Store owners. The account page no longer shows an error when a store owner or vendor is logged in.

Cart. The cart icon always shows how many items are in the cart, not only on mouse-over.

Articles. The Previous and Next buttons sit at opposite ends of the article.

Quickstart. Weblinks updated to 5.2.0.

Joomla 5.4.10. The Quickstart now installs Joomla 5.4.10 (Joomla 5.4.10 release notes), and the template version is now 5.4.10 to match.

Error pages. "Page not found" and "access denied" pages now show inside the template, with its header, menus and footer, and fit a phone screen.

Login, password reset and username reminder pages. These pages showed no form when they had no menu item of their own (for example after a mistyped password). The template now shows the content on every page except the real home page.

Phones. The sidebar no longer shows an empty "Categories" heading (the categories are in the phone menu), and the footer link lists show again.

Category pages. The category description lines up with the products (no extra space at the sides).

Quickstart. A fresh install no longer lists stale update notices.

Breadcrumbs. Fixed a template bug that gave the breadcrumb trail the wrong CSS class, so the template's own breadcrumb styling did not apply.

JavaScript error fixed. Every page logged a script error because the template's copy of jQuery UI did not include the autocomplete widget that VirtueMart uses. The template now ships the full jQuery UI 1.13.2 that VirtueMart expects.

Quickstart. The quickstart includes MCP For J 2.8.3.

Quickstart install fix. The quickstart now installs completely on MySQL databases. Before, the Joomla installer stopped part-way through on MySQL hosts; MariaDB hosts were not affected. Thanks to Iryna for reporting this.

Joomla 5.4.9. Updated for Joomla 5.4.9, a security and bug-fix release. The quickstart now installs Joomla 5.4.9.

Menu layouts. Updated to current Joomla code (prepares for Joomla 6).

Security update. Every template setting that is written into your pages is now escaped for the place it lands in (HTML, attributes, CSS and JavaScript), including the site name and slogan in image alt text, and module, menu and tab titles wherever the template prints them (module headings, title attributes and the mega menu). A setting or title containing a quote or markup can no longer break out of its place in the page. The error page escapes its message and title too. There are no visual changes. Recommended for all sites.

Fixed a problem where a large logo could fill the whole screen on phones. The stylesheet that keeps this template working with current Joomla was letting the header logo draw at its own full size on small screens instead of scaling it down to fit the space, so a logo wider than the phone screen — common, since logos are usually exported at 1500 pixels or more to stay sharp — pushed the header out and showed visitors a giant close-up of one or two letters instead of the site. Logos now scale down to fit on every screen size, and a logo already small enough to fit is displayed exactly as before. Update the template to pick this up; if you built your site from the Quick Start, a rebuilt one is on your downloads page.

Fixed the built-in homepage slideshow collapsing to a thin strip. This was a template CSS issue in the modernized Swiper slideshow — the slide area lost its height, so the images no longer filled it. Updating to this version restores the slideshow to its full height.

Coga 5.4.8 — 2026-08-18

• Version numbering has changed. From this release the template version matches the Joomla version it is built and tested against, so this is the 5.4.8 build for Joomla 5.4.8. The previous number for this template was 5.4.7. Nothing about how you install or update the template changes, and Joomla still treats 5.4.8 as newer than 5.4.7.
• The Quick Start now installs Joomla 5.4.8. The previous Quick Start bundled Joomla 5.4.7. Starting a new site from the Quick Start now gives you the current Joomla release without an immediate update afterwards.
• VirtueMart has been updated to 4.8.0 — a security update. The Quick Start previously bundled VirtueMart 4.6.8. VirtueMart 4.8.0 is the current release from the VirtueMart team and carries their security fixes, so a site started from this Quick Start begins on the patched version. If you already run this template on an existing site, update VirtueMart there through Joomla's own Extensions → Update screen — the template package does not carry VirtueMart itself.
• The Quick Start no longer installs the retired vmbasic template. VirtueMart's own package reinstates an old vmbasic site template. It was riding into the Quick Start as 43 leftover files. It is gone.
• An internal development report file has been removed from the package. security-sweep-3f-report.md was one of our own working notes and should never have been inside the shipped template folder.

No template file changed between 5.4.7 and 5.4.8; this release is the Joomla and VirtueMart update and the Quick Start housekeeping described above.

Coga 5.4.7 — Joomla 5 native release. This is the first release of Coga rebuilt for Joomla 5. The template has been moved off the Joomla 3 era code it was originally written against — Bootstrap 2, MooTools-era scripts and jQuery plugins that no longer exist in Joomla 5 — and onto Joomla 5's own Bootstrap 5 foundation. The version number matches the Joomla release it ships against, Joomla 5.4.7.

Added

• Favicon picker. Template Options now has a Favicon tab where you can choose your own icon from the media manager. It outputs the correct link tags, an Apple touch icon, and falls back to the template's own icon if you leave it empty.
• A proper mobile menu. A hamburger button opens a full off-canvas drawer with expandable sub-menus, alongside a row of account, register, search, social and cart buttons sized for touch.
• Modern social networks. The social bar now offers X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, Pinterest, Discord and RSS, drawn with Font Awesome 6 icons.

Changed

• Bootstrap 2 replaced with Bootstrap 5 throughout the template's own markup, matching what Joomla 5 ships.
• Every on/off switch in Template Options now uses Joomla 5's native switcher control instead of the Joomla 3 style checkbox — 85 of them, with none of the old style left.
• The login pop-up now uses Bootstrap 5's own dialog handling instead of the retired Bootstrap 2 version.
• Menu dropdowns are now driven by the template's own code rather than the Superfish and Supersubs jQuery plugins.
• Background images are handled with standard CSS instead of the jQuery Backstretch plugin.
• Google Fonts load through a normal stylesheet link rather than a JavaScript font loader, so text no longer flashes unstyled while the page loads.
• Font Awesome updated to version 6.5.2 (with compatibility shims, so any version 4 icon names in your own content keep working).
• The Template Options tabs were renamed for clarity — for example "Template Header And Footer Custom Code" is now "Header & Footer Custom Code".
• Slideshow behaviour — transition speed, auto-advance, pagination and arrows — is still read from your existing slideshow settings, so a site that had them configured keeps the same behaviour.

Fixed

• The page layout collapsed into a single column. The sidebar and main content stacked on top of each other instead of sitting side by side, and the footer columns stacked. The rewritten markup was not being given the stylesheet that lays it out.
• The home page slideshow did not run at all. The slideshow area rendered with no height and no images. The slideshow script asked jQuery for a browser-detection property that was removed from jQuery years ago, and threw before it could start.
• The "Ask a question about this product" form produced an error page. It called a Joomla 3 class that Joomla 4 removed outright. The form works again.
• Checking out as a guest could kill the address page. Editing an address without a user account hit a PHP 8 fatal error and the page died. This was invisible on PHP 7, which treated it as a warning only. Fixed in both address layouts the template ships. Thank you, Zoltán Szász, for reporting this.
• A page could not be logged into in some cases because the login form's validation used a Joomla 3 call that Joomla 5 removed, producing a 500 error. Thank you, Zoltán, for reporting this.
• Two more Joomla 3 calls that Joomla 5 has removed — one behind the product slideshow, one behind the question form — were still being made on every page that used them.
• Missing icon font. The template asked Joomla for an icon font that was removed in Joomla 4, producing four failed requests on every page load and a stray character where the search icon should be.
• Pagination arrows showed as empty squares on Joomla 4 and later.
• Long single-column articles were clipped to their headline in the Featured Articles view.
• The search button was detached from its search box.
• The account details page showed modules above the form. The page now opens straight onto your account details.

On phones and tablets

• Tapping the cart opened a narrow sliver instead of the cart panel. The panel is now centred on screen with an even margin either side.
• The account, register, search, social and cart buttons were scattered and hard to hit. They now sit together in one row of six evenly spaced, equally sized touch targets, centred on screen and fully within it.
• The cart was a small icon on its own. It is now a proper button in that row, matching the others.
• The menu button was not centred in the bar carrying the site name.
• The second menu button was black. It is now red with a white icon, matching the rest of the template.
• Breadcrumb trails had bullet points beside each step and broke across several lines. They now read as a single line with no bullets.

On desktop

• The account, register, search and cart icons in the header were different sizes and sat on different lines. They are now identical in size and share one baseline.
• The cart opened in a small, off-centre window. It is now considerably wider and centred on the page.

Removed

• Internet Explorer compatibility code and the browser-detection shims that went with it.
• Retired jQuery plugins — Backstretch, DropKick, Superfish, Supersubs and jQuery Mobile — are no longer loaded. None of them work with the jQuery version Joomla 5 ships.
• Three unused templates that came in with the original sample data (horme_3, vmbasic, vmbeez3). Joomla had already stopped listing them, so the extension list looked correct, but the folders were still shipping pre-Joomla-5 code into every install.
• A server error log that was being packaged into the quickstart download. It served no purpose in a fresh install and exposed file paths from our own build server.

Security and code quality

• 129 output-escaping guards added where template settings are printed into the page, hardening against cross-site scripting.
• 174 references to Joomla 3 class names that Joomla 5 has removed were updated to their current equivalents. None remain.
• Direct-access protection added to the template's entry file.

What the quickstart installs

• Page view counters have been reset. Twenty-one counters across three different content types were carrying our demo site's traffic, so a brand new install used to show articles and products with hundreds of views already on them.
• A record left checked out has been released. Content locked by an editor on our demo site would have arrived padlocked to a user account that does not exist on your site.
• The activity log has been emptied and the administrator's post-installation messages reset to the five Joomla ships by default.

Verification

Coga was checked side by side against the original at desktop, tablet and phone widths, and driven in a real browser rather than only inspected as code — every button in this list was actually tapped. The home page loads with fewer JavaScript errors than the pre-release version, and the administrator's Template Options screen passes a full check of its own — clean console, readable tab labels, the favicon tab, and correct rendering in both the light and dark administrator themes.

With thanks to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to the maintenance pass that several of the fixes above came from, and to Zoltán and Zoltán Szász for reporting the login and address-page errors.

• Upgraded - Now compatible Joomla 5
• Upgraded - Now compatible Virtuemart 4.4.4
• Fixed - Minor bugs

• Fixed - Minor bugs with cart

• Updated - Compatible with PHP 8.2
• Updated - Compatible with Joomla 4.3.4
• Updated - Compatible with VirtueMart 4.2.0
• Fixed - Minor bugs

• Upgraded - Now compatible Joomla 5
• Upgraded - Now compatible VirtueMart 4.2.12
• Fixed - Minor bugs

• Fixed - VirtueMart Products Module issue
• Fixed - Double ReCaptcha on VirtueMart Registration page
• Fixed - Template toggle button not displaying

• Fixed - Menu Params error for adding in image on menu

• Fixed - Template updated to be compatible with Joomla 4.3

• Fixed - Joomla 3.10.11
• Fixed - Template updated for PHP 8.0