Added

Bootstrap 5 rendering through a compatibility stylesheet

• index.php loads Joomla 5's bundled Bootstrap 5 (/media/vendor/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css) in place of the template's own Bootstrap 2 sheets (css/bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css), before the template's own stylesheets, so template.css still wins the cascade.
• New css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css, linked last in the page head on every page, with a file-time version marker. It lets Universal Shop's Bootstrap 2 markup render correctly on Bootstrap 5:
  • Bootstrap 2 grid: .row-fluid / .spanN widths and gutters, nested spans and .offsetN, row clearfix, and phone stacking of every span column.
  • The Bootstrap 2 responsive utilities (hidden-phone, visible-phone, hidden-tablet, visible-tablet, hidden-desktop, visible-desktop), tab panes, collapse, .well / .page-header and Bootstrap 2 base typography.
  • Joomla 4/5 icon classes (pagination arrows, the password eye and others) mapped to Font Awesome 6 glyphs.
• New js/cs-jq-compat.js: restores three jQuery 1.x calls that Joomla 5's jQuery 3.7 removed but the bundled camera.js slideshow still uses (.live(), .offset() on the window, and .load(fn) as a load-event shortcut).

New phone layout

• New js/cs-mobile-generic.js. On phones (up to 767 px) a menu button in the header opens the main menu as a slide-out panel, with submenus opening in place.
• A phone toolbar of six 44×44 px buttons: Section menu, Log in, Register, Search, Follow us (the social links) and Cart, in the template's accent colour.
• Section menu opens the shop categories. It reads a new module position, cs-secondary (declared in templateDetails.xml and output in a hidden holder in index.php), so any menu module published there appears behind that button.
• The currency selector, which sat alone in a bar above the logo, moves into the bottom of the slide-out menu on phones (a full-width selector with its refresh button) and returns to the top bar from 768 px.
• Opening a phone panel (menu, search, account, cart, social links) dims the page below the header only; the logo, menu button and button row stay clear.
• With products in the cart, the phone's cart button shows the number of items.
• Cart page on phones: each product row becomes a card with labelled price, quantity, tax and total, the totals become label/value lines, and the billing, shipping and checkout buttons run full width at 44 px. Nothing runs off the screen.
• Account pages on phones (login, registration, your account) show the page content first, with only the breadcrumbs and the store category menu above it.
• The page heading, breadcrumbs, login and contact forms and the footer bands line up on the content column's single 20 px edge.
• Blog and category page numbers wrap onto a second line on phones instead of running under the buttons.
• The login and cart form fields use 16 px text on phones, so iPhones no longer zoom the page in when you tap them.
• The slideshow's previous / next arrows sit in the bottom corners on phones, clear of the slide's Buy now button.

Login forms

• New js/cs-password-eyeball.js: every login form (the login page, the header login and VirtueMart's checkout and account login) gets a show password eye inside the password field, and the password field takes the same width and height as the username field beside it.

Cart

• The cart drop-down ends with a Check Out Now button, shown once the cart has products and kept in step when products are added without a page reload (html/mod_virtuemart_cart/default.php). It offered only Show Cart before.

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(), phIcoBytes() in index.php); the template's own favicon.ico stays as the fallback. With thanks to Gianluca, whose favicon question inspired this tool.
• 10 new language strings (TPL_UNIVERSAL_FAVICON_*, TPL_UNIVERSAL_FAVICONTOOL_*). The language file goes from 74 to 84 strings.

Modern social network support

• Five new social services, each with its own URL field and show/hide switch: Threads, TikTok, Bluesky, Mastodon and Discord (threads/threadsON, tiktok/tiktokON, bluesky/blueskyON, mastodon/mastodonON, discord/discordON).
• The Twitter slot is now X (formerly Twitter) with the X logo. The full set is X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, Pinterest, Discord and RSS.
• Social icons are Font Awesome 6 brand glyphs (fa-x-twitter, fa-bluesky, fa-threads and so on) in place of the old socicon-* icon font.

Template options (administrator)

• Colour picker: the open-source Coloris picker ships inside the template (css/coloris.min.css, js/coloris.min.js, field class fields/colorpicker.php), so nothing is fetched from another site.
• Custom CSS field (customcss, on the Header & Footer Custom Code tab), and support for a css/custom.css file. Both load after the compatibility stylesheet, so your rules win. The file is deliberately not listed in the package, so a template update can never overwrite or remove it, and the field is stored in the database.
• New fields/adminui.php: help rows in the options run the full width of the form instead of a narrow column, and the template's Details panel follows Joomla's light or dark admin theme.

Changed

Joomla 5 platform

• Built for Joomla 5.4.10 and VirtueMart 4.8.6 (previous download: Joomla 5.1, VirtueMart 4.2.12), with no need for Joomla's Backward Compatibility plugin.
• templateDetails.xml version 27.06.2024 5.1.0/4.2.12 → 5.4.10 and creation date 2026-11-05. The version shown in the template description and the @version docblock in index.php match. method="upgrade" is kept, so an existing install updates in place.

Layout grid

• The page layout in index.php now uses Bootstrap 5 rows and columns: .row-fluid 29 → 8, .spanN 55 → 6, .col-md-N 0 → 49.
• The VirtueMart overrides and the module content keep their Bootstrap 2 classes, rendered by the compatibility stylesheet.

J3 → J5 API migration

• 175 Joomla 3 static class calls → 0. Each moved to its namespaced Joomla 4+ form: JRoute → Route (the most common, 55), JText → Text, JFactory → Factory, JHtml / JHTML → HTMLHelper, JURI → Uri, JModuleHelper → ModuleHelper, JPluginHelper → PluginHelper, JComponentHelper → ComponentHelper, and JDocumentHTML → the document's own countModules(). The jimport() call is gone.
• Heaviest files: html/mod_login/default.php (20), html/com_virtuemart/user/login.php (19), index.php (17), html/com_virtuemart/productdetails/default.php (16), html/com_virtuemart/category/default.php (9), html/com_virtuemart/virtuemart/default_products.php (9), html/mod_virtuemart_product/single.php (9).
• Every VirtueMart override folder was converted: askquestion, cart, category, productdetails, sublayouts, user and virtuemart, plus mod_virtuemart_cart, _category, _currencies, _manufacturer, _product, mod_breadcrumbs, mod_login, mod_menu, mod_custom and mod_search. In total 39 of the 47 PHP overrides changed.

Template options (administrator)

• 150 field type changes in templateDetails.xml:
  • On/off settings: every legacy class="switch" type="checkbox" (72 before) is now Joomla 5's radio switcher (for example OverrideDefaultSettings, RSSON, AdditionalGFontON, H1TitleImgText, cam_autoAdvance). With the retired settings removed and the new social switches added, the template has 69 switchers and no legacy checkboxes.
  • 86 colour settings: type="color" → type="colorpicker", with a live swatch.
• Template options: 296 → 294 fields, 13 → 14 tabs. Tab names lose their trailing "Settings" (for example Built-in Slideshow, Drop Down Menus, Theme), and the social labels read "Show X (formerly Twitter)" and so on.

Icons and fonts

• Front end: Font Awesome 4.6.3 from MaxCDN → Font Awesome 6.5.2 (all.min.css + v4-shims.min.css from cdnjs). The template's existing fa fa-* class names keep working through the shims.
• Google Fonts load through a stylesheet <link> (with preconnect and display=swap) in index.php. The WebFontConfig JavaScript loader, which fetched webfont.js from ajax.googleapis.com, is gone (2 → 0).

Menus and backgrounds

• The hover drop-down menus are driven by CSS (with a small hover helper in the template's phone script) instead of the Superfish / Supersubs jQuery plug-ins. The drop-down stays open while the pointer moves down to it, and nested items that open a fly-out still carry a ▸ marker.
• The background image set in the template options is sized with CSS (background-size: cover) instead of jQuery.backstretch(), which was loaded twice before.

Forms and store pages

• One field size per form: VirtueMart's registration, account and checkout address forms mixed required fields, held to 60% of the row by the template's input.required rule, with full-width optional ones. Every text field in those forms now takes the full row at one height.
• css/template.css: 178,886 → 180,031 bytes.

Fixed

Pages that failed on Joomla 5

• Shop login page: html/com_virtuemart/user/login.php called JDispatcher, behavior.modal and behavior.formvalidation, none of which exist in Joomla 5, so the VirtueMart login page returned a 500 without the Backward Compatibility plugin. It now uses triggerEvent() and behavior.formvalidator, and the modal call is gone. With thanks to Zoltán Szász, whose follow-up report led to the formvalidation fix across our templates.
• Error pages: error.php used JError and JText. 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" pages now show inside the template, with its header, menus and footer, and fit a phone screen; they also stopped requesting reset.css, text.css, typography.css and template_rtl.css, which do not exist.
• 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.

Page layout

• Footer columns: the footer chose between one and two columns with countModules('footer-left && footer-right'), a Joomla 3 expression that Joomla 4 and later read as a single position name, so it always chose one column and Copyrights and Payments stacked full width. Each position is now checked on its own, so they sit side by side.
• Home page tabs: the Hot / Featured / Customers Choice product tabs now switch when a tab is clicked; with Joomla 5's Bootstrap they stayed on the first tab.
• Slideshow arrows sat 3 px off the centre of their round buttons; they are centred.
• Testimonials on small phones: the carousel's previous / next buttons no longer cover the end of the "Our happy customers said…" heading.

Cart page

• The Terms of Service box sat above the middle of its label; it is centred on it.
• "Do you have an account?", Login and Register And Checkout ran together on one wrapping line; each now sits on its own centred line.

Maintenance pass

• The @font-face in css/template.css pointing at Joomla 3's media/jui/fonts/ IcoMoon font, which Joomla 4 removed, is disabled.
• Pagination arrows: Joomla 4/5'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.
• Featured articles: in a one-column featured (home) view, tall intro articles were clipped to their title. They now show in full.
• Search button: the global button margin pulled the search button away from its box. #search-position .btn now has margin:0.
• With thanks to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to this maintenance pass across our templates.

Defaults for a fresh install

• The site name / logo now links to the home page and the built-in slideshow is switched on, with autoplay on desktop and phones (logoLinked, cam_turnOn, cam_autoAdvance, cam_mobileAutoAdvance default to on; they had no default before, so a fresh install showed them off). Existing sites keep their saved settings.

Removed

Files removed

• Bootstrap 2: the whole 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), the css/bootstrap.zip archive beside it, and Bootstrap 2's js/bootstrap.min.js. Joomla 5's Bootstrap 5 and the compatibility stylesheet take their place.
• 18 more JavaScript files nothing loads (js/ 26 → 11 files): jquery-1.8.1.min.js, jquery.noConflict.js, superfish.js, supersubs.js, jquery.backstretch.min.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, jquery.selectric.js, dropkick.js, jquery.dropkick-1.0.0.js, jquery.nicescroll.min.js, selectnav.min.js, jquery.plusanchor.js, jquery.equalHeights.js, easypaginate.js, imgSizer.js, flexibility.js, modernizr.js and selectivizr-min.js.
• The old Internet Explorer stylesheets css/ie.css and css/ie6.css with their conditional comments, and the html5.js shim.
• html/modules.php: Joomla 3-style module chrome functions; Joomla 4/5 uses the layout chromes in html/layouts/chromes/.
• html/com_virtuemart/productdetails/default_addtocart.php: nothing called it (the product page draws Add to Cart from sublayouts/addtocart.php).
• 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+ (gplus), StumbleUpon, Digg and Blogger.
• The Superfish drop-down settings that went with the old menu script (usedropdown, dropheight, dropwidth, dropopacity, dropspeed), and four settings nothing read: dropdownhandler1maxwidth, HRboxspeed, the colours_handlers note, and Slideshow Arrows Background (color37), which the template never applied.

Security

• 13 output helpers added in index.php (the escaping helper also in component.php), 295 references across the template. Every template setting written into the page is escaped for where it lands:
  • phEsc(): HTML text and attributes.
  • 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() (114 uses), phCssToken(), phCssNum(), phCssDim(), phCssFont(), phCssSelector(), phCssUrl(): colours, sizes, fonts, selectors and image URLs written into the page's CSS.
  • phJsStr(), phJsLit(): values written into inline JavaScript.
  • phFaviconSet(), phIcoBytes(): favicon output.
• Raw echo $this->params->get(…) output: 214 in index.php and 1 in component.php → 2, the Header and Footer Custom Code fields, which are administrator-only by design.
• Module, menu and tab titles are escaped in the module chromes html/layouts/chromes/megamenu.php, slides.php, vmdefault.php and vmtab.php, and in mod_menu (default.php, default_component.php, default_separator.php, default_url.php), mod_custom, mod_login, mod_search and mod_virtuemart_cart. htmlspecialchars / escape calls in the template: 2 → 34.
• The social links open with rel="noopener".
• The error page escapes the error message it prints and casts the error code to a number.
• html/com_virtuemart/cart/default_pricelist.php and html/com_virtuemart/category/productsviewarray.php could be requested directly; both now stop unless Joomla loads them (defined('_JEXEC') or die), like the rest of the template.

Quickstart Installer

The Quickstart is a complete Joomla 5.4.10 site with VirtueMart 4.8.6 and Universal Shop pre-configured as the active template, installed with Joomla's own web installer. The previous download was an Akeeba .jpa archive restored with Kickstart.

• Bundled extensions: Akeeba Backup 10.5.0, Weblinks 5.2.0, MCP For J 2.11.0, StageIt 5.9.2.
• The site templates/ folder holds only cassiopeia, system and universal. VirtueMart's demo templates horme_3, vmbeez3 and vmbasic are not included; the first two had error pages that returned a server error.
• A Store Categories menu module is published at cs-secondary, so the phone's second menu button opens the shop categories.
• Guests can use Ask a question on a product page without logging in first, and the demo's two Contact Us menu links (top menu and footer), which pointed nowhere, open the contact page.
• The Smart Search index is built, so the site search returns results from the first visit.
• Joomla 5.4's "What's New" guided tour does not start by itself, and Joomla's Statistics plugin is set to never send data.
• A clean starting state: the action log is empty, hit counters are zero, no stale update notices are listed, and the post-installation messages are trimmed to Joomla's five new-site advisories (welcome, action logs, privacy, multi-factor authentication, automated updates).

Package format

• Standalone template: now a Joomla package, pkg_universal-5.4.10.zip (pkg_universal.xml), that installs the Universal Shop template (tpl_universal.zip) and registers it in the package manager. It declares method="upgrade", so an existing Universal Shop updates in place, and <blockChildUninstall>true</blockChildUninstall>, so the template is removed through the package rather than on its own. The previous download was a plain template zip.
• Quickstart bundle: universal-quickstart-J5.4.10.zip, a complete Joomla 5.4.10 install with VirtueMart 4.8.6 and Universal Shop pre-loaded as the active template.