With the release of Joomla 3.5 we can now use a custom CSS file to override the styles of the default Protostar template. Using the override method by only adding our custom CSS code in the user.css file means the change will not be overwritten and lost should the template itself be updated. It's also easier to maintain with all customizations in one place.

To use the user.css file in Protostar you must create the file yourself and place it in the correct location. 

User.css location in Protostar

templates/protostar/css/user.css

The system will import the file if the file exists and is not empty, according to the official pull request. Once you have this file in place you can add customizations to override any styles used in the template or extensions. Some extensions can add CSS after a template renders, so if you're not seeing your changes, you may need to implement the !important command. 

Far too often we get a case where a business owner doesn't know where their website is located, how to access their hosting space, is not the registered legal assignee for their domain name - therefore having no real access or control of their own digital assets. In this article, we show you how to check if you control your digital assets - and what to do if you're not in complete control.

Business domain registration records

Inexperienced web agencies sometimes register domains in their own names rather than the business owner name or the company name. Every time a domain is registered, the legal assignee of the domain is recorded and can be checked via the WHOIS (pronounced as the phrase who is) lookup service. There are many websites where you can check these records, we prefer Blacknight's Who Owns It service. Simply enter your domain name and check the corresponding details in the record returned.

If your company name or your personal name are not the official assignee, you will need to contact the official assignee and have them authorise the registrar to transfer the domain into your name so that you have the correct level of 'ownership' and control over your domain assets. In addition to being the official assignee, you will want to have access to control the domain in order to use it for your website, subdomains and email addresses.

Since Joomla 3.2.3 the functionality to reset the hits on an individual Joomla article has been absent. Our clients often like to have the hits value set to zero before launch so that the views from testing & development don't count towards the value. There are some extensions available to re-introduce the reset hits in Joomla 3 functionality in the extensions directory, however because this is often a once-off need for us we usually do this directly via a database query, here's how:

Note: Remember to run a backup before working with advanced tasks!

Access the mySQL database instance you're using for your Joomla 3 website. Typically this is done using phpMyAdmin or a stand-alone mySQL tool. We really like SQLyog for our day to day database tasks. Once you've navigated to the database instance, take note of the prefix each table is using. You'll use that in the query to reset the article hits value. The mySQL command to run, where pre_ if your specific table prefix, is then

That query will reset all the values for 'hits' in the content table to zero. Enjoy!

The default layout of PDF invoices in Virtuemart for Joomla can be quite ugly, however there are some quite easy ways to add simple branding and slightly more complex ways for customizing the entire layout using the standard template override system.

The simplest things to do are to customize the header and footer areas. Typically I'll add a logo or custom header banner image to make the invoice match the rest of the branding. I also like to add some contact information in the footer such as address, customer service email and phone number and perhaps VAT ID or company registration details. Adding these things is very like editing articles in Joomla and is achieved through the two content editor areas Invoice Head and Invoice footer on the Invoices/Emails tab at Virtuemart > Shop > Shop.

Should you want to further customize the invoice area you will need to edit the file(s) at /components/com_virtuemart/views/invoice/tmpl which create various parts of the invoice. The one that creates the main body of the invoice is invoice_items.php. If you're editing these files, you should use a template override in order to retain the changes after any Virtuemart updates. When editing these files and checking your changes, you will also have to delete any PDF invoices which have already been generated in order to force a new one to generate showing your adjustments. These are stored in the Virtuemart temporary files folder which you may have customized but it by default at /vmfiles/invoices