Despite being tremendously useful, template overrides for plugins are a type of override that is barely known in Joomla community.

There is no way to create this type of override from the Joomla backend. It is a completely manual process. Template overrides for plugins are intended for extensions that output content in frontend. This means just a few plugins are ready for this feature.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to easily create plugin overrides in Joomla.

The plugins that have a tmpl folder with the output files in there, are the ones that are ready for overrides. A good example is the page navigation plugin, that prints the “prev” and “next” links in a single article.

Step #1. Create the plugin override

Let’s create a plugin override taking as an example the Page Navigation plugin for articles.

• Go to: plugins / content / pagenavigation / tmpl folder
• Copy the file default.php

• Paste default.php in a new location inside your template’s folder in: templates / your-template / html / plg_content_pagenavigation

The folder name "plg_content_pagenavigation" is the result of this structure: "plg_PluginType_PluginName".

• PluginType = content
• PluginName = pagenavigation

If you are creating an override for another plugin, follow the same pattern to name the folder within your template.

Step #2. Customize the plugin override

• Edit the file default.php you just copied. Change the HTML according to your needs.

In my case, I changed the html that rendered the navigation links. Instead, I gave them the aspect of buttons with more color.

Step #3. Check the end result

• This if how the default page navigation links look in Protostar template:

• After my customizations, this is the end result:

About the author

Valentín creates beautiful designs from amongst the tequila plants of Jalisco, Mexico. You can see Valentín's design work all over this site and you can often find him helping members in support.