Added

Bootstrap 5 + BS2 → BS5 bridge

• Bootstrap 5 loaded from Joomla core (/media/vendor/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.min.css) — one shared instance, current security patches included.
• Comprehensive BS2 → BS5 bridge CSS (~13 KB, loaded last in the cascade with a cachebuster) that keeps legacy VirtueMart output and custom-HTML module content rendering correctly under Bootstrap 5. Bridge covers the .row-fluid / .row / .spanN grid math, list-style resets, cart image aspect ratios, related-products / category-view image ratios, universal img[width][height] aspect-ratio defense, container width cap (matches the donor's 1170px design box), and mobile stacking.

Font Awesome 6 with v4 shim

• Font Awesome upgraded to 6.5.2 with the official v4-shims.min.css layer — new networks like Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon get real brand glyphs, and existing <i class="fa fa-X"> markup keeps working via the shim.

Modern 13-network social parity

• Social fieldset rebuilt with the modern set: X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest, TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Discord, RSS. Each has a J5-native ON/OFF switcher and a URL field.
• Rendered social bar uses <i class="fab fa-X"> markup for FA6 brand glyphs, escapes the customer's URL via a hardened phEsc() helper, and applies rel="noopener" to every target="_blank" anchor.
• X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram default to visible on a fresh install so the social bar appears out of the box.

Mobile-responsive overhaul

• Hamburger toggle auto-injected on viewports under 768px — opens a menu drawer that reveals below the header with a dark semi-transparent backdrop so the site content stays partially visible.
• Single-branch-open accordion — tapping a parent expands its children; tapping a sibling-parent collapses the previously open branch so only one chain is open at a time.
• Circular chip indicators — 34 px circle with a Font Awesome fa-plus / fa-minus glyph replaces the old plain-text plus/minus. Expanded state darkens the border and text for a clear "on" read.

Quickstart-shipped extensions

• StageIt preinstalled — ships the same staging-clone workflow used to build this release, so customers can do their own no-risk template swaps.
• MCP for Joomla preinstalled — API access for Claude-using customers who want to script site changes.

Changed

Framework and library versions

• Joomla 5.4.6 (was 5.1.2 on the previous shipping quickstart).
• VirtueMart 4.6.8 (was 4.2.12 on the previous shipping quickstart).
• Bootstrap 5 (was Bootstrap 2 on the previous shipping quickstart).
• Font Awesome 6.5.2 (was 4.7 / 5.0.1 depending on section).

Menu and currency selector

• Desktop dropdown menu replaced the jQuery Superfish + Supersubs plugins with a vanilla-JS hover / focus handler that maintains the same 500 ms hover-out delay for menu stability.
• Currency selector replaced the jQuery Dropkick plugin with a native <select> element styled with an inline SVG dropdown arrow — no external JS dependency, better mobile keyboard support, and screen-reader friendly.

Google Fonts loader

• Legacy dynamic webfont.js Google-hosted script loader replaced with a modern direct <link> to fonts.googleapis.com/css2. Faster first paint, no extra JS execution.

Admin Template Style form

• 40 admin-form switchers converted from the J3-era class="switch" type="checkbox" pattern to the J5-native type="radio" layout="joomla.form.field.radio.switcher" format so the Yes/No pills render correctly in Joomla 5.

Content and metadata

• Copyright year bumped to 2026 across module content and article intro text.
• Extension author + copyright rebranded to Cybersalt Consulting Ltd / VirtueMartTemplates.net.
• templateDetails.xml version bumped to 5.4.0 (pure semver — no legacy date prefix). Description CDATA "Template Version" string synced so it matches everywhere admins see it.
• Hot Products module default layout is now 6 across (was 5).

Fixed

Layout regressions from the Bootstrap 5 move

• Welcome menu green box no longer stretches to match the slideshow column — bridge CSS adds align-items: flex-start to .row-fluid and .row so BS5 flex children stop reserving the tallest sibling's height.
• Product cards (Featured Products, Latest Products, Top Ten Products) no longer show a giant empty column of white space below the image — blanket height: auto applied to .moduletable and every VirtueMart view container that inherited the BS2 height: 100% convention.
• "Our Partners and Brands" module renders 3 across horizontally instead of stacked one-per-row — bridge CSS resets the standalone .spanN min-width floors that were forcing narrow flex containers to wrap.

Login modal migration to Bootstrap 5

• LoginForm modal converted to the Bootstrap 5 markup contract — data-bs-toggle="modal" + data-bs-target, wrapped in modal-dialog modal-dialog-centered, close button becomes btn-close. Removed the vanilla .toggle() race-condition handler that fought with BS5's own show/hide state machine.

Image aspect ratio

• Universal img[width][height] aspect-ratio defense in the bridge prevents VirtueMart's marketplace-pattern images (which ship with hard-coded width="X" height="Y" attributes) from stretching tall-and-narrow under BS5 flex parents. Category, featured, latest, related, single-product hero, and contact-page images all covered by the same rule.

htaccess hygiene

• Legacy JCH-Optimize CDN block removed from htaccess.txt — those rules pointed at our internal CDN and would have been dead config in every customer install.

Removed

Extinct browser shims

• jQuery.browser IE-detect shim (extinct as of jQuery 1.9).
• IE conditional blocks (<!--[if IE]> family — IE 6, 7, 8, 9).
• Selectivizr, Modernizr, and html5shiv polyfill loaders.
• Legacy IE-only stylesheet loads (ie6.css, ie.css, ie9-10.css).

Legacy Bootstrap 2 load

• Bundled Bootstrap 2 CSS loads removed (bootstrap.min.css, bootstrap-responsive.min.css, bootstrap-extended.css). Joomla core Bootstrap 5 handles the frontend now.

Dead social networks

• Retired: Google Plus, MySpace, Stumbleupon, Digg, Blogger — the fieldset no longer offers URL slots for services that no longer exist or no longer route social traffic. Field names removed from the admin form and from the front-end render loop.

MooTools chromes

• Deleted html/layouts/chromes/toggleModule.php and html/layouts/chromes/toggleModule2.php (J4-era layout chromes with MooTools Fx.Slide dependency).
• Stripped modChrome_toggleModule and modChrome_toggleModule2 function definitions from html/modules.php. Kept modChrome_vmdefault and modChrome_slides (HTML-only wrappers).

Donor-clutter templates

• Removed horme_3, vmbeez3, and vmbasic template installs, plus a stale aeon template style row — leftover clones from earlier VirtueMart template shipping that customers never used. Cassiopeia (Joomla fallback) and Vio (main) remain.

Broken update-server registration

• Klarna Checkout plugin update site disabled — the vendor's update XML ships with an empty <downloadurl> placeholder that would leave a permanent red "update available" badge in the admin dashboard.

Security

• 131 output-escaping wraps applied to $this->params->get(...) echoes throughout index.php. Every admin-controlled parameter is now passed through phEsc() before it hits the rendered HTML.
• $type variable fallback added to html/mod_login/default.php. Joomla 5 stopped passing the dispatcher variable through the login override, and without the fallback the front-end emitted an Undefined variable $type warning.
• $moduleclass_sfx variable fallback added to html/mod_breadcrumbs/default.php for the same reason.
• 104 pending template-override changes reviewed and marked-as-checked so the Home Dashboard "Overrides to check" widget renders clean instead of a stale numeric badge.

Quickstart

• Joomla 5.4.6 core baked in.
• VirtueMart 4.6.8 baked in.
• StageIt and MCP for Joomla preinstalled and enabled.
• Modern social bar visible on the demo home page out of the box (X, Facebook, Instagram).
• Five customer-useful Joomla post-install feature introductions left enabled: Beginner's Welcome, Action Logs, Privacy tools (GDPR), Multi-Factor Authentication, and Automated Updates. The 11 point-in-time .htaccess / text-filter / stats nag messages are disabled so the customer's first admin panel view isn't a wall of dismiss buttons.
• Article and product hit counters reset to zero so the demo doesn't ship with our development / preview traffic baked in.

Package

• Standalone package: pkg_viostore-5.4.0.zip
• Quickstart: viostore-quickstart-J5.4.0-06.07.2026.zip
• Update server registered so customers who install the package receive future update notifications directly inside Joomla admin.