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Render Changelog

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  • Version 6.2.0

    First Joomla 6 native release. Render has been rebuilt for Joomla 6.2.0 + PHP 8 + Bootstrap 5. The previous download is the Joomla 3 package (render_template_package.1051.zip, template version string 03.04.2017 3.6.5), and everything below is measured against it. Every Joomla 3 class call is gone (97), the template no longer needs Joomla’s Backward Compatibility plugin, the template options use Joomla’s own on/off switches and colour pickers, every template setting written into the page is escaped, and there is a new phone header with a slide-out menu and a row of fingertip-sized buttons. Joomla 6’s Bootstrap 5 replaces the Bootstrap 2 the Joomla 3 template loaded; the template’s own markup keeps its Bootstrap 2 class names and renders through a compatibility stylesheet, so the design is unchanged. The Camera slideshow stays. Template files: 181 → 179, with 22 added, 24 removed and 21 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 Joomla 3 bootstrap.framework and bootstrap.loadCss calls.
    • New css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css (revision 2026-10-24.163), linked last in the page head, with a file-time version marker. It lets Render’s Bootstrap 2 markup render correctly on Bootstrap 5:
      • The Bootstrap 2 grid: .row-fluid / .spanN widths and gutters, nested spans, row clearfix, and phone stacking of every span column.
      • The Bootstrap 2 responsive utilities (hidden-phone, visible-phone, hidden-tablet, visible-desktop and the rest), tab panes, collapse, .well / .page-header and Bootstrap 2 base typography.
      • Joomla 4+ icon classes (pagination arrows, the password eye and others) mapped to Font Awesome 6 glyphs, and the Bootstrap 2 glyphicon sprite, which Joomla 4 removed from media/jui/, now ships with the template (css/img/glyphicons-halflings.png, -white.png).
      • The rules written for Render itself, in marked blocks: the phone header and its spacing, the desktop header icon line, the login and registration form widths, the home-page hero and footer, and the small fixes listed under Fixed.
    • New js/cs-jq-compat.js: restores the jQuery 1.x calls that Joomla 6’s jQuery 3.7 removed but the bundled Camera slideshow still uses.
    • Font Awesome 6.5.2 (all.min.css + v4-shims.min.css from cdnjs) on the front end, replacing Font Awesome 4.7.0 from MaxCDN. The template’s fa fa-* class names keep working through the shims, and the Options screen icons in templateDetails.xml use the same version.
    • The page loads its Google Fonts directly from a stylesheet link instead of the WebFontConfig / webfont.js loader script in index.php and component.php.
    • New js/cs-parallax.js: parallax in plain JavaScript. It reads the same data-stellar-ratio, data-stellar-vertical-offset and data-stellar-background-ratio attributes the template’s parallax options already print, so your settings carry over; it replaces jquery.stellar, which cannot run on Joomla 6’s jQuery. It is off below 768 px and for visitors who ask their device for reduced motion.

    New phone header

    • New js/cs-mobile.js, loaded by index.php. On phones (up to 767 px) a menu button beside the logo opens the main menu as a slide-out panel, with sub-menus opening in place behind visible “+” buttons. The Joomla 3 package only had a selectnav drop-down list built by a jQuery plug-in.
    • A row of 44×44 px buttons in the template’s teal (rgb(74, 191, 200)) with dark icons: second menu, Log in, Search and the social links. The menu button is filled in the same teal, with dark bars, so the header reads as one set, and it is centred on the logo. The logo and menu button sit 30 px from the screen edges.
    • The second menu opens the site’s sidebar Main Menu with all its sub-levels. It reads a new hidden module position, cs-secondary (declared in templateDetails.xml and output in index.php), so any menu module published there appears behind that button.
    • The Log in button opens Joomla’s login page and scrolls the username field into view, so the form is on screen straight away.
    • Opening a phone panel dims the page below the header only; the logo, menu button and button row stay clear. Tapping outside an open panel closes it. A tapped “+” button in a panel keeps its colours instead of turning dark on dark.
    • Login and registration fields use 16 px text, so iPhones no longer zoom the page in when you tap them.

    Login form

    • On the login page the show password eye sits inside the password field, and every field in a form takes the same height. The checkboxes (Remember me, Send a copy) are square again.

    Module styles and overrides

    • The module styles that the Joomla 3 html/modules.php defined as functions are now seven layout chromes in html/layouts/chromes/, the only place Joomla 4+ looks for them: vmdefault.php, vmdefaultlogin.php, vmtab.php, testimonial.php, megamenu.php, parallax.php and slides.php. vmdefaultlogin.php is the style the login pop-up asks for; Joomla 4+ had no definition for it.
    • New html/com_content/category/blog_item.php override for category blog items, and a new css/blog.css for the blog grid, loaded by index.php.

    Favicon

    • New Favicon tab in the template options (fieldset faviconsettings, fields favicon and favicontool, field class fields/favicontool.php). Pick one image and the template outputs the icon set (phFaviconSet() and phIcoBytes() in index.php). With thanks to Gianluca, whose favicon question inspired this tool.
    • 10 new language strings (TPL_RENDER_FAVICON_*, TPL_RENDER_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: Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, TikTok and Discord. They join Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest and RSS.
    • The Twitter slot is now X (formerly Twitter) with the X logo (fa-x-twitter).

    Template options (administrator)

    • 14 colour settings now use a colour picker (Coloris: fields/colorpicker.php, js/coloris.min.js, css/coloris.min.css), replacing the Joomla 3 colour field.
    • Custom CSS field (customcss), and support for a css/custom.css file that index.php loads only when it exists. The file is deliberately not listed in the package, so a template update can never overwrite or remove it; the field is stored in the database.
    • 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.

    Changed

    Joomla 6 platform

    • Built for Joomla 6.2.0 (previous download: Joomla 3).
    • templateDetails.xml version 03.04.2017 3.6.5 → 6.2.0. method="upgrade" is added (it was not declared), so an existing install updates in place.

    Joomla 3 → Joomla 6 API

    • 97 Joomla 3 static class calls → 0. Each moved to its namespaced Joomla 4+ form (JText → Text, JRoute → Route, JHtml → HTMLHelper, JFactory → Factory and the rest). Heaviest files: index.php (42), html/mod_login/default.php (20) and error.php (13). The four jimport() calls and the behavior.framework call in index.php are gone.
    • Of the 15 PHP overrides in html/, 7 changed: mod_login, mod_menu (default.php, default_component.php, default_separator.php, default_url.php), mod_search and mod_custom.
    • html/mod_search/default.php: the module class suffix is read from the module’s own parameters. Joomla 4+ no longer passes $moduleclass_sfx to overrides, so PHP 8 logged an undefined-variable warning on every page.
    • index.php read $menuitem->params, a property Joomla 6 removed; it now calls $menuitem->getParams().

    Template options (administrator)

    • The 68 on/off settings that were legacy type="checkbox" fields are now Joomla’s radio switcher (65 switchers in the new manifest, for example RSSON, H1TitleImgText, cam_autoAdvance). The template has no legacy checkboxes left.
    • Template options: 292 → 284 fields, 11 fieldsets before and after (the Favicon tab is new, the K2 Items Slider tab is gone).

    Defaults for a fresh install

    • A standalone install links the logo / site name to the home page and starts with the built-in slideshow switched on and advancing, on desktop and phones (logoLinked, cam_turnOn, cam_autoAdvance, cam_mobileAutoAdvance default to 1 in templateDetails.xml; they were 0). Existing sites keep their saved settings.

    Scripts and menus

    • The drop-down menus no longer use the Superfish / Supersubs plug-ins, and the page background no longer needs jquery.backstretch. Drop-downs are wide enough for their labels, so items do not wrap onto two lines.
    • jQuery is still loaded, by Joomla, because the Camera slideshow and the template’s anchor-scroll script still use it; the template’s own jQuery calls drop from 73 to 43. js/ goes from 21 to 12 files.

    Phone and desktop look

    • On phones, headings, the breadcrumb and the footer titles start at the same 20 px inset as the page text (two paddings had stacked), and article text no longer touches the edges of the white page box.
    • On phones the home page tabs wrap instead of running off the left edge, and the registration form is inset like the login and password pages.
    • On phones the sample heading in the slideshow and inner-page hero is 24 px (it was an inline 2.8vw, about 10 px on a small phone), and the caption starts clear of the button row.
    • On desktop the search, account and register icons line up with the menu links.
    • <code> text keeps the Bootstrap 2 chip (light box, border, red text), so the class-suffix examples on the Custom Modules Styles page stay readable on the dark module boxes.
    • On the article categories page, the + button that opens the subcategories lines up with the category title.

    Fixed

    Pages that failed on Joomla 4+

    • Error pages: error.php used JError and JText (11 calls). With Joomla’s Behaviour - Backward Compatibility plugin off, and always on Joomla 6, Joomla could not render any error page, so every “page not found” became a 500. “Page not found” and “access denied” now show inside the template’s own error page, with the site’s header, menus and footer, and a real 404 status. Server errors (5xx) still use Joomla’s minimal system page, because the database or a module may be what failed.
    • Error pages and server details: an error caused by a missing item no longer prints the server’s file paths and a technical trace, and a missing article or contact answers with the proper 404 page.
    • Side-by-side positions: index.php asked countModules('footer-left && footer-right') (2 places). Joomla 4+ reads that string as one position name, so the test always failed and the two footer columns stacked. Each position is now counted on its own.
    • Anchor links on jQuery 3: the template’s anchor-scroll script waited for a window load event inside document.ready, which jQuery 3 runs afterwards, so a link such as page#section never scrolled. It now runs at once when the page has already loaded.

    Account and header

    • Account and register icons: the template prints its account and register icons and the login pop-up only when a module sits in the loginform position. Render’s demo site had that module unpublished, so the icons and the pop-up were missing. The header shows them again.
    • Logo and slogan link home. The logo and the slogan under it both link to the home page, in a link that keeps the slogan’s colour and has no underline (cs-slogan-link in index.php). The link follows the logo-link setting, which is now on unless you switch it off, also for a template style that never saved it. On a site installed at the domain root the link always goes to the site’s home page, not the current page.

    Forms and layout

    • Login and registration fields at their full width. The template’s contact-form rule input.required{width:60%} also caught Joomla’s login and registration fields, so the username box was far narrower than the password box. Joomla’s user forms now fill their column (capped at 640 px); the contact form keeps its own width. The fields also lose a 5 px side margin that pushed them past their column.
    • Checkboxes: a rule meant for text boxes (input.inputbox with a 23 px radius) drew Remember me and Send a copy as circles that read as radio buttons.
    • Footer over forms: the home page style, which Joomla also uses for the login and registration pages, pulled the footer up by 170 px, so the footer covered the Register button and the Forgot links. The overlap now applies only to the home page.
    • Hero order on phones: on the login, registration and 404 pages the page hero sat between the form and the footer; it stays at the top.

    Removed

    Files removed (24)

    • Plug-ins no longer loaded (js/ 21 → 12 files): superfish.js, supersubs.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, jquery.backstretch.min.js, jquery.stellar.min.js, jquery.nicescroll.min.js, jquery.equalHeights.js, jquery.elevateZoom-3.0.8.min.js, selectnav.min.js, modernizr.js, selectivizr-min.js, flexibility.js, imgSizer.js and jquery-eu-cookie-law-popup.js.
    • html/modules.php: the Joomla 3 module style functions, now layout chromes (see Added).
    • The Internet Explorer stylesheets css/ie.css and css/ie6.css.
    • K2 leftovers: css/k2.css, css/k2.print.css, the K2 slider override html/mod_k2_content/ (3 files) and images/system/k2CalendarLoader.gif. K2 is not part of this release.
    • utils/admin-js.js, a Joomla 3-era admin script for the old checkbox switches.

    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, dropdownhandler1maxwidth), the K2 slider settings (k2pagination and k2sl_items, k2sl_itemsDesktop, k2sl_itemsDesktopSmall, k2sl_itemsTablet, k2sl_itemsTabletSmall, k2sl_itemsMobile), and HRboxspeed and colours_handlers.
    • The Template Options colour field Custom Background Color 4 (color11): no code in the template ever read it, and it was not read by the Joomla 3 version either.

    Security

    • Output helpers added in index.php, 328 calls across the template. Every template setting written into the page is escaped for where it lands:
      • phEsc(): HTML text and attributes.
      • phRichText(): fields that may contain simple markup. Joomla’s input filter keeps the markup but strips scripts, styles, iframes and on* event handlers.
      • phCssToken(), phCssNum(), phCssDim(), phCssFont(), phCssSelector(), phCssUrl(), phHexColor(): colours, sizes, fonts, selectors and image URLs written into the page’s CSS. A setting such as red;}body{background:url(//x) can no longer rewrite the page’s styles.
      • phJsStr(), phJsLit(): values written into inline JavaScript.
    • component.php defines phEsc() as well, so print and pop-up views escape their output.
    • Module titles, menu items and module content written into attributes are escaped in the module chromes and in the mod_menu, mod_login, mod_search and mod_custom overrides. htmlspecialchars / escape calls in the template: 4 → 41.
    • The social links open with rel="noopener".
    • Error pages no longer show server details: a message that carries a file path or stack trace is replaced by Joomla’s generic message unless Joomla’s debug mode is on; the status code is unchanged.
    • More PHP files stop unless Joomla loads them (defined('_JEXEC') or die): 12 → 22 files.

    Quickstart

    The quickstart is a complete Joomla 6.2.0 site with Render installed and configured as on the demo. It replaces the Akeeba Backup .jpa + Kickstart quickstart that came with the Joomla 3 package.

    • 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 sample site: 59 published modules, 103 published menu items and 72 articles. Render is not a shop; there is no VirtueMart and no K2.
    • The phone second menu is set up: a “Phone Second Menu (Main Menu)” module in the cs-secondary position, showing the Site Map, Login, Sample Sites and Example Pages.
    • The “My Account” login module is published in the loginform position on all pages, so the account and register icons and the login pop-up show in the header.
    • The demo’s “Joomla hosting” links now point to Cybersalt’s Monthly Joomla Website Management page, https://www.cybersalt.com/joomla/monthly-joomla-website-management.
    • Smart Search is indexed (157 items), so the search box returns results on a new site.

    Package

    • Standalone template: a Joomla package, pkg_render-6.2.0.zip, that installs the Render template and registers it in the package manager. It declares method="upgrade", so an existing Render updates in place.
    • Quickstart: the full Joomla 6.2.0 site described above.
    • The template version follows the Joomla release it is built for: 6.2.0.
    Earlier history and version numbering: the previous download was the Joomla 3 package dated 03.04.2017 (3.6.5); there was no Joomla 4, 5 or 6 download before this one. 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).

Changelog entries prior to this release are not available.