2 - Installing Corpus

Corpus installs like any Joomla extension. It requires no plugin, no library, no companion component.

What you need

Joomla 6.2 or later. Current versions of Corpus do not install on an older Joomla: both installing and updating are refused, with the message "Corpus x.y.z requires Joomla 6.2 or later. Please update Joomla first." So update Joomla first, then install Corpus.

Corpus uses the Content Templates mechanism introduced in Joomla 5, the <search> element and CSS container queries.

No particular PHP version beyond what Joomla itself requires.

Installing

Extensions → Manage → Install, Upload Package File tab, drop the corpus-x.y.z.zip file.

An update works exactly the same way: install the zip over the previous one. Your settings are kept - they live in the style, not in the files.

Enabling the template

System → Site Templates Styles. Corpus appears there as Corpus - Default. Click the star in the Default column so it applies to the whole site.

The style: the object to understand

A style is a set of settings. A template can have as many as you like, and each style is assigned to specific menu items.

In Corpus this is the mechanism that replaces the "home page variants" other templates sell:

1. System → Site Templates Styles, tick Corpus - Default, Duplicate button.
2. Open the copy, rename it, change what you want: the hue, the shape variant, the Layout.
3. Menu Assignment tab, tick the items concerned.

The pages assigned take the new style; all the others keep the default one. No second template to install.

One consequence to know. Layout settings belong to the style. Two styles can therefore have different sections, different widths and different module positions - but the modules themselves stay assigned in the module manager, independently of the style.

The first setting to make: the editor blocks

Corpus ships 56 editorial blocks ready to insert in TinyMCE. They need one manipulation, once per site, in two places:

System → Plugins → Editor - TinyMCE, open the option set you use, then:

1. in the toolbar tab, drag the Templates button into the toolbar. Without it, nothing loads and there is no button to click;
2. in the Templates field, choose corpus/html/tinymce from the drop-down list.

The full path, not corpus. Joomla does not go down into subfolders: it reads the .html files of the folder you give, and of that folder only. corpus holds no .html file at its root, so the list comes out empty, with no message.

The Insert template toolbar button then offers the 56 blocks. See Writing in Corpus.

What not to do

Do not edit the template's files. An update will overwrite them. If you need something the settings do not cover, go through a child template - see Going further.

Do not add a stylesheet in templates/corpus/css/ for the same reason. Use the style's Custom CSS field, or a child template.

Do not uninstall the default style before enabling another one: Joomla refuses to leave a site without a style, and you would end up doing it in the database.

Up to date for Corpus 2.1.683.