Template modifications
Template modifications#
As an alternative to customizing templates directly, XenForo also offers a system called Template modifications, which works by allowing you to pick a template, specify a section of the template to find, and a way to insert new template code to modify the specified section.
In the template modification manager, you will find a list of all template modifications currently in use, grouped by the add-on which has defined them. You may quickly disable and re-enable any template modification by using the toggle gadget in the list.
Clicking on one of these modifications, or clicking the Add template modification button, will load the template modification editor.
Within the editor, the controls available, along with the name of the template to be modified, are as follows:
Modification key#
Use this to define a unique identifier for your modification. Letters, numbers and underscores are allowed.
Description#
Should contain a short description of the functionality of your modification, like Adds a new tab to the member profile page.
Template contents#
This box is for reference only, and contains the full text of the template to be modified.
Search type#
In many cases, you will want to use a Simple replacement here, whereby the system will search for some text and then replace it in its entirety.
You may also use a regular expression if you want to do more complex matching, or if you want to maintain some or all of the matched text in your modification.
Advanced users may specify a PHP callback to have full control over the way the modification operates.
Find#
Enter the text here that the modification is going to replace, the type of text you specify should match the requirements of the Search type.
Many XenForo templates include special <!--[XF:name_goes_here]--> place holders in useful locations, which allow you to quickly and easily enter the token code as the Find text for your modification.
Replace#
Here, you should enter the HTML code that will replace the text you specified in Find.
As this HTML will be inserted into a template, you may make full use of XenForo template syntax within your code.
If you would like to include the text that was found along with your new HTML, you can include by using the token $0 in your HTML.
If your Find text was a regular expression, any additional matches from that expression can be inserted using $1, $2 etc.
Execution order#
Several template modifications may attach to the same template. The Execution order value is used to determine the order in which these modifications will be applied. Modifications with lower execution order numbers will run before those with higher values.
Note
Even though template modifications are the safest way to customize XenForo templates, it is still wise to double-check that your modifications have not blocked or broken any new or altered functionality if the templates to which they attach have been modified following a XenForo upgrade.