Skip to main content

68 templates now rebuilt for Joomla 5 + VirtueMart 4 on Bootstrap 5. See what changed

Explore Virtuemart Template Changelog

Updated ยท in Template Change Log

  • Change Log:
    • Release Date: 2026-10-19, Version: 5.4.10.3, Notes:

      Login fields on phones. The username and password fields were smaller than 16px on phones, so an iPhone zoomed the page in when one was tapped and did not zoom back out. Login, registration, profile and password-reset fields are now 16px on phones.

      Template Options screen. The icons on the template's Options screen came from Font Awesome 4.6.3 on MaxCDN, which no longer serves it, so they were missing. They now load Font Awesome 6.5.2 with its version 4 name shims from cdnjs.

    • Release Date: 2026-10-19, Version: 5.4.10.2, Notes:

      Security. The template's menu layouts printed a menu item's note and link exactly as entered, so markup typed into a menu item's Note or Link field reached the page. Both are now escaped, as Joomla's own menu layouts do.

      Colours with transparency. A colour chosen with the colour picker's opacity slider (saved as an 8-digit colour such as #rrggbbaa) was replaced with black. Colours with transparency are now used as chosen.

    • Release Date: 2026-10-16, Version: 5.4.10.1, Notes:

      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.

    • Release Date: 2026-10-15, Version: 5.4.10, Notes:

      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.

    • Release Date: 2026-10-02, Version: 5.4.9.1, Notes:

      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.

    • Release Date: 2026-09-30, Version: 5.4.9, Notes:

      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.

    • Release Date: 2026-09-28, Version: 5.4.8.2, Notes:

      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.

    • Release Date: 2026-09-03, Version: 5.4.8.1, Notes:

      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. 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.

    • Release Date: 2026-08-18, Version: 5.4.8, Notes:

      Joomla 5.4.8, the VirtueMart 4.8.0 security update, and a module-chrome fix that made a page go blank.

      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 Explore 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 Explore 5.4.8 is the build for Joomla 5.4.8. The previous number for this template was 5.4.0. Nothing about how you install or update the template changes, and Joomla still treats 5.4.8 as newer than 5.4.0.
      • 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 “Slides” module style produced a blank page. html/layouts/chromes/slides.php had a stray closing brace at the end of the file that nothing opened, so the file would not parse and any module you assigned that style to brought the page down with a PHP fatal error. Nothing on the demo used that style, which is why it went unnoticed — but it would have hit any customer who chose it. The file now parses cleanly.
      • Version surfaces were out of step. The manifest said 5.4.0.1 while index.php and the shipped package still said 5.4.0. 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.

      No other template file changed since 5.4.0. No template-parameter or database changes — installs as a straight overwrite.

    • Release Date: 2026-07-24, Version: 5.4.0, Notes:
      First Joomla 5 native release, with a new Favicon tool and Explore’s first real phone layout. Explore has been brought forward from the previous download (template manifest 14.08.2024 5.1.2/4.2.12) to Joomla 5.4.7 + VirtueMart 4.6.8 + Bootstrap 5. Explore keeps the Bootstrap 2 layout classes in its markup and module content and renders on Joomla 5’s Bootstrap 5 through a compatibility stylesheet, so existing module and article markup keeps its layout. Until now Explore showed its fixed 930 px desktop page on every phone; at phone widths it now has a fluid layout with a menu button, a shop-menu panel and a cart button. This release also adds a Favicon tab that builds a full favicon set from one image, current social networks with Font Awesome 6 icons, native Joomla on/off switches in the template options, and escaping for the template settings written into the page. Across the template, 6 files were added, 9 removed and 16 modified (297 → 294 files).

      With thanks to Gianluca, whose favicon question inspired the new Favicon tool; to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to a maintenance pass across our templates; and to Zoltán Szász, whose reports found the PHP 8 address-form crash and the Joomla 5 form-validation error.

      Added

      Favicon tool

      • New Favicon tab in the template options (fieldset faviconsettings) with a media field (favicon) and a built-in crop tool (favicontool, new custom field fields/favicontool.php, loaded through addfieldpath; <folder>fields/</folder> added to the manifest).
      • The crop tool loads the chosen image, lets you drag and resize a square over any part of it with live previews at the generated sizes, crops it in the browser (up to 512 px) and saves the result to images/ through Joomla’s own Media Manager API (admin session and form token, no extra plug-in). The new image is set in the Favicon field; click Save to apply it.
      • From the selected PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF the template builds the whole icon set in images/favicon-generated/: a real favicon.ico with 16, 32 and 48 px images, 32, 192 and 512 px PNG icons and a 180 px Apple touch icon, all linked in the page head. The .ico is also copied to the site root as /favicon.ico, where browsers look by default.
      • File names carry a key built from the image path and its modified time, so choosing a new image gives new URLs and browsers do not keep showing the old icon. .ico and .svg files are linked as they are. If the server cannot build the set, the chosen image is linked directly.
      • The field ships empty. Until you choose an image, the template’s own favicon.ico is linked (with a version marker).
      • index.php builds the set through two new helpers, phFaviconSet() and phIcoBytes().
      • 10 new language strings in en-GB.tpl_explore.ini (68 → 78), e.g. TPL_EXPLORE_FAVICON_TAB, TPL_EXPLORE_FAVICON_HELP, TPL_EXPLORE_FAVICONTOOL_CREATE, with step-by-step instructions on the tab.
      • Thank you to Gianluca, whose question sparked this feature — thanks for being part of a great idea.

      Bootstrap 5 compatibility layer

      • New css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css: maps Explore’s Bootstrap 2 grid (.row-fluid, .spanN widths and gutters, offsets, the fixed container widths), the hidden-phone / visible-phone responsive utilities, collapsed panels, tab panes, base typography and the modal shell onto Joomla 5’s bundled Bootstrap 5. It is loaded as the last stylesheet in the head, with a file-time version marker.
      • Bootstrap 2 rows do not stretch their columns, so the bridge keeps that behaviour (.row-fluid { align-items: flex-start }); sidebar modules keep their own height.
      • New css/explore-fixups.css for template-specific fixes (see Fixed), loaded after template.css.

      Phone layout

      • New js/explore-mobile.js with a matching block in the bridge: on phones (up to 767 px) the fixed 930 px width of the header and menu bar is removed and the page fits the screen.
      • A large menu button at the top right of the header opens the main menu as a dark full-width panel, with submenu items listed under their parent.
      • An icon row under the header with Shop (opens the shop category menu as a white panel directly under the row, scrollable, up to 70% of the screen height), Register (the header’s Register link) and a round 44 px cart button that opens the cart page. On phones these replace the header’s login panel and cart box.
      • The header grows to 105 px so the social icons sit inside it, centred under the logo with 16 px icons; no scrollbar gutter on phones.
      • The slideshow flows under the header instead of sitting behind it.
      • Brand logos show two per row; the footer gets 14 px side padding and 24 px at the bottom, with the payment-methods strip centred.
      • Tablets and desktops keep the existing layout.

      Modern social network support

      • Nine new social services, each with a URL field and an on/off switch: Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, Pinterest, Discord (fields instagram/instagramON … discord/discordON). With X, Facebook, LinkedIn and RSS that makes 13 networks.
      • The Twitter field is now X (formerly Twitter), with the X icon.

      Other additions

      • Security helpers in index.php: phEsc(), phHexColor() and phCssDim() (details under Security).
      • @version 5.4.0 (2026-07-24) docblock at the top of index.php.
      • CHANGELOG.md and CHANGELOG.html ship inside the template.

      Changed

      Joomla 5 platform

      • Built for Joomla 5.4.7 and VirtueMart 4.6.8.
      • The template no longer loads its own Bootstrap 2 stylesheets (css/bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css); it renders on Joomla 5’s bundled Bootstrap 5 through css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css.
      • templateDetails.xml version 14.08.2024 5.1.2/4.2.12 → 5.4.0, creation date 09/09/2022 → 2026-07-24, and the version shown on the template’s Details panel matches. method="upgrade" added, so an existing install updates in place.
      • The page’s <html> element was four Internet Explorer conditional variants with a fixed lang="en"; it is now a single element carrying the site’s own language and text direction (lang / dir), and the closing </html> tag is added.

      Template Options screen

      • All 30 legacy class="switch" checkboxes are gone. 28 are now Joomla’s native on/off switchers (e.g. logoLinked, H1TitleImgText, H2TitleImgText, RSSON, usedropdown, useZoom, responsive, usetheme, cam_turnOn, cam_autoAdvance, cam_hover, cam_navigation, cam_playPause); the other two belonged to the retired Blogger and MySpace slots. With the nine new social switches there are 37 switchers in all.
      • Fields 110 → 126, tabs 9 → 10 (the new Favicon tab).
      • Seven tab names no longer end in “Settings”: Basic, Site Name And Slogan, Drop Down Menu, User Account, Product Images, Theme, Built-in Slideshow.
      • The welcome text on the Basic tab told you to open a support ticket at JoomlaDesigns.co.uk; it now points to virtuemarttemplates.net.
      • The template name on the Details panel is shown in blue without the white text shadow.

      Fonts and icons

      • The Oswald font loads through a direct Google Fonts stylesheet link (with preconnect) instead of the WebFontConfig script that injected webfont.js from ajax.googleapis.com.
      • The front end loads Font Awesome 6.5.2 (all.min.css) with v4-shims.min.css instead of Font Awesome 5.0.1 from use.fontawesome.com, so existing fa fa-* markup keeps working.
      • Social icons are Font Awesome 6 glyphs (14 px in the original 25 px boxes, css/nav.css) instead of image sprites, each with a title and a screen-reader label. The list shows when at least one network is switched on, and each icon shows when its URL is filled in.

      Menus and scripts

      • Drop-down menus open on hover through the template’s own CSS; the Superfish/Supersubs scripts are no longer loaded. The drop-down animation settings (opacity, height, width, speed) and the minimum drop-down width only fed that script and no longer have an effect.
      • The collapsible module styles in html/modules.php, html/layouts/chromes/toggleModule.php and toggleModule2.php used MooTools, which Joomla 5 does not have, so they could not open or close. They now use plain JavaScript (MooTools addEvent calls 5 → 0).
      • jQuery still loads (Joomla’s bundled copy) for the slideshow, product image zoom and other scripts.

      Stylesheets and layout

      • text.css, layout.css, template.css, explore-fixups.css, the bridge and js/explore-mobile.js carry a file-time version marker, so changes show straight after an update instead of waiting for browser caches to expire.
      • The header’s login/Register panel (#log-panel in css/layout.css) has 10 px top padding, so the Register link sits on the same line as the social icons.

      Fixed

      • Browser console errors on every page from old scripts:
        • A MooTools slide script for the loginform module position failed with window.addEvent is not a function; it is removed from index.php (its trigger link was no longer in the page).
        • The menu override (html/mod_menu/default.php) called selectnav(), but the template never loaded that script, giving “selectnav is not defined”. The call now runs only when the script is present.
        • jquery.mobile.customized.min.js does not work with Joomla 5’s jQuery 3 and threw on load; it is no longer loaded and the slideshow runs without it.
        • css/text.css imported the Oswald font over plain http://, which browsers block on secure sites. The import is removed; the font loads over https from the page head.
      • The address form crashed on PHP 8. html/com_virtuemart/user/edit_address.php and bs3-edit_address.php called count($this->userFields['functions']) on a value that can be empty (count(): Argument #1 must be of type Countable|array on the cart’s Bill To / Ship To pages). Both now use !empty(). With thanks to Zoltán Szász, whose report found it.
      • The VirtueMart login form could stop with “behavior::formvalidation not found”. The Joomla 3 behavior.formvalidation call in html/com_virtuemart/user/login.php is now the Joomla 5 behavior.formvalidator. Also thanks to Zoltán Szász.
      • “Undefined variable” warnings in the login module and breadcrumbs overrides: Joomla 5 no longer passes $type to html/mod_login/default.php or $moduleclass_sfx to html/mod_breadcrumbs/default.php; both now have defaults.
      • Fixes from a maintenance pass across our templates:
        • The @font-face in css/template.css pointing at the removed media/jui/fonts/ IcoMoon font is disabled; it returned a 404 on every page.
        • The search icon and the first/previous/next/last pagination arrows showed as stray characters or empty squares without that font. They are now self-contained SVG icons (css/explore-fixups.css).
        • Featured-article intro text is no longer clipped to its title (.blog-featured .blog-item).
        • The search button sits flush with its search box again (#search-position .btn).
        With thanks to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to this maintenance pass across our templates.

      Removed

      Bootstrap 2 framework files

      • 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), css/bootstrap.css and js/bootstrap.min.js are deleted. The template’s own Bootstrap 2 classes stay in its markup and are styled by the bridge.

      Legacy scripts and stylesheets no longer loaded

      • Scripts: superfish.js, supersubs.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, selectivizr-min.js, modernizr.js, and html5shiv from html5shiv.googlecode.com. The local files remain in js/ but nothing loads them.
      • The inline jQuery.browser shim and the Superfish/Supersubs start-up code.
      • Stylesheets: the three Bootstrap 2 files above, Font Awesome 5.0.1 all.css, and the Internet Explorer 7 stylesheet css/ie.css from the main layout.
      • All Internet Explorer 6–9 conditional comments in the main layout’s head (index.php).

      Retired social services

      • Blogger and MySpace removed with their URL fields, switches and markup (blogger/bloggerON, myspace/myspaceON).

      Security

      • Template settings written into the page are now escaped in index.php (104 phEsc() call sites, up from none):
        • the colour settings and gradients in the inline <style> block (bodytextcolor, linkcolor, mainbackground, topcolorgradient, bottomcolorgradient, footertxt and the rest);
        • the position and size settings (H1TitlePositionX/Y, H2TitlePositionX/Y, contentfontsize, captionyposition, cam_caption_height, dropdownhandler2–5, cam_minHeight);
        • the theme preset name in the preset stylesheet link (choosetheme);
        • the site name and slogan text and logo images (H1Title, H2Title, H1Titleimage, H2Titleimage), in text and in image alt / src attributes;
        • all 13 social link URLs.
      • The header height setting (topheight) is validated as a CSS size by phCssDim().
      • All 13 social links open in a new tab with rel="noopener".
      • The favicon links are escaped, and the crop tool escapes its own text and sends the form token with every upload.

      Quickstart Installer

      explore-quickstart-J5.4.7-24.07.2026.zip is a complete Joomla 5.4.7 site with VirtueMart 4.6.8 and Explore installed as the active template, with the demo content.

      • It installs through the standard Joomla web installer, where you create your own super-user account (no user accounts ship in the package). It replaces the previous Akeeba Kickstart (.jpa) download.
      • Bundled extensions: Joomla 5.4.7, VirtueMart 4.6.8, MCP For J 2.4.0, Akeeba Backup 10.3.6, Weblinks 5.1.0.
      • Only the templates the site uses are included: the templates/ folder holds cassiopeia, explore and system. VirtueMart’s demo templates horme_3, vmbasic and vmbeez3 are gone.
      • The post-install messages are trimmed to the 5 useful Joomla feature introductions (of 16), and the action log starts empty.
      • Demo template style: the X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and RSS links are filled in, the Favicon field is empty, and the retired networks’ saved settings are removed from the stored style.

      Package format

      • Standalone template: Explore now installs as a Joomla package, pkg_explore-5.4.0.zip (pkg_explore.xml, wrapping packages/tpl_explore.zip), which installs and registers the explore template. It declares method="upgrade", so an existing Explore updates in place, <blockChildUninstall>true</blockChildUninstall>, so the template is removed through the package rather than on its own, and an update server (virtuemarttemplates.net/updates/pkg_explore.xml) for Joomla’s Update Manager.
      • Quickstart bundle: explore-quickstart-J5.4.7-24.07.2026.zip, a complete Joomla 5.4.7 install with VirtueMart 4.6.8 and Explore pre-loaded as the active template.
      Still to come at this release: the template’s PHP still uses Joomla 3 class names (JFactory, JText, JHtml, JRoute, JURI and others), which work only while Joomla’s Behaviour – Backward Compatibility plugin is enabled. They were replaced throughout in 5.4.8.1, which also fixed the pagination crash on PHP 8. The error page and the print/pop-up view (error.php, component.php) are unchanged in this release. The slideshow is still camera.js.
    • Release Date: 2025-09-26, Version: 26.09.2025 5.3.0/4.4.4, Notes:
      • Upgraded - Now compatible Joomla 5.3.0
      • Upgraded - Now compatible VirtueMart 4.4.4
      • Fixed - Minor bugs
    • Release Date: 2024-11-29, Version: 29.11.2024 5.1.2/4.2.12, Notes:
      • Fixed - Minor bugs with cart
    • Release Date: 2024-08-15, Version: 14.08.2024 5.1.2/4.2.12, Notes:
      • Upgraded - Now compatible Joomla 5
      • Upgraded - Now compatible VirtueMart 4.2.12
      • Fixed - Minor bugs
    • Release Date: 2023-06-30, Version: 26.06.2023 4.3.0/4.0.13, Notes:
      • Fixed - VirtueMart Products Module bug
      • Fixed - Double ReCaptcha on VirtueMart Registration page
      • Fixed - Template toggle button not displaying
    • Release Date: 2023-06-27, Version: 26.06.2023 4.3.0/4.0.13, Notes:
      • Fixed - Menu Params error for adding in image on menu
    • Release Date: 2023-05-20, Version: 20.05.2023 4.3.0/4.0.12, Notes:
      • Fixed - Template updated to be compatible with Joomla 4.3
    • Release Date: 2022-09-09, Version: 09.09.2022 3.10.11/4.0.6, Notes:
      • Fixed - Joomla 3.10.11
      • Fixed - Template updated for PHP 8.0