Joomla 2.5 Templates – $this->params->get(‘templatecolor’);

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Continuing with our review of the Beez2 template, the next set of code in the template’s index.php file we will look at is:

// get params
$color              = $this->params->get(‘templatecolor’);
$logo               = $this->params->get(‘logo’);
$navposition        = $this->params->get(‘navposition’);

Based upon the names used, it appears that $this->params->get will return the value of the given parameter for this template.

What are the current values of these template parameters?

If we log into our Joomla admin, we can view the values of these parameters by following these steps:

1. Log into our Joomla dashboard
2. In the top menu, hover over Extensions and then click Template Manager.
3. Click Beez2 – Default
4. In the right menu under Advanced Options, you will see the following values:
   

   Advanced Option	Value	Form Value
   Logo	images/joomla_black.gif	images/joomla_black.gif
   Position of Navigation	before content	left
   Template colour	Personal	personal

   In the above table, Value is the value for the option the user has selected (what you can see in the screenshot), while Form Value is the value of the option in the HTML code (you’ll have to view the HTML source code to see this)

What value does $this->params->get return?

Now that we know that actual value of these template parameters, we can test what the function returns. We will do so with the following code:

<

p class=”code_block”>// get params
$color              = $this->params->get(‘templatecolor’);
$logo               = $this->params->get(‘logo’);
$navposition        = $this->params->get(‘navposition’);
echo ”  <pre>
                       this->params->get(‘templatecolor’) = ” . $this->params->get(‘templatecolor’) . “
                       this->params->get(‘logo’) = ” . $this->params->get(‘logo’) . “
                       this->params->get(‘navposition’) = ” . $this->params->get(‘navposition’) . “
        </pre>
“; die();

As you can see from the screenshot to the right, the value return by $this->params->get is the form value of each of the template’s parameters.