Various Energize Themes Templates Changelog

Added

Bootstrap 5 rendering through a compatibility stylesheet

• css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css — a new stylesheet that lays Various’s Bootstrap 2 grid (.row-fluid, .spanN, offsets), responsive utilities (hidden-phone, visible-phone and the rest), forms, buttons, navigation, pagination and dialogs onto Joomla’s Bootstrap 5. It is linked at the end of the page head with a file-time version marker, so it sits above the template’s own CSS in the cascade. It also maps Joomla’s own icon-* classes onto Font Awesome 6, so the password show/hide button and the pagination arrows draw real icons.
• index.php loads Joomla’s /media/vendor/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css (and bootstrap.rtl.min.css on right-to-left sites) in place of the template’s own Bootstrap 2 copies in css/bootstrap/.
• css/bs2-donor-base.css — Various’s original Bootstrap 2 form sizing, label columns and base typography, kept as a separate file and loaded straight after the Bootstrap 5 core, so the login, registration and contact forms keep their labels beside the fields.
• css/legacy-extras.css — the general rules from the old css/k2.css (carousel, rating and helper styles the template still uses), loaded where k2.css was. Every rule that named K2 was left out; see Removed.

Phone layout

• js/cs-mobile.js — a plain-JavaScript phone layer for screens up to 767 px. A 44×44 px Menu button at the right of the header opens the main menu as a slide-out drawer, with sub-menus opening in place behind their own arrow buttons. The two menus inside the desktop “Template Details” mega panel open in the drawer too.
• A phone toolbar under the header with five 44×44 px buttons: Section menu, Log in, Register, Search and Follow us (the social links). Panels close with a tap outside them.
• A second menu for the Section menu button. A new hidden module position, cs-secondary, is declared in templateDetails.xml (63 → 64 positions); whatever menu module you place there opens from that button.
• The main menu button is filled in the theme’s accent colour with white bars, matching the toolbar buttons beside it.
• The phone header stays solid when a panel opens. Opening search, the login form or a menu dims the page behind it while the header stays usable above it. Where the header has no background of its own, it now takes the solid colour that sits behind it while the panel is open, instead of showing the dimmed page through it, and gives it back when the panel closes.
• One 12 px side inset. The logo, page titles, page content and the story and info bands share a single 12 px edge on phones. Before, page titles sat 32 px in (content wrapper plus a heading box), text 20 px and the logo 40 px. The text in the home page’s service row, the custom-module and “Download App” bands and the testimonials keeps a side margin instead of running to the screen edge. Desktop is unchanged.
• On phones the header, slideshow and coloured bands run edge to edge (cs-no-bs2-gutter body class, no 20 px body margin), and the page cannot be pushed sideways.
• On account pages (login, registration, password reset, username reminder) phones show the page content first, with only the breadcrumbs and a menu above it. Joomla’s page-number bar wraps onto a second line instead of running off the screen.
• The search box and the login fields use 16 px text, so iPhones do not zoom the page when they are tapped.
• The vendor’s own phone controls (#menupanel, the second ≡ toggle #menupanel2, the social-links handler and the quick menu) are hidden on phones; the new header replaces them.

Error pages inside the template

• error.php rewritten: “page not found” (404), “access denied” (403) and the other 4xx pages now display inside Various, with its header, menus, phone toolbar and footer, and the message comes first on phones. Server errors (5xx) use Joomla’s minimal system page, because the database or a module may be what failed.
• The error page uses the template’s default style, so a home-page style cannot hide the message, and it is marked noindex for search engines. Before, it was a stand-alone page with its own stylesheets and a fixed 960 px layout.

Colour picker and Options screen

• fields/colorpicker.php, css/coloris.min.css and js/coloris.min.js — the open-source Coloris colour picker ships inside the template, so nothing is fetched from another site. All 64 colour settings use it (see Changed).
• fields/adminui.php — Options-screen styling only: help banners run across the full width instead of a narrow column, and the template’s Details panel follows Joomla’s light or dark administrator theme.

Favicon tool

• A new Favicon tab in the template options (fieldset faviconsettings, fields favicon, faviconspacer and favicontool, field class fields/favicontool.php). Choose one image, crop it if you like, and the template outputs the icon set from it: favicon.ico, 32, 192 and 512 px icons and a 180 px Apple touch icon (phFaviconSet(), phIcoBytes() in index.php). Without one, the template’s own favicon.ico is used. 10 new language strings (TPL_VARIOUS_FAVICON_*, TPL_VARIOUS_FAVICONTOOL_*); the language file goes from 68 to 78 strings. With thanks to Gianluca, whose favicon question inspired this tool.

Modern social network support

• Five new social services, each with its own URL field and show/hide switch: Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok and Discord (threads/threadsON, bluesky/blueskyON, mastodon/mastodonON, tiktok/tiktokON, discord/discordON). With X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest and RSS the footer social list covers 13 networks.
• The Twitter link is shown as X (formerly Twitter) with the X logo; the stored twitter field is unchanged, so your existing link carries over.
• The icons are Font Awesome 6 brand glyphs (fab fa-x-twitter, fab fa-bluesky and the rest) in place of the 12 PNG images in images/, drawn in 48 px boxes as the old images were. Each link carries a title.

Custom CSS that survives updates

• New Custom CSS setting (customcss, on the Header & Footer Custom Code tab). It is stored in the database, so a template update never touches it.
• For larger stylesheets, create css/custom.css: it is loaded only if it exists and is not part of the package, so an update cannot overwrite or remove it. Both load after the template’s own stylesheets and the compatibility stylesheet, so your rules win.

Supporting script

• js/cs-jq-compat.js — restores jQuery 1.x calls that Joomla’s jQuery 3 removed but the bundled scripts still use (.live(), .offset() on the window, and .load(fn) as a load-event shortcut). The camera slideshow binds its play/pause controls with .live().

Security helpers

• 14 new helper functions at the top of index.php: phEsc(), phRichText(), phHexColor(), phCssDim(), phCssNum(), phCssFont(), phCssSelector(), phCssToken(), phCssUrl(), phJsStr(), phJsLit(), phFaviconSet(), phIcoBytes(), plus phCB() for stylesheet version markers. phEsc() and the CSS / JavaScript helpers are also defined in component.php. Where they are used is listed under Security.

Changed

Joomla 6 platform and the Joomla 3 → Joomla 6 API migration

• Built for Joomla 6.2.0.
• All 68 Joomla 3 static class calls removed (JText → Text, JFactory → Factory, JRoute → Route, JModuleHelper → ModuleHelper, JHtml → HTMLHelper, JComponentHelper, JPluginHelper, JURI, JDocumentHTML, and JError::raiseWarning() → throw new \Exception()). These aliases exist only while Joomla’s Behaviour – Backward Compatibility plugin is enabled, and not at all in Joomla 6.
• Files converted (calls before → after): html/mod_login/default.php 20 → 0, error.php 13 → 0, index.php 9 → 0, html/mod_menu/default.php 2 → 0, html/mod_breadcrumbs/default.php and html/mod_search/default.php 1 → 0 each, and component.php. The rest were in the K2 slider override and the unused html/_mod_menu/ copy, both removed.
• 18 of the 29 PHP overrides under html/ changed: com_content (archive, category, featured; 6 files), the four module chromes in html/layouts/chromes/, four mod_menu layouts, and mod_breadcrumbs, mod_custom, mod_login and mod_search.

Page grid and stylesheets

• index.php’s page layout moves onto Bootstrap 5’s grid: row-fluid rows 18 → 0 (18 .row), span columns 48 → 4, with 44 .col-md-N in their place. css/responsive-template.css and css/layout.css gained the matching .row / .col-md-N selectors beside their .row-fluid / .spanN rules, so the layout styling applies to both.
• Every local stylesheet link in index.php carries a version marker (?v=), so a style change after an update reaches visitors immediately instead of waiting for them to clear a cached copy.
• css/template.css: 26,561 → 27,021 bytes; the six colour presets (css/presets/style1.css … style6.css) updated.

Login pop-up

• The login dialog (#LoginForm) is a Bootstrap 5 modal: modal fade with a centred modal-dialog modal-dialog-centered / modal-content wrapper, opened by data-bs-toggle="modal" / data-bs-target="#LoginForm" and closed by a data-bs-dismiss="modal" button. It replaces the Bootstrap 2 modal hide fade shell with its inline display:none and data-toggle / data-dismiss links (see Fixed).
• The form sits on a dark panel in the same colour as the dimmed backdrop (color25, or the active colour preset), with the white × close button at the right of the title bar.
• On the login and registration pages the username and password fields are the same width and height.

Menus, backgrounds, fonts and icons

• Drop-down menus (usedropdown) open on hover through CSS in place of the superfish.js + supersubs.js jQuery plug-ins. A transparent bridge under each menu heading keeps the drop-down open while the pointer crosses the gap to it, and the open path keeps its highlight (li.sfHover, now set by js/cs-mobile.js).
• Section background images (story_image_top1–3, story_image_content, story_image_bottom1–2, story_image_footer) are drawn by a few lines of plain JavaScript as a full-size image layer (object-fit: cover) inside the same .backstretch wrapper the plug-in built, so the template’s styling for it still applies, in place of the jQuery Backstretch plug-in.
• Google Fonts load through a direct stylesheet link with display=swap and preconnect hints, in place of the WebFontConfig script that fetched webfont.js from Google first.
• Font Awesome 6.5.2 (all.min.css + v4-shims.min.css, from cdnjs) replaces the two copies of Font Awesome 4 (4.6.3 and 4.3.0) that the page loaded from the shut-down MaxCDN, so fa fa-* icons in your articles and modules keep working.
• The Internet Explorer conditional comments around <html> and in the head are gone.
• jQuery call sites in index.php: 29 → 17. The rest serve the camera slideshow, the testimonials carousel (owl.carousel.min.js), the side panel and the header that shrinks on scroll.

Template Options screen

• 101 field type changes in templateDetails.xml:
  • 64 colour settings now use the colour picker: 60 from type="color", which on Joomla 5 and 6 rendered as a plain text box needing a hex code typed in, and 4 text boxes that relied on the old jscolor script (sitenamecolor, slogancolor, cam_loaderColor, cam_loaderBgColor). Existing values carry over.
  • 37 on/off settings: legacy class="switch" type="checkbox" fields → Joomla’s native switcher (joomla.form.field.radio.switcher), for example logoLinked, H1TitleImgText, usedropdown, usemegamenu, usetheme, cam_turnOn, cam_autoAdvance, RSSON and the testimonials slider switches. With the five new social switches the template has 42 switchers and no legacy checkboxes.
• Fields 188 → 185, tabs 8 → 9. Tab names lose their “Settings” suffix: Basic, Site Name & Slogan, Drop Down Menu, Built-in Slideshow, Testimonials Slider, Theme; “Template Header And Footer Custom Code” becomes Header & Footer Custom Code.
• The Options screen no longer loads utils/admin-js.js from the manifest description, and its icons come from Font Awesome 6.5.2 (cdnjs) in place of Font Awesome 4.6.3 from the shut-down MaxCDN.

Defaults that match the demo

• The site name / logo links to the home page by default. logoLinked in templateDetails.xml now defaults to on; a fresh install showed it unlinked.
• The built-in slideshow is on by default. cam_turnOn now defaults to on, so a fresh install shows the slideshow, as the demo does, instead of waiting for it to be switched on.

Print view and pop-up windows

• component.php — the print view and pop-up layout — now loads Joomla’s jQuery, the Bootstrap 5 core and the compatibility stylesheet, and fits a phone screen (viewport meta, images scale to the window). It used to inject its own bundled jquery-1.8.1.min.js + jquery.noConflict.js and the Bootstrap 2 css/bootstrap.css / responsive.css.

Version

• templateDetails.xml <version> 13.02.2024 5.0.2 → 6.2.0, with <creationDate> 12/10/2015 → 2026-10-23. The Template Version: span in the manifest description reads 6.2.0 (2026-10-23) and index.php carries a matching @version docblock, so the version shown in the administrator matches the download page. method="upgrade" is kept, so an existing install updates in place.

Fixed

Pages and controls that did not work

• The login pop-up never opened. The account icon in the header used Bootstrap 2’s data-toggle="modal", and the Bootstrap 5 that Joomla loads ignores it, so clicking the icon did nothing. It now opens the Bootstrap 5 dialog described under Changed.
• Every “page not found” could be served as a 500. error.php called JError::raiseWarning() and JText. With the Backward Compatibility plugin off, and always on Joomla 6, those classes do not exist, so the error template itself failed and Joomla could not render any error page. It now raises a proper \Exception with the status code.
• A missing article requested by its id answered 500 instead of the 404 page, because Joomla’s Schema.org plugin reloaded the missing item while the error page was being built. The error page now clears the item id, so these requests get the 404 page.
• footer-left and footer-right never sat side by side. index.php asked countModules('footer-left && footer-right'), a Joomla 3 condition that Joomla 4 and later read as one position name, so both footer modules always took the full width and stacked. With modules in both positions they now share the row (span6 each).
• PHP “Undefined variable $type” warning from the login override. Joomla 4 and later no longer pass $type to html/mod_login/default.php; it now falls back to login.
• A JavaScript error on every page with the built-in slideshow. jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, loaded with the slideshow, fails under Joomla’s jQuery 3 and nothing used it; it is no longer loaded. The slideshow’s play/pause controls work again through js/cs-jq-compat.js.

Requests for files that do not exist

• On right-to-left sites index.php requested css/template-rtl.css, which was never in the template (the file is template_rtl.css, linked further down). The link is gone.
• The carousel loading image in the old k2.css pointed at images/AjaxLoader.gif; the file is ajax-loader.gif, and css/legacy-extras.css now uses that name.
• Four background images that were not in the template now draw no image: blank.gif on the slideshow link layer (css/camera.css), advanced-search.png (css/responsive-template.css), top-small-menu-sep.gif and pdf_Button.png (css/template.css; the file is pdf_button.png). Each was a failed request wherever its rule applied.

Maintenance pass

• IcoMoon icon font 404s. An @font-face rule in css/template.css pointed at media/jui/fonts/, a folder Joomla 4 removed: four failed requests on every page load. The rule is disabled.
• Pagination arrows rendered as empty squares. Joomla 4 and later emit .icon-angle-left, -right, -double-left and -double-right, which the legacy icon stylesheet did not define. They now map to Font Awesome glyphs, as does the password show/hide eye.
• Featured articles clipped to their title. Tall intro articles in a single-column featured view were cut off; .blog-featured .blog-item now uses display:block; overflow:visible; height:auto in that layout.
• The search button detached from its input. A global button margin separated them; the margin is cleared inside search and finder modules (#search-position .btn, .mod-finder__search .btn).

Removed

K2

• Various no longer carries anything for the K2 component: css/k2.css and css/k2.print.css, the K2 slider override html/mod_k2_content/ (Slider/default.php and two index.html files), the K2 pagination and item-slider rules in the inline colour CSS of index.php and the six colour presets, the .itemC .k2sl-content-handler rule in css/responsive-template.css, and the K2 items slider rules (.moduletable.item-slider, .item-slider .module-content) in css/template.css.
• The K2 Item Title colour option (color41) is gone. color42 / color43, which colour the testimonials carousel dots, are relabelled Carousel Pagination Dot Color and Carousel Pagination Active Dot Color (they read “K2 Pagination” and “K2 Highlight Pagination”).

Files removed (48)

• 21 unused scripts from js/: the Bootstrap 2 bootstrap.min.js; old jQuery copies jquery-1.7.1.js, jquery-1.8.1.min.js and jquery.noConflict.js; the plug-ins superfish.js, supersubs.js, jquery.backstretch.min.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, dropkick.js, jquery.dropkick-1.0.0.js, jquery.selectric.js, jquery.elevateZoom-3.0.8.min.js, jquery.equalHeights.js, jquery.nicescroll.min.js, jquery.plusanchor.js, jquery-eu-cookie-law-popup.js and easypaginate.js; and the Internet Explorer helpers modernizr.js, selectivizr-min.js, flexibility.js and imgSizer.js. js/ goes from 27 files to 9, and every file left in it is in use.
• The Bootstrap 2 folder css/bootstrap/ (7 files: bootstrap.css, bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-responsive.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css, bootstrap-rtl.css, bootstrap-tooltip-extended.css); nothing loads it now that Joomla’s Bootstrap 5 and the compatibility stylesheet do the layout.
• Internet Explorer stylesheets: css/ie.css, css/ie6.css, css/ie9-10.css.
• The old colour changer: utils/admin-js.js and utils/js_colourchanger/ (jscolor.js, arrow.gif, cross.gif, hs.png, hv.png), superseded by the colour picker.
• html/modules.php — four Joomla 3 modChrome_* functions (vmdefault, vmdefaultStyle3, megamenu, slides) that Joomla 4 and later never call. The same four chromes are in html/layouts/chromes/.
• html/_mod_menu/ — an unused copy of the menu override (default.php, default_component.php, default_separator.php, default_url.php, index.html). Joomla only reads html/mod_menu/, so it was never loaded.
• The K2 files listed above. In total the shipped tree moves from 250 files to 213: 11 added, 48 removed, 37 modified.

No longer loaded

• Scripts: superfish.js, supersubs.js, jquery.backstretch.min.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, selectivizr-min.js, modernizr.js, the html5.js shim (from Google Code over plain http), Google’s webfont.js, and the print view’s own jQuery 1.8.1.
• Stylesheets: the Bootstrap 2 css/bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css and bootstrap-extended.css (main layout), css/bootstrap.css and css/responsive.css (print view), css/k2.css, the IE sheets, both MaxCDN Font Awesome 4 sheets, and the old error page’s reset.css and presets/style-error.css. css/bootstrap.css and css/responsive.css stay for the print view.

Retired settings

• Four social slots removed with their switches, for services that have closed or no longer offer profile links: Google+ (gplus), StumbleUpon, Digg and Blogger.
• The four Superfish animation settings that went with the old menu plug-in: dropopacity, dropheight, dropwidth and dropspeed.
• Four settings the template never read: Insert code into template footer (footercode), Community Links Label (FollowUsLabel), responsivemenuon and megamenuwidth; and the colours_handlers note that started the old jscolor picker. The Insert code into template head setting (headcode) stays.

Security

• 194 places where a template setting is written into the page now go through the new helpers, each escaped for where it lands:
  • phHexColor() (83): the colour scheme in the inline <style> block, checked as hex colours.
  • phCssToken(), phCssNum() and phCssDim() (37): font sizes, positions, heights and the theme preset name that becomes a stylesheet path.
  • phJsStr() and phJsLit() (39): the camera slideshow and testimonials carousel settings and the section background image paths written into inline JavaScript.
  • phEsc() (31): the 13 social link addresses, the logo image path and its alt text (built with strip_tags(), which did not escape quotes), the login dialog title and other HTML text and attributes.
  • phRichText() (4): the site name and slogan fields (H1Title, H2Title), which may hold simple markup. Joomla’s input filter keeps the markup but strips script, style and iframe elements and on* event handlers.
• htmlspecialchars / escape calls in the template: 37 → 77. Module titles and class suffixes are escaped in all four module chromes (megamenu, slides, vmdefault, vmdefaultStyle3), and new escaping covers mod_custom, mod_login, the four mod_menu layouts and the com_content archive, category and featured overrides.
• Server paths no longer disclosed on error pages. Joomla’s own Newsfeeds component can turn a caught exception into a message that contains the site’s absolute filesystem path and a stack trace. Outside debug mode, error.php now replaces any such message with Joomla’s generic “An error has occurred” and keeps the status code. The message it prints is escaped; the old error page printed it raw.
• The 13 social links, which open in a new tab, now carry rel="noopener", so the opened page cannot reach back into your site’s window. None did before.
• index.php now starts with the defined('_JEXEC') or die; guard, so it cannot be run directly; all 36 PHP files in the template carry it.

Quickstart

• A complete Joomla 6.2.0 site with Various pre-configured as the active template (one style, THE VARIOUS) and the demo content, as a standard Joomla installation package in place of the previous Akeeba .jpa archive with Kickstart. Not a shop: no VirtueMart. Also bundled: Akeeba Backup 10.4.0, Weblinks 5.2.0 and CS MCP for J 2.9.4.
• The site templates are cassiopeia, cassiopeia_extended and various.
• A Phone Second Menu (Main Menu) module in the new cs-secondary position, so the phone’s Section menu button opens the main menu’s pages.
• The header search box is Joomla’s Smart Search module, in place of the old Search module (the Search extension is disabled).
• The built-in slideshow and the logo link are on, and the footer shows the X, Facebook and Instagram links.
• K2 sample data: the “K2 Slider” menu item is renamed “Testimonials Slider” and the duplicate “K2 Items Slider” item is unpublished.
• Joomla’s “What’s New” guided tours for 6.0, 6.1 and 6.2 no longer start by themselves (autostart = 0). Joomla’s Statistics plugin is set to never send data.
• Four post-installation messages stay enabled (Joomla’s own action-log, privacy, multi-factor authentication and automated-update notices), and the template overrides are marked as reviewed (no “changes found” warning).

Package

• Installs as an upgrade over an existing copy. The manifest keeps method="upgrade": no uninstall-first step, and your template settings are preserved.
• Standalone template: a Joomla package that installs the Various template and registers it in the package manager, so the template is removed through the package rather than on its own.
• Quickstart bundle: a complete Joomla 6.2.0 site with Various pre-loaded. The Joomla 3 and Joomla 4 downloads remain available but are no longer recommended for new projects.