Joomla Template Overrides

Sometimes in Joomla we use components that have templates that can't be duplicated and changed, or that we need to protect from being overwritten when it's updated - this is where overrides come in. An override allows you to edit the template file and leave it where it is still called on but cannot be touched if you update the component.

To create an override, you need to get the template files from your component - they'll be found somewhere like this: /components/com_component/views/[template]/tmpl

Joomla always looks for overrides before it renders the component's template, so if we have a template in here, that is what will get rendered. The advantage of that being - as stated above - it is not anywhere that gets written to when a component is updated, meaning everything here is safe.

Download your template file(s) and re-upload to your /templates/[templatename]/html folder. When you re-upload them, you must partly re-create the file structure of where they came from.

Your file structure will looks something like this: /templates/[templatename]/html/com_component/[template]

You don't need to include the /views or /tmpl folders. Break your templates up with folders that have the template name (as seen above) and place the php files in there.

For Example:

Component Directory

/components/com_component/views/default/tmpl

Override Directory

/templates/[templatename]/html/com_component/default