Applying custom module chrome

To define custom Module chrome in your template you need to create a file called modules.php in your template html directory. For example, this might be PATH_TO_JOOMLA/templates/TEMPLATE_NAME/html/modules.php.

In this file you should define a function called modChrome_STYLE where 'STYLE' is the name of your custom Module chrome. This function will take three arguments, $module, &$params, and &$attribs, as shown:

<?php 
  function modChrome_STYLE( $module, &$params, &$attribs ) 
  {
    /* chromed Module output goes here */
  }
?>

Within this function you can make use of any of the available Module properties (i.e. the fields in the jos_modules table in the Joomla database on your server) for that Module, but the main ones you are likely to need are $module->content, $module->showtitle and $module->title. $module->showtitle is a Boolean variable, so is either true (when the Module title should be shown) or false (when it shouldn't be shown). $module->content and $module->title will return the main Module content and the Module title respectively.

The function is a normal PHP function and so can use any regular PHP code. One common example is to use an if statement to check the value of $module->showtitle, and then include the title or not accordingly:

<?php
  if ($module->showtitle) 
  {
    echo '<h2>' .$module->title .'</h2>';
  }
?>

The Module parameters are accessed using the $params object. For example, it is possible to assign a Module class suffix to a Module in the backend of your Joomla! site; this is then stored in the parameters for that Module as moduleclass_sfx. To create a <div> with a class determined by the Module class suffix, you would use:

<div class="<?php echo $params->get( 'moduleclass_sfx' ); ?>">
  <!-- div contents -->
</div>

Custom chrome attributes

It is also possible to pass further attributes into the Module chrome function using the same <jdoc:include /> statement that sets the Module chrome. These additional attributes can be anything you like, and are stored in the $attribs array. Take the following example Module chrome function:

<?php
  function modChrome_custom( $module, &$params, &$attribs ) {
    if (isset( $attribs['headerLevel'] )) 
    {
      $headerLevel = $attribs['headerLevel'];
    } else {
      $headerLevel = 3;
    }

    if (isset( $attribs['background'] )) 
    {
      $background = $attribs['background'];
    } else {
      $background = 'blue';
    }

    echo '<div class="' .$params->get( 'moduleclass_sfx' ) .'" >';

    if ($module->showtitle) 
    {
      echo '<h' .$headerLevel .'>' .$module->title .'</h' .$headerLevel .'>';
    }

    echo '<div class="' .$background .'">';
    echo $module->content;
    echo '</div>';

    echo '</div>';
  }
?>

You would then set the values for background and headerLevel in the <jdoc:include /> statement as shown below. If no values are set, the attributes default to 'blue' and '3' respectively.

Passing attributes to Module chrome from <jdoc:include />

<jdoc:include /> statement	Output
<jdoc:include type="modules" name="user1" style="custom" />	<div> <h3><!-- Module title --></h3> <div class="blue"> <!-- Module content --> </div> </div>
<jdoc:include type="modules" name="user1" style="custom" background="green" />	<div> <h3><!-- Module title --></h3> <div class="green"> <!-- Module content --> </div> </div>
<jdoc:include type="modules" name="user1" style="custom" headerLevel="1" background="yellow" />	<div> <h1><!-- Module title --></h1> <div class="yellow"> <!-- Module content --> </div> </div>

Further information about passing attributes to Module chrome can be found in jtopic:115953.