Added

Bootstrap 5 rendering through a compatibility stylesheet

• New css/bs2-bs5-bridge.css (209 KB), loaded last in the page head as one <link> immediately before </head>, with a file-time version marker, so it sits above the template's own CSS in the cascade. It lets Intense's Bootstrap 2 markup, and the Bootstrap 2 classes in VirtueMart's older views and in your own custom modules, render correctly on Joomla 5's Bootstrap 5:
  • Bootstrap 2 grid: .spanN widths and gutters, .row / .row-fluid clearfix, offsets on nested fluid rows, and a 1170 px container width.
  • Phone stacking of every [class*="span"] and .col-md-N column, plus the full Bootstrap 2 responsive utilities (hidden-phone, visible-phone, hidden-tablet, visible-tablet, hidden-desktop, visible-desktop).
  • Tab panels, collapse, a body margin reset and Bootstrap 2 base typography.
  • Joomla's own icon-* classes (pagination arrows, the password eye, search) mapped onto Font Awesome 6.
• index.php loads Joomla's bundled /media/vendor/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css, and bootstrap.rtl.min.css on right-to-left sites.

New phone layout

• New js/cs-mobile-generic.js. On phones (up to 767 px) a menu button sits on the logo row, which becomes a full-width bar in your style's own theme colour.
• The button opens a slide-in menu drawer built from your real menu, with expandable sub-menus, one branch open at a time.
• A centred phone toolbar of touch-sized buttons: Section menu (the shop categories), Log in, Register, Search, Follow us (the social links) and Cart.
• A full-width search panel with its own search button. The Escape key closes any open panel.
• On phones the black top bar shows the social icons and the call-us number each on their own centred row; the duplicate account and register icons in that bar are hidden because the toolbar carries them.
• Footer social icons are centred on phones, and the extra side padding around the page content is removed.

Password fields

• New js/cs-password-eyeball.js: a show/hide eye on every password field (login, registration, account edit), including fields that appear later in pop-ups.

Favicon

• New Favicon tab in the template options (fieldset faviconsettings, fields favicon and favicontool, field class fields/favicontool.php). Pick an image, crop the square you want with the built-in crop tool, and on Save the template creates the icon set: a favicon.ico (16, 32 and 48 px) published at your site root, 32, 192 and 512 px PNGs and a 180 px Apple touch icon, all linked automatically (phFaviconSet(), phIcoBytes() in index.php). With thanks to Gianluca, whose favicon question inspired this tool.
• 10 new language strings (TPL_INTENSE_FAVICON_*, TPL_INTENSE_FAVICONTOOL_*). The language file goes from 74 to 84 strings.

Modern social network support

• Five new social services, each with its own URL field and show/hide switch: Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok and Discord (threads/threadsON, bluesky/blueskyON, mastodon/mastodonON, tiktok/tiktokON, discord/discordON).
• The social bar now covers X (formerly Twitter; the twitter field is kept, so your saved link carries over), Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Vimeo, Pinterest, Discord and RSS.
• The built-in networks use Font Awesome 6 brand glyphs (fab fa-*) in place of the socicon icon font, and each link carries a screen-reader label.

Vanilla JavaScript menu

• New js/menu-vanilla.js opens the hover drop-down menus (with a 500 ms mouse-out delay) and closes the social panel, in place of the superfish.js + supersubs.js jQuery plug-ins and their inline jQuery set-up.

Template options (administrator)

• Colour picker: the open-source Coloris picker ships inside the template (css/coloris.min.css, js/coloris.min.js, field class fields/colorpicker.php), so nothing is fetched from another site.
• New fields/adminui.php loads the Options-screen support code: the jQuery the older option scripts rely on, the layout for the full-width help banners, and a dark-theme style for the template's Details panel.
• templateDetails.xml declares the new fields/ folder (addfieldpath="/templates/intense/fields").

Older jQuery plug-ins on Joomla 5's jQuery

• New js/cs-jq-compat.js restores four jQuery 1.x behaviours that the template's bundled plug-ins still call and that Joomla 5's jQuery no longer has: $.fn.live(), $.fn.load(fn) as a load event, $.fn.offset() on window/document, and a minimal $.browser.

Changed

J3 → J5 API migration

• 252 Joomla 3 static class calls in 49 files moved to their namespaced Joomla 4+ form: JRoute → Route (73), JURI → Uri (42), JHtml/JHTML → HTMLHelper (62), JFactory → Factory (33), JText → Text (26), JModuleHelper → ModuleHelper (8), JPluginHelper → PluginHelper (4), plus JDocumentHTML, JComponentHelper and JError.
• Heaviest files: index.php (40), html/mod_login/default.php (20), html/com_virtuemart/productdetails/default.php (16), html/com_virtuemart/user/login.php (14), error.php, html/mod_virtuemart_product/single.php and slick-slider.php (13 each), html/mod_virtuemart_product/default.php (11).
• Every VirtueMart override folder was converted: askquestion (3 files), cart (3), category (3), productdetails (6), sublayouts (3), user (13) and virtuemart (3). So were mod_virtuemart_cart, _category, _currencies, _manufacturer, _product (3 layouts), _search, mod_breadcrumbs, mod_login, mod_menu and mod_search. In total 49 of the 88 PHP overrides changed.
• component.php (print view and VirtueMart pop-ups) and error.php use the namespaced classes too.

Page layout markup

• index.php layout rows moved to Bootstrap 5 classes: 58 .spanN → 8 and 39 .row-fluid → 4, with 50 .col-md-N columns in their place.
• css/template.css carries matching .row.tf-modules > .col-md-N widths beside the original .spanN ones, so the header and module rows keep their proportions (244,230 → 253,347 bytes).

Login dialog

• The login window opens as a Bootstrap 5 dialog, centred (modal-dialog modal-dialog-centered + modal-content, data-bs-toggle / data-bs-target / data-bs-dismiss, a btn-close button). Three jQuery handlers that hid or toggled #LoginForm by hand were removed. Bootstrap 5 data-bs-* attributes went from 7 to 14.

Template options (administrator)

• 100 field type changes in templateDetails.xml:
  • 20 colour settings: Joomla's type="color" → type="colorpicker". A real picker with a live swatch replaces the plain text box Joomla 5 showed, where you had to know and type the hex code.
  • 80 on/off settings: legacy class="switch" type="checkbox" → Joomla 5 radio switcher (for example OverrideDefaultSettings, RSSON, AdditionalGFontON, H1TitleImgText, cam_autoAdvance). With the four retired social switches removed and five new ones added, the template has 85 switchers and no legacy checkboxes (84 before).
• Template options: 338 → 344 fields, 15 → 16 tabs.
• Tab labels shortened: “Theme Settings” → “Theme”, “Fonts Settings” → “Fonts”, “Site Name And Slogan Settings” → “Site Name & Slogan”, “Template Header And Footer Custom Code” → “Header & Footer Custom Code”, and the same for the slideshow, slider, cookie, menu, product-image, pop-up box and colour tabs.
• The template's Details panel follows Joomla's light or dark admin theme. It used to be grey text with a white shadow, unreadable on the dark theme.

Icons and fonts

• Front end: Font Awesome 4.7.0 from MaxCDN and Line Awesome from icons8 → Font Awesome 6.5.2 (all.min.css + v4-shims.min.css). Older fa fa-* class names keep working. FA4 class names in the template went from 22 to 11, including com_virtuemart/category/productsviewarray.php, mod_virtuemart_cart/default.php and mod_virtuemart_product/slick-slider.php, and the seven sub-menu toggles in the mod_menu layouts moved from fa to fas.
• On every page built by index.php, Google Fonts load through a direct stylesheet link with preconnect hints, in place of the JavaScript WebFontConfig loader fetched from ajax.googleapis.com. Your font choices in the template options still apply.

Stylesheets and scripts

• css/template.css carries a version marker (?v= file time), so style changes appear straight after an update instead of waiting for visitors to clear their browser cache.
• The body background image set in the template options is sized with CSS (background-size: cover) in place of the jQuery Backstretch plug-in.
• The template's hand-rolled jQuery.browser block in index.php is gone.
• Template-side jQuery call sites: 197 → 185.

Built-in slideshow: camera.js → Swiper 11

• The camera.js slider is replaced with Swiper 11, bundled in the template (js/vendor/swiper/swiper-bundle.min.js + .css, css/slideshow.css), so the slideshow does not depend on another site's server.
• Slides are .swiper-wrapper > .swiper-slide with the image as a background, cross-fading. Your existing settings still apply: transition speed (cam_transPeriod), auto-advance and its delay (cam_autoAdvance, cam_time), pause on hover and on click, pagination and the previous/next arrows.
• The slideshow height comes from the Min Height setting (cam_minHeight, default 400 px). camera.js sized it from each image's own shape, so where the two differ the slideshow is now the height you configured.

Home page slideshow (Slick)

• The previous/next arrows are Font Awesome 6 chevrons and stay visible at all times. They used to appear only while the pointer was over the slideshow.

Desktop look

• Footer link bullets show an arrow; they showed a code glyph (</>).
• The back-to-top button is a 48 px circle with the arrow and label centred (it was a 48×40 oval with the content sitting low).
• The Shop Categories drop-down opens as a full-width 40 px black bar above the content below it.

Version

• templateDetails.xml version 07.08.2025 5.3.0/4.4.4 → 5.4.7, creation date 05/01/2018 → 2026-08-17. The version shown in the template description matches, and index.php carries a @version 5.4.7 docblock.
• method="upgrade" is kept.

Fixed

Pages that returned a server error

• Error page: error.php called JError::raiseWarning(), a class Joomla 4 removed, and used JText, which only exists while Joomla's Behaviour - Backward Compatibility plugin is on. It now creates a standard Exception and uses Text.
• Login form validation: the VirtueMart login override (html/com_virtuemart/user/login.php) called behavior.formvalidation, which Joomla 5 removed ("behavior::formvalidation not found", a 500). It now uses behavior.formvalidator. With thanks to Zoltán Szász, whose follow-up report led to this fix across our templates.
• Checkout address form on PHP 8: html/com_virtuemart/user/bs3-edit_address.php called count($this->userFields['functions']) on a value that can be empty, a fatal type error on PHP 8 when editing the Bill To / Ship To address. It now uses !empty(). With thanks to Zoltán Szász, whose report found it.

PHP 8 warnings

• html/mod_login/default.php and html/mod_breadcrumbs/default.php used $type and $moduleclass_sfx, which Joomla 5 no longer passes to these layouts ("Undefined variable" warnings). Both now set a safe default.

Parallax

• The parallax bands (jquery.stellar.min.js) stopped with a browser error (getClientRects is not a function) on Joomla 5's jQuery, so the backgrounds no longer moved. js/cs-jq-compat.js fixes it.

Phones

• Login, registration and account fields were capped at about a third of the screen (.width30); they now fill the width.
• The call-us number in the top bar ran off the side of the screen; it now has its own centred row.
• Slideshow captions touched the left edge and the Add to Cart form overflowed its slide; captions are inset 15 px and Add to Cart sits under Product details.
• The breadcrumb band reserved 86 px of empty space below itself.

Maintenance pass

• Icon font: css/template.css loaded the IcoMoon font from media/jui/fonts/, which Joomla 4 removed: four 404s on every page load and a stray character in place of the search icon. The @font-face is switched off and the search icon draws from Font Awesome 6.
• Pagination arrows: Joomla's Previous / Next / First / Last buttons (.icon-angle-left, -right, -double-left, -double-right) were blank; they now show arrows.
• Featured articles: in a one-column featured (home) layout, tall intro articles were clipped to their title. .blog-featured .blog-items.columns-1 .blog-item now uses display:block; overflow:visible; height:auto.
• Search button: the global button margin pulled the search button away from its input. #search-position .btn, .mod-finder__search .btn and .search .btn now have margin:0.
• With thanks to Michael Mullan, whose Expression bug report led to this maintenance pass across our templates.

Removed

Legacy scripts no longer loaded

• index.php no longer loads camera.js, camera.min.js, jquery.mobile.customized.min.js, superfish.js, supersubs.js, jquery.backstretch.min.js (two places), selectivizr-min.js, modernizr.js, or html5.js from the closed html5shiv.googlecode.com. Apart from html5.js, the files remain in js/ (31 → 38 files) but nothing loads them.
• The Internet Explorer conditional-comment blocks (<!--[if lt IE 9]>, [if IE 6], [if IE 7]) are gone.

Legacy stylesheets no longer loaded

• Bootstrap 2 (css/bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css), camera.css, the Internet Explorer sheets ie.css and ie6.css, Font Awesome 4.7.0 from MaxCDN and Line Awesome from icons8. The compatibility stylesheet, Joomla's Bootstrap 5 and Font Awesome 6 take their place.

Retired social services

• Four social slots removed with their switches: Google+ (gplus), StumbleUpon, Digg and Blogger.

Security

• 3 output helpers added to index.php, used 200 times, so the template settings written into the page are escaped or validated:
  • phEsc() (131 uses): HTML text and attributes, including the social-link hrefs, the custom social icon classes, font sizes and the Google Fonts link.
  • phHexColor() (56 uses): colour settings written into the page's CSS; anything that is not a 3- or 6-digit hex colour falls back to a safe default.
  • phCssDim() (13 uses): sizes written into the page's CSS, accepting only a number with a CSS unit.
• The background image setting is written into CSS through phEsc() and Uri::base(), in place of an unescaped jQuery.backstretch() call.
• Every social link that opens a new tab carries rel="noopener".
• index.php now starts with defined('_JEXEC') or die, so it cannot be run directly.

Quickstart Installer

The Quickstart is a complete Joomla 5.4.7 site (previously 5.3.0) with VirtueMart 4.8.0 (previously 4.4.4) and Intense Shop pre-configured as the active template.

• A standard Joomla installer. The old download was an Akeeba backup archive (.jpa) restored with Kickstart. Now you extract the zip, open your site and Joomla's normal setup wizard runs. INSTALL-INTENSE.txt at the top of the zip walks you through it.
• You create your own administrator account during setup. The old quickstart carried a ready-made admin account, the same in every copy.
• Bundled extensions: Weblinks 5.1.0 (was 4.4.0), Akeeba Backup 10.3.7 (was 10.0.3) and MCP For J 2.5.0.
• The site templates/ folder holds only cassiopeia, intense and system. VirtueMart's demo templates vmbasic and vmbeez3 are gone.
• Joomla's "What's New" guided tours no longer start by themselves (autostart = 0). In the old quickstart the Joomla 5.3 tour started on the first administrator visit.
• A clean starting state: the 3,758 article views carried in the demo content are reset to zero, and the 86 template-override records are marked as reviewed (no “changes found” warning).
• The VirtueMart account page no longer shows the “Left Banner 1” and “See also” modules above the account form.
• The administrator's Templates screen showed Intense as 21.02.2018 3.8.5/3.2.12; it now shows 5.4.7.
• The footer copyright year is 2026.

Package format

• Standalone template: intense.zip, the intense template folder, installed through Extensions → Install.
• Quickstart bundle: intense-quickstart-J5.4.7-17.08.2026.zip, a complete Joomla 5.4.7 install with VirtueMart 4.8.0 and Intense Shop pre-loaded as the active template.