Joomla Template converter

Joomla 4.1 (this is speculative) will support templates with the ability to create child template. Actually the code already exists since 4.0 and this Pull Request, so this should be fairly safe right now. The UI is missing anything meaningful right now (Joomla version <4.1) so although the new mode is supported but is lacking the UI for managing them efficiently, hopefully this Pull Request will be done and merged into 4.1. So, why do we need this convertor in the first place? Well, the new mode templates coming with some changes.

Breaking Changes

So the new mode templates come with some breaking changes:

• The manifest needs <inheritable>1</inheritable> to indicate the installer that this supports child templates
• The static assets should be placed in the /media/templates/(site || administrator)/(template name). Static assets are all those files that are directly fetched from the browser (eg.: .css, .js, .png... Basically the folders css,js,images).
• The new mode should support namespace by default. At the time of righting this, the decision is not made yet but there's a Pull Request.

How it works

This tool will convert any template (that's not already supporting the new mode) to the new mode. It supports:

• templates as an intallable .zip file
• templates in an existing folder

You will need Node and npm installed in your machine and then runing either:

npx @dgrammatiko/convert-template templateFolder

or

npx @dgrammatiko/convert-template template.zip

The result will be a zip file name inheritable_templateFolder.zip

Gotchas

• The tool will not patch the PHP files to the correct namespace.

• The tool will not fix wrong instances of static assets inclusions. Use always the new Web Assets or at the very least the HTMLHelper::_()

• The tool will not fix the hardcoded instances of $template->template. These should be hardcoded to be non dynamic eg: instead of '/template/' . $template->template . '/css' should be written as '/template/templateName/css'