High Level Changelog

Added

Bootstrap 5 rendering through a compatibility stylesheet

• index.php loads Joomla 6's bundled Bootstrap 5 (/media/vendor/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css, plus the RTL sheet on right-to-left sites) in place of the template's own Bootstrap 2 sheets (css/bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css).
• New css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css, revision 2026-10-24.163, linked after the template's own sheets. It lets High Level's Bootstrap 2 markup (row-fluid / spanN columns, the hidden-phone family of responsive classes, tab panes, .well, .page-header) render correctly on Bootstrap 5, maps Joomla 4+ icon classes (pagination arrows, the password eye, the article folder icon) to Font Awesome 6 glyphs, and fixes the log-in dialog, which Bootstrap 5 would otherwise open invisible. High Level's own additions to it are kept as marked blocks: the desktop header icon line and container widths (highlevel-desktop-header-midline, highlevel-desktop-container-width-live, highlevel-page-container-gutter, highlevel-footer-container-gutter), the phone header, tabs and drawer blocks (highlevel-phone-header-inflow, highlevel-phone-tabs-reflow, highlevel-drawer-heading-row, highlevel-phone-inset-20261031), the slideshow caption on phones (highlevel-phone-caption-20261020, highlevel-phone-caption-top-20261021) and the breadcrumb separators, bold text, contact list, folder icon and form blocks dated 20261020.
• 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.
• New js/cs-parallax.js (5,254 bytes) for the parallax bands, replacing jquery.stellar.min.js, which throws on jQuery 3.
• 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 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 orange (rgb(230, 134, 0)) with dark 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 and jquery.mobile.customized.min.js.
• A row of 44×44 px buttons under the header in the same orange, for the log-in, search and social panels. 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.
• New module position cs-secondary (declared in templateDetails.xml, output in a hidden holder in index.php). Any menu module published there is what the second phone menu button opens.
• Print and pop-up views (component.php) have a phone viewport tag and images that fit the screen; before, they were a 981 px page with sideways scrolling on a phone.

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_HIGHLEVEL_FAVICON_*, TPL_HIGHLEVEL_FAVICONTOOL_*). The language file goes from 66 to 76 strings.

Modern social network support

• Five new social services, each with its own URL field and show/hide switch: Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok and Discord. New fields default to #TYPE-URL-HERE and off.
• The Twitter slot is now X (formerly Twitter). The full set in the footer is X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, Pinterest, Discord and RSS, drawn with Font Awesome 6 glyphs. Links open with rel="noopener".

Template options (administrator)

• Custom CSS field (customcss), and support for a css/custom.css file. index.php loads the file only if it exists, and it is deliberately not listed in templateDetails.xml, so a template update can never overwrite or remove it; the field is stored in the database.
• New fields/colorpicker.php with the Coloris picker (js/coloris.min.js, css/coloris.min.css) for the template's colour settings: all 14 colour fields now use it instead of plain text boxes.
• New fields/adminui.php: help rows in the options run the full width of the form, and the template's Details panel follows Joomla's light or dark admin theme.
• Template options: 285 → 284 fields (15 added, 16 removed), 10 → 11 tabs.

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 06.11.2025 6.0.0 → 6.2.0, creation date 9/12/2016 → 2026-11-06, extension version 3.10 → 6.1. method="update" → method="upgrade", so an existing install updates in place.

J3 → J6 API migration

• 33 Joomla 3 static class calls → 0. Each moved to its namespaced Joomla 4+ form (JText → Text, JFactory → Factory and the rest). The error page held 13, component.php 1 and html/mod_search/default.php 1; the other 18 were in the K2 slider override that is now gone.
• The search override reads the module class suffix from the module's parameters instead of a Joomla 3 variable, and the main menu in index.php reads each menu item's parameters with getParams(), because the old params property no longer exists in Joomla 6.
• 14 of the 15 PHP overrides changed.

Template options (administrator)

• The 67 on/off settings that were legacy type="checkbox" fields are now Joomla's radio switcher (for example H1TitleImgText, H2TitleImgText, RSSON, cam_autoAdvance, cam_navigation). The template has no legacy checkboxes left (67 → 0).
• Colour settings changed from plain text boxes to the colour picker (see Added).
• 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. Existing sites keep their saved settings.

Menus and scripts

• The desktop drop-down menus are driven by CSS and the template's own hover handling instead of the Superfish / Supersubs scripts. The “ON/OFF drop down menu” option stays.
• 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 Google font is linked directly in the page head instead of loaded by the WebFontConfig script (2 references → 0, in index.php and component.php).
• js/: 28 → 12 files (the js.zip archive of the old scripts is gone too). Scripts no longer loaded: html5.js, jquery-eu-cookie-law-popup.js, jquery.backstretch.min.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, jquery.stellar.min.js, modernizr.js, selectivizr-min.js, superfish.js, supersubs.js, webfont.js. Scripts newly loaded: cs-jq-compat.js, cs-mobile.js, cs-parallax.js. jQuery itself is still used on the page (Joomla's copy) and by the Camera slideshow.

Layout

• Module positions meant to sit side by side (the two footer columns) were chosen with a Joomla 3 expression, countModules('footer-left && footer-right') (twice). Joomla 4+ reads that as one position name, so the test always failed and the columns stacked. Each position is now checked on its own.
• On phones the home page sections (the tab, top and bottom-long module areas, testimonials and the bottom background band) use the page's 20 px side gutter instead of 10% side margins, so they are as wide as the other modules. The white text boxes on the home page (moduletable_style3 flexible-text) no longer add 30 px of side padding on phones and their headings no longer carry the 12 px phone indent, so the text lines up with the photos.
• The breadcrumb separator (“/”) of Joomla 4+'s breadcrumbs module is shown again, and bold text (b, strong) is bold again on this template's light body font (Bootstrap 5 resolved it to regular weight).
• On the contact page the address, phone and fax icons sit beside their text from tablet width up. The article “Category:” line shows its folder icon.
• Log-in and registration fields are one height and one width, and the show-password eye sits inside the password field at the same height. The Remember me box lines up with its label.
• Links in the dark footer band keep their light colour, and the colour-contrast and checkbox-spacing fixes from the newest checks are applied in the compatibility stylesheet.
• The phone slideshow caption keeps the donor's offset under the 400 px phone hero, and its title is readable on one line instead of 11 px text.
• On the article categories page, the “+” button that opens the subcategories is centred on the category title.
• The header search, log-in and pencil icons are Font Awesome 6 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.

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 did nothing unless the template style had been saved once. The link is now on unless you switch the logo link off (logoLinked). The slogan keeps its colour and has no underline (cs-slogan-link).
• On a site installed at the domain root, the logo link could point at the current page; it now always goes to the site's home page.

Pages that failed on Joomla 4+

• Error pages: the vendor package named the template's error page error_.php, a name Joomla never loads, so the template's error page was never shown. It is now error.php. It used JError and JText, which Joomla 6 no longer provides (and 4.x and 5.x only with the Backward Compatibility plugin), so it is rewritten on the namespaced API. “Page not found” and “access denied” pages now show inside the template and fit a phone screen (css/presets/style-error.css updated).
• Print and pop-up views: component.php called the Joomla 3 JFactory class, which Joomla 6 no longer provides, so print and e-mail views could stop with a fatal error. It now uses the namespaced class.
• Script errors on every page: orphaned jQuery plug-in calls (supersubs / superfish, backstretch, jQuery.browser), printed by index.php, threw an error on every page and stopped the script that followed. They are removed.
• Slideshow: the Camera slideshow calls jQuery 1.x functions that jQuery 3.7 removed. js/cs-jq-compat.js restores them.
• Parallax: the parallax bands relied on jquery.stellar, which throws on jQuery 3. They now run on js/cs-parallax.js.
• Log-in dialog: it opened completely invisible (page dimmed, nothing to see), because Bootstrap 2 marks an open dialog .in and Bootstrap 5 marks it .show. Fixed in the compatibility stylesheet.
• Phone panels: an open log-in, search or social panel now closes when you tap outside it (outside-tap-closes-panels in js/cs-mobile.js).
• 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.
• With thanks to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to this maintenance pass across our templates.

Removed

Files removed (40)

• Bootstrap 2: css/bootstrap.zip, 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 and the compatibility stylesheet take their place.
• Internet Explorer and old-browser files: css/ie.css, css/ie6.css, js/selectivizr-min.js, js/modernizr.js, js/flexibility.js, js/imgSizer.js.
• jQuery plug-ins and old copies (js/ 28 → 12 files): jquery-1.8.1.min.js, jquery.noConflict.js, dropkick.js, jquery.dropkick-1.0.0.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.stellar.min.js, jquery-eu-cookie-law-popup.js, easypaginate.js, selectnav.min.js, superfish.js, supersubs.js, and the js.zip archive.
• K2 leftovers (K2 is not part of the template): css/k2.css, css/k2.print.css, the html/mod_k2_content/ slider override (3 files) and images/system/k2CalendarLoader.gif.
• html/modules.php: Joomla 3-style module chrome functions; Joomla 4+ uses the layout chromes in html/layouts/chromes/, which stay.
• error_.php, replaced by a working error.php (see Fixed).
• utils/admin-js.js, a Joomla 3-era admin script for the old checkbox switches.

Stylesheets no longer loaded

• bootstrap-extended.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, font-awesome.min.css (Font Awesome 4 from MaxCDN), ie.css, ie6.css and template_rtl.css. Newly loaded: all.min.css, v4-shims.min.css, bootstrap.rtl.min.css (right-to-left sites), bs2-bs5-bridge.css, nav.css and, when present, custom.css.

Retired settings

• Four social slots removed with their switches: Google+, StumbleUpon, Digg and Blogger.
• The settings that went with the old drop-down menu script: dropheight, dropwidth, dropopacity, dropspeed. Also removed: dropdownhandler1maxwidth, megamenuwidth and HRboxspeed.
• colours_handlers, the setting block that fed the old colour picker.

Security

• Output helpers added in index.php (also defined in component.php): 283 occurrences of the ph* helpers across the template, counting their definitions. Every template setting written into the page is escaped for where it lands:
  • phEsc(): HTML text and attributes (50 occurrences in index.php, counting the definition).
  • phRichText(): 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.
  • phHexColor(), phCssToken(), phCssNum(), phCssDim(), phCssFont(), phCssSelector(), phCssUrl(): colours, sizes, fonts, selectors and image URLs written into the page's CSS.
  • phJsStr(), phJsLit(): values written into the slideshow's inline JavaScript.
• Raw echo $this->params->get(…) output in index.php: 182 occurrences (on 99 lines) → 2 lines, the Header and Footer Custom Code fields (headcode, footercode), which are administrator-only by design.
• Escaping calls (htmlspecialchars / escape) across the template: 6 → 42. Module titles, menu items and module content written into attributes are escaped in the module chromes (megamenu, parallax, slides, testimonial, vmdefault, vmdefaultlogin, vmtab) and in mod_menu, mod_login, mod_search and mod_custom.
• The social links open with rel="noopener".
• The Joomla _JEXEC guard, which stops a PHP file running unless Joomla loads it: 20 → 22 occurrences.

Quickstart

The quickstart is now a complete Joomla 6.2.0 site with High Level 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 58 published modules, 104 published menu items and 84 published articles.
• The Smart Search index is built (170 indexed links), so the site search returns results from the first visit.
• The logo link is saved on in the template style (logoLinked).
• The second phone menu button is filled from a published menu module in the new cs-secondary position (“Phone Second Menu (Main Menu)”), showing the Main Menu.
• The three sample “Joomla hosting” links (in two sample modules) now go to Cybersalt's Monthly Joomla Website Management page, https://www.cybersalt.com/joomla/monthly-joomla-website-management, instead of a domain that no longer resolves. The “Quick Start Package” text describes Joomla, sample content and a configured template.
• The sample contact’s image (images/template.png) now exists (a copy of the template thumbnail); before, a broken-image placeholder showed on the contact page.
• Two sample menu items (“Parks” and “Shop”, Joomla 3 sample-data aliases) pointed at pages that do not exist and returned 404; they are unpublished.
• VirtueMart and K2 are not installed; High Level is not a shop.

Package

• Standalone template: now a Joomla package, pkg_highlevel-6.2.0.zip, that installs the High Level template. It declares method="upgrade", so an existing High Level updates in place.
• Quickstart bundle: a complete Joomla 6.2.0 install with High Level pre-loaded as the active template, replacing the Akeeba .jpa quickstart.