js (a Joomla 3-era admin script for the old checkbox switches) and the old utils/js_colourchanger/ colour picker (jscolor.js and its four images).

  Stylesheets no longer loaded

  • bootstrap.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css, font-awesome.min.css (Font Awesome 4 from MaxCDN), ie.css, ie6.css and responsive.css. Newly loaded: all.min.css, v4-shims.min.css, bs2-bs5-bridge.css, bs2-donor-base.css and, when present, custom.css.

  Retired settings

  • Five social slots removed with their switches: Google+, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Digg and Blogger.
  • The settings that went with the old drop-down menu script: dropheight, dropwidth, dropopacity, dropspeed and dropdownhandler1 (“Min column width (em)”), plus the colours_handlers help banner.
  • The dead sitewidth line in index.php (a setting the manifest never declared) and the unused addLoadEvent() function.
  • Unused files and code: the template ships no stray backup, archive or stylesheet that nothing loads.

  Security

  • Output helpers added in index.php: phEsc(), phRichText(), phHexColor(), phCssToken(), phCssNum(), phCssDim(), phCssFont(), phCssSelector(), phCssUrl(), phJsStr() and phJsLit() (133 uses of the ph* helpers across the template, counting their definitions, against none before). Every template setting written into the page is escaped for where it lands: HTML text and attributes, colours, sizes, fonts, selectors and image URLs in the page's CSS, and values written into inline JavaScript. phRichText() handles the site-name and slogan fields, which may contain simple markup; Joomla's input filter keeps the markup but strips scripts, styles, iframes and on* event handlers. component.php defines phEsc() too.
  • Raw echo $this->params->get(…) output in index.php: 98 occurrences (on 86 lines) → 2, the Header and Footer Custom Code fields (headcode, footercode), which are administrator-only by design.
  • Module, menu and tab titles are escaped in the module chromes and in the menu override; the category, featured and archive article overrides escape their output too. Calls to htmlspecialchars() / escape() across the template: 37 → 75.
  • The logo and slogan alt text is escaped, and the colour-preset stylesheet name in index.php and component.php is reduced to letters, digits, _ and -, so it cannot point outside css/presets/.
  • Error pages no longer show server details. A missing page used to print the server's file paths and a technical trace. error.php now shows Joomla's generic message instead (the status code is unchanged), unless Joomla's debug mode is on.
  • The social links open with rel="noopener".

  Quickstart

  The quickstart is now a complete Joomla 6.2.0 site with Extend pre-configured as the active template. It replaces the previous quickstart, an Akeeba Backup archive (.jpa) restored with Kickstart.

  • Bundled extensions: Akeeba Backup Core 10.5.0, StageIt 6.6.2, Web Links 5.2.0 and the en-GB language pack 6.2.0.1.
  • The demo content comes to 55 published modules, 124 published menu items and 67 published articles.
  • The Smart Search index is built (155 indexed links), so the site search returns results from the first visit.
  • The demo slideshow shows on the home page only (its three slides were also on the “Custom HTML” demo page).
  • The logo link is saved on in the template style (logoLinked).
  • VirtueMart and K2 are not installed; Extend is not a shop.

  Package

  • Standalone template: now a Joomla package, pkg_extend-6.2.0.zip, that installs the Extend template and registers it in the package manager. The template manifest keeps method="upgrade", so an existing Extend updates in place.
  • Quickstart bundle: a complete Joomla 6.2.0 install with Extend pre-loaded as the active template, replacing the Akeeba .jpa quickstart.

  Earlier history and version numbering: the previous download was the vendor's Joomla 3-era package, version 26.07.2024 5.1.2. From 6.2.0 the first three digits of the template version match the Joomla release it is built for; a later fix on the same Joomla release adds a fourth digit (6.2.0.1).