Joomla 1.6 vs Joomla 1.5: templateDetails.xml

November 25th, 2010 at 5:00 PM CET in Joomla 1.6

With Joomla 1.6 having reached beta 14, the first release candidate (RC) shouldn't take long. In order to install Joomla templates on Joomla 1.6, several changes need to be made to the templateDetails.xml file that is packed with a template. Based on the information found in several sources (including the templates that are currently shipped with Joomla 1.6), I created a step-by-step comparison of the changes that need to be made to templateDetails.xml file for it to be compatible with Joomla 1.6.

Photo credits: Jared Tarbel

DOCTYPE declaration (DTD)

Joomla 1.6 let's you specify a specific DOCTYPE for your templateDetails.xml file. At the time of writing, the website to which the DTD links (http://www.joomla.org/xml/dtd/1.6/template-install.dtd) cannot be found, so I can't analyze the contents of that file any further.

Joomla 1.5

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

Joomla 1.6

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE install PUBLIC "-//Joomla! 1.6//DTD template 1.0//EN" "http://www.joomla.org/xml/dtd/1.6/template-install.dtd">

Install vs. Extension

The <install> element is deprecated in Joomla 1.6, which means it will not be available anymore in the next version of Joomla. Using the method="upgrade" setting will let your users install an updated version of the extension, without having to uninstall the previous version first. Several articles on the templateDetails.xml file use client="site" in the extension element as well. I'm unable to find any documentation on the web discussing this setting and therefor didn't include it in my example. If anyone knows any details on this setting, please explain it in the comments.

Joomla 1.5

<install version="1.5" type="template">
...
</install>

Joomla 1.6

<extension version="1.6" type="template" method="upgrade">
...
</extension>

Languages

As mentioned by the guys over at ProThemer (and showing in the templates shipped with Joomla 1.6), there is no need to specify different language files for the website and the administrator anymore. Replace [ln-LN] with the locale of your choice. Locales are build as language-COUNTRY. Several examples for valid locales: en-US, nl-NL, fr-FR, it-IT, de-DE, nl-BE etc. The brackets [ and ] are for illustrative purposes and shouldn't be included in the templateDetails.xml file.

Joomla 1.5

<languages>
 <language tag="[ln-LN]">[ln-LN].tpl_[template_name].ini</language>
</languages>
<administration>
 <languages>
  <language tag="[ln-LN]">admin/[ln-LN].tpl_[template_name].ini</language>
 </languages>
</administration>

Joomla 1.6

<languages>
 <language tag="[ln-LN]">[ln-LN].tpl_[template_name].ini</language>
</languages>

Params / param vs. Config / fields / fieldset / field

With Joomla 1.5 you're limited in the core support for adding parameters to your templates. For example: without any outside code it isn't possible to have several different panels (that can expand and collapse on click) on the right side of your administrator. Unfortunately the name specified in the fieldset element doesn't seem to be displayed correct directly in the administrator. When I enter the name 'foobar' it displays 'COM_TEMPLATES_foobar_FIELDSET_LABEL' in the panel header instead. Adding the string to several different translation files didn't resolve that issue for me. Does anyone know a good fix for this?

Joomla 1.5

<params>
 <param></param>
</params>

Joomla 1.6

<config>
 <fields name="params">
  <fieldset name="basic">
   <field></field>
  </fieldset>
  <fieldset name="foobar">
   <field></field>
  </fieldset>
 </fields>
</config>

If I missed any vital changes to the templateDetails.xml file, or made any errors, feel free to post a comment below!