Take note that we’ll see how these Joomla! 1.5 items differ in use from a Joomla! 1.0 template, so that those of you looking to update a Joomla! 1.0 template to 1.5 can quickly get a handle on what to update in your templates and what new features to add.
Consider this article your “cheat sheet”.
Jdoc include tags
The jdoc include tags are new to Joomla! 1.5 templates. Previously in Joomla! 1.0, more complicated, abstract PHP code, originally created for Mambo, was used. The jdoc tags are much cleaner, visually make sense (no more guessing what attribute values like “-3” mean), and, thus, are much easier to remember.
Site header information tag
This is pretty simple: the tag outputs all the appropriate meta tags and header information that corresponds to your site and each individual page:
<jdoc:include type="head" />
Joomla! 1.0 to 1.5 conversion
If you’re converting a 1.0 template to 1.5, you’ll replace this PHP function in your 1.0 template’s header with the above jdoc tag:
<head>
...
<?php mosShowHead(); ?>
...
The component include tag
Wherever you place this include, all component content will appear (from articles to poll results to contact forms, and so on):
<jdoc:include type="component" />
Joomla! 1.0 to 1.5 conversion
The 1.0 equivalent of this tag is the mosMainBody function. You’ll replace this PHP function with the above jdoc include:
<?php mosMainBody(); ?>
Module position tags
With module tags, we have a few options to work with. So, we can control what modules load into the area, thus assigning their positions as well as what style to output the module content with:
<jdoc:include type="modules" name="position" style="styleName" />
Module position styles
In the jdoc include example above, within the style attribute, you can place one of the following six style names to various effect: