Best practice for customising a template in Joomla 3

Hi

I am reasonably new to Joomla and am a bit confused as to how i edit the Gavick Template/Joomla modules without losing changes or causing future issues when upgrading Joomla, the template or a module such as Virtuemart.

As an example I want to add a thumbnail image into the Virtuemart cart checkout form.

cart.jpg

Can you please tell me the best practice for customising the template in Joomla 3.

1. Should i copy the whole template first and edit this new instance preserving the original template for reference? This seems to be the consensus of the articles I have read.

(I have followed this guide https://docs.joomla.org/J2.5:Modifying_a_Joomla!_Template
but still get lots of errors in the template manager when I try to use the new copy)

2. If I am using overrides to edit Virtuemart here… templates\gk_storefront\html \com_virtuemart\cart

Will these ever be overwritten when upgrading Joomla the Gavick template or modules?

Thanks in advance.
Ben.

Hi,
1) About CSS - using override.css feature -> https://www.gavick.com/documentation/jo ... mplate-css
2) About overridden components file .... there is no only way, because for example VM3 is still full of bugs and they publish new version regularly, so we have to also time to time edit our files.

This is software world , with lots of ambushes and surprises.
In advanced projects you have to create/write a documentation or changelog

Hi

Thanks for the prompt reply.

1. Is it a good idea to make a full copy of the template? or can i achieve everything i need with overrides?

ie: Can i achieve everything i need to do by using css and component overrides. then when upgrading can i just copy all the overrides from the below locations into the upgraded template and they will be restored?

Here: templates\gk_storefront\html\com_virtuemart\cart
and here: Extensions > Template Manager > Template > Advanced Settings > Custom CSS

Thanks again

About GK Templates - override.css is safe, it won't be overridden by next update.
Backup is always a good solution, BTW, template changelogs are here: https://www.gavick.com/updates
About VM3 - sorry I do not use this soft anymore.