1 Customizing Joomla!'s Default Template The goal of this document is to instruct users on how to customize the default Joomla! 1.5 template: “rhuk_milkyway”. To perform some of the changes in this document you may need a File Transfer Protocol client (FTP client). While chances are this will not be required, many people find it to be a very valuable asset. Further more, you will need to have Super Administrative access to Joomla!'s administration panel. This document is rather basic, but it will show you how to change the Joomla! logo, change the template width, choose from existing color schemes, and remove the footer link that will take site visitors back to Joomla.org. Changing Rhuk_milkyway's Default Configurations: Note: Rhuk_milkyway's defalt template width is not set. It is actually 'fluid'. The idea behind this is that whatever size screen the user has, the template will fill the whole width. After logging into the Joomla! 1.5 administrative back end, go to: Extensions - > Template Manager (See Figure 1) Once you are in the Template Manager, select the template. There are two ways to do this. One is to click the little radio button, and then click 'edit' on the menu that is at the top of the Template Manager screen. (See Figure 2 & 3) Figure 2 Figure 1 Figure 3 The other way to open the template's configuration is to simply click on the title, shown in Figure 2. Before you change any of the settings in the Template Configuration, check to see if the parameters file is writable. You can do this by changing the file's permissions to 777 via FTP client, or a File Manager Component for Joomla! to do this. If you experience problems changing the file permissions, check the ownership settings. Refer to the Joomla! forum (http://forum.joomla.org) for more information. Params.ini file is unwritable – Figure 4 After setting the params.in file to writable (777), the parameters writable setting will change from 'Unwritable' to 'Writable' (See Figures 4 & 5) Params.ini is writable – Figure 5
