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Excite Joomla Template For Virtuemart

Build a shop today with the Excite Joomla template for Virtuemart

 

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Excite Virtuemart Template Changelog

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Category: Template Change Log
  • Change Log:
    October 16, 2026

    Version 5.4.10.1

    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.

    October 15, 2026

    Version 5.4.10

    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.

    Quickstart. A fresh install no longer lists stale update notices. Includes MCP for Joomla 2.8.3.

    October 2, 2026

    Version 5.4.9.1

    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.

    Quickstart. Removed leftover files from the quickstart's top folder.

    September 30, 2026

    Version 5.4.9

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

    September 30, 2026

    Version 5.4.8.3

    Fix for the previous update. After the security update of 28 September, pages the template shows in its "component" view stopped with a server error ("Call to undefined function phEsc()"). That view is used for print pages, pop-up windows and the VirtueMart cart and checkout steps. The helper those pages need is now included, and they work again. There are no other changes. Recommended for every site that installed the previous version.

    September 28, 2026

    Version 5.4.8.2

    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.

    September 3, 2026

    Version 5.4.8.1

    Maintenance release.

    • Joomla 3 compatibility code removed throughout the template. The template's PHP now uses Joomla's current API everywhere — the template files, the component override and every layout override (cart, checkout, product details, login and the modules). The old code only worked while Joomla's Behaviour – Backward Compatibility plugin was switched on, and will not work at all on Joomla 6. The most serious case was the error page: when it failed, Joomla could not display any error page, so an ordinary “page not found” was served to your visitors as a 500 server error.
    • Fixed: paginated pages returned a 500 error on PHP 8. Any page with pagination — on a shop template that includes the category listing — could fail with a server error instead of displaying. The cause was a leftover test in the pagination override that is invalid on PHP 8; the dead code has been removed.

    Both the template package and the Quick Start have been rebuilt for this release. Download the latest from your member area.

    August 18, 2026

    Version 5.4.8

    Joomla 5.4.8 and the VirtueMart 4.8.0 security update.

    Important — please update VirtueMart

    • VirtueMart 4.8.0 is a security release from the VirtueMart team (published 12 August 2026, revision 11339, “Eagle owl”). The Quick Start in this release installs it, and the demo this template is built from has been updated to it. If you already run an Excite store, update VirtueMart yourself — installing this template package does not update your store component. Get it from virtuemart.net or your Joomla Extensions Manager.

    Changed

    • Version numbering has changed. From this release the template version matches the Joomla version it is built and tested against, so Excite 5.4.8 is the build for Joomla 5.4.8. The previous number for this template was 5.4.0.1. Nothing about how you install or update the template changes, and Joomla still treats 5.4.8 as newer than 5.4.0.1.
    • The Quick Start now installs Joomla 5.4.8. The previous Quick Start bundled Joomla 5.4.7. Starting a new site from it now gives you the current Joomla release without an immediate update afterwards.

    Fixed

    • The version stamped in index.php was one release behind. It still read 5.4.0 while the template was 5.4.0.1. Every version surface — the manifest, the badge on the Template Options page, index.php, the package manifest and the record Joomla stores at install time — is now written from the same release and all say 5.4.8.
    • The bundled CHANGELOG.html was missing its most recent entry. The packaged HTML changelog stopped at 5.4.0 while the Markdown one already had 5.4.0.1. Both are now complete and in step.
    • Two internal files were being packaged. security-sweep-3f-report.md, a note from our own modernization work, and html/layouts.zip, a 2023 snapshot of the module-chrome layouts folder that still contained an older, broken copy of slides.php. Neither was referenced by anything and neither was listed in the template's own file manifest, yet both were inside every download. Both have been removed from the package and the Quick Start.

    No other template file changed between 5.4.0.1 and 5.4.8. No template-parameter or database changes — installs as a straight overwrite.

    July 22, 2026

    Version 5.4.0.1

    Maintenance release — fixes for issues found in real-world use on a live production site. With thanks to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to this maintenance pass across our templates.

    • Fixed: search-module icon rendered as a stray character — the Joomla 3 jui icon font was removed from Joomla core in Joomla 4, so the glyph fell back to a literal character and the dead font reference 404'd on every page. The icon is now a self-contained SVG.
    • Fixed: pagination arrows (first/previous/next/last) rendered as empty squares — Joomla 4+ uses newer icon class names the template never mapped. Now self-contained SVGs.
    • Fixed: featured/blog articles showing only their title — tall single-column intro articles were clipped by the blog layout CSS.
    • Improved: search button sits snug against the search input.
    • Fixed: the template version shown after install now tracks the real release version.
    July 16, 2026

    Version 5.4.0

    Full Joomla 5-native modernization — and Excite's first real mobile layout. Excite has been rebuilt from its Joomla 3/4-era Bootstrap 2 foundation into a native Joomla 5 template: Bootstrap 5 styling, no legacy jQuery plugin stack, modern icon and font loading, a zero-console-error browser profile, and — for the first time in this template's history — a genuinely responsive phone experience (the original rendered as a fixed 940px desktop page on every device). This is the largest release in the template's history; every change below ships in both the standalone package and the quickstart.

    Added

    • Bootstrap 5 foundation — the template now runs on Joomla 5's bundled Bootstrap 5 with a template-tuned BS2→BS5 bridge stylesheet that preserves the original Excite desktop layout (grid columns, product rows, boxed page on the patterned background).
    • A real phone layout (≤767px) — the page is fluid at phone widths instead of a zoomed-out 940px desktop render:
      • Large menu hamburger at the top right beside the excite logo, opening a full-width dark menu panel with accordion submenus — circular +/− indicator chips on every parent item, one branch open at a time, at every menu depth.
      • One centered icons row: shop-menu toggle, Register, My account and a search magnifier on a single midline.
      • Search magnifier — opens a full-width search bar directly beneath the header with the cursor ready in the field (the original exposed no search at all on phones).
      • Shop-menu toggle — the web store category menu opens as a full-width panel under the header instead of cluttering the page flow.
      • Brand logos two per row, product sections at a single comfortable side padding, and the cart summary as a clean strip below the slideshow.
    • Font Awesome 6.5.2 with v4 compatibility shims — replaces the abandoned Font Awesome 4-era icon stack.
    • Eight new social networks — Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest and Discord, plus an X (formerly Twitter) rebrand. 13 networks total with Font Awesome 6 brand icons, rel="noopener" and screen-reader labels.
    • Slideshow navigation arrows — crisp previous/next chevrons on desktop and touch (the original's arrow artwork never rendered, leaving empty buttons).
    • Direct Google Fonts loading — preconnect + stylesheet <link>; the retired async webfont.js injector is gone.
    • _JEXEC security guard and @version docblock on the template's index.php (the original shipped without them).
    • Package distribution — Excite now ships as pkg_excite, a Joomla package extension. Future updates are delivered through Joomla's native Update Manager when an active VMT subscription is detected.

    Changed

    • 34 template-option toggles rebuilt as native Joomla 5 switches in the template style settings; redundant "Settings" wording removed from tab labels.
    • Desktop footer — the black copyright bar now runs edge-to-edge across the full browser width instead of stopping inside the boxed page.
    • Desktop content gutters — the sidebar and main content both sit exactly 12px inside the white page box, matching the slideshow inset (the sidebar used to hug the edge while the right side floated deep).
    • Post-install messages — fresh installs present the five useful Joomla feature introductions instead of 16 stale notices.
    • MCP For J updated 2.2.0 → 2.3.2.
    • Dead social networks retired: Google+, StumbleUpon, Digg, Blogger and MySpace (fields, markup, language constants and stored keys).

    Fixed

    • PHP 8 fatal error count(): Argument #1 ($value) must be of type Countable|array, null given on the cart "Bill To / Ship To" address edit page — guest checkout address editing on PHP 8+ now works (edit_address.php guard).
    • Zero browser console errors — the corrupted legacy jQuery.browser shim and superfish/supersubs init scripts (which threw errors on every page load) are gone; menu drop-downs run on pure CSS hover; the jQuery-3-incompatible mobile-touch library no longer loads.
    • Missing <html> element restored — the original lost its root element inside Internet Explorer conditional comments; it's back with proper lang/dir attributes.
    • Login modal opens as a centered Bootstrap 5 dialog with backdrop and reliable close buttons.
    • Product-grid and category layouts corrected under Bootstrap 5 — three-across grids, natural-size thumbnails, correct gutters.
    • Cart summary no longer covers the slideshow on phones (the original pulled it up over the bottom 36px of the image), and the slideshow's countdown timer no longer sits on top of the next-arrow button.

    Removed

    • Internet Explorer 6–9 conditional blocks and polyfills (html5shiv, selectivizr, modernizr).
    • Legacy Bootstrap 2 framework files and stylesheet loads; dead Font Awesome 5 CDN reference; retired parallax/select-menu/mobile-touch JavaScript files.

    Security

    • 87 template output call-sites now escape admin-controlled parameters (HTML/attribute escaping plus dedicated color and CSS-dimension validators).
    • _JEXEC direct-access guard added to index.php.
    • rel="noopener" on all social and external target="_blank" links.

    Quickstart bundle (excite-quickstart-J5.4.7-16.07.2026.zip)

    • Joomla 5.4.7 (current stable) + VirtueMart 4.6.8 with the full Excite demo content.
    • Installs through the standard Joomla web installer — you create your own super-user credentials during setup; no shared admin password ships in the package.
    • Fresh-install hygiene: zero hit counters, no stale content locks, cleaned update sites, current copyright year.
    • Includes StageIt for Joomla 5 and MCP For J as bundled site-management extensions.

    Standalone template package (pkg_excite-5.4.0.zip)

    • First release in the package-wrapper format: installs and updates through Joomla's Extension Manager / Update Manager; the template cannot be accidentally uninstalled out from under the package.
    September 22, 2025

    Version 22.09.2025 5.3.0/4.4.4

    • Upgraded - Now compatible Joomla 5.3.0
    • Upgraded - Now compatible VirtueMart 4.4.4
    • Fixed - Minor bugs
    November 29, 2024

    Version 29.11.2024 5.1.2/4.2.12

    • Fixed - Minor bugs with cart
    August 15, 2024

    Version 14.08.2024 5.1.2/4.2.12

    • Upgraded - Now compatible Joomla 5
    • Upgraded - Now compatible VirtueMart 4.2.12
    • Fixed - Minor bugs
    January 23, 2024

    Version 23.01.2024 4.3.4/4.2.0

    • Fixed - Minor bugs
    December 18, 2023

    Version 14.12.2023 4.3.4/4.2.0

    • Updated - Compatible with PHP 8.2
    • Updated - Compatible with Joomla 4.3.4
    • Updated - Compatible with VirtueMart 4.2.0
    • Fixed - Minor bugs
    June 30, 2023

    Version 26.06.2023 4.3.0/4.0.13

    • Fixed - VirtueMart Products Module bug
    • Fixed - Double ReCaptcha on VirtueMart Registration page
    • Fixed - Template toggle button not displaying
    June 27, 2023

    Version 26.06.2023 4.3.0/4.0.13

    • Fixed - Menu Params error for adding in image on menu
    May 20, 2023

    Version 20.05.2023 4.3.0/4.0.12

    • Fixed - Template updated to be compatible with Joomla 4.3
    September 9, 2022

    Version 09.09.2022 3.10.11/4.0.6

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