How to modify the appearance of the Category List page without having modifications done to the Joomla! Core Code

Since Joomla! 1.5 this feature has been made available.

Answer:

STEP 1

Via FTP copy the following file (default_items.php ) from your Joomla! 1.5 installation files to your local machine.

Path to default_items.php 
ROOT_PATH/components/com_content/views/category/tmpl/default_items.php

NOTE: For FTP use your favorite FTP client eg. FileZilla

STEP 2

Open the file and edit it as you want the Category List page to look!

I wanted to remove the numbering and replace the numbers with Bullets. I openedthe file and replaced line 70 <?php echo $this->pagination->getRowOffset( $item->count ); ?> with <?php echo ‘& bull;’; ?>  NB: no space between & and bull

STEP 3

Save the file

STEP 4

Again access your Joomla! site via FTP and locate your template directory and open it.

eg. ROOT_PATH/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/

STEP 5

Create an “html” folder within your template directory and within your html folderanother folder with name “com_content” and within com_content another folderwith name “category”

Now your folder structure should look like this: ROOT_PATH/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_content/category

STEP 6

Copy your edited default_items.php file to ROOT_PATH/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/html/com_content/category

STEP 7

Open your web page and your customized changes will show.

NOTE:

• Only Joomla! 1.5 supports this feature.
• If you select another template the default Joomla! core pages will show
• For more information on this feature visit: http://docs.joomla.org/Tutorial_talk:Template_overrides