There may be times when you would like to edit your Joomla template files and this can be done either from within Joomla itself or by editing the file on your computer. For this example let's imagine we want to edit the template.css file of the beez template that comes with Joomla.
Editing Joomla Templates from inside Joomla:
Login to your Administrator area of Joomla
The Control Panel will show
Click Extensions/Template Manager from the Menu bar
The Template Manager will show
Choose the Template you wish to edit i.e beez
The Template Edit page will display
Let's picture you wish to edit the template.css file
Select Edit.css
The Template CSS Editor page will display listing all the css files that are linked with your Joomla web web site
Notice that in most cases all the files will be unwritable.
To amend these files you will need to amend the permissions so that you can change the coding
This is where it becomes a little more complicated especially if you are not familiar with FTP (File Transfer Program)
You will need an FTP product to change the permissions such as Filezilla or you could download a 30 day trial of Dreamweaver
Whichever program you choose, login to your server where you will see a list of files intended for your joomla site
Navigate to the Template folder and then to the folder of the template you wish to change. For this example let's use beez
Select the beez folder and you will notice a folder called css
Choose the css folder and you will see the template.css
If you are using Dreamweaver, right click on the template.css
The Microsoft Windows pop up display will display and you will notice an option called Set Permissions
In support of other programs you will need to read the manual
Choose the Set Permissions option
The File Access Properties screen will display and you will see that the file is set to 755 in other terms it can be read and executed by everyone but not except for the owner of the file
Change the permission to 777 which will give everybody access to read, write and execute the file
Be aware that this file is now vulnerable so you want to alter it back as quickly as you can to 755
Open up your Template Edit Page in Joomla
You may want to refresh the page plus you will now see that your template.css file is writeable
Click template.css and click the edit button
The Template Manager page will display and you can make your amendments
Click the Save button when you have finished your changes
Confirm that your changes have been reflected in your web site
You might need to close the browser and open it once more for you to be able to notice the amendments
Return to your FTP application and set the permissions back to 755 so that your file cannot be written to
The second way of editing your template.css file is to download the file to your PC:
With your FTP application login to your server
Go to to the Template folder and then to the folder of the template you wish to edit. For this example let's use beez
Choose the beez folder and you will notice a folder called css
Click the css folder and you will see the template.css
Download the file to your PC
In Dreamweaver you are able to simply double click on the file
You will not have to worry about permissions
I suggest you create a copy of this file incase you make a mistake so name it something similar to templateBACKUP.css
Open the file and make your amendments
Upload the file back to the original folder. This will overwrite the first file
Refresh your browser and see your amendments.
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