Problems with Beez templates

During our testing a small problem was discovered on the front end displays when used with Beez based templates. Beez 2 and Beez 5 templates are part of the Joomla base release distribution and are used on a number of sites, along with other templates based upon variations of these. These templates have a panel upon the Right Hand Side (RHS) of the screen which can be opened or closed by clicking on a ‘Open Info’ or ‘Close Info’ link. This link is visible within these templates when a module is assigned to any of the RHS positions.

The problem manifests itself as a series of screen refreshes. Assuming that the RHS panel is visible and that one of the Issue Tracker front end displays is visible; when the ‘Close Info’ text is clicked causes the RHS panel to disappear and the central panel showing the Issue Tracker information is extended. Then soon after (a period that is probably dependant upon the power of the underlying server), the screen will then get refreshed and the Issue Tracker display gets replaced with some other display. Examples have been seen where the Home page gets displays, and also other apparently random or blank displays.

The cause of this strange behaviour has been tracked down, not to be a problem with the Issue Tracker component, since we have managed to reproduce it with other components, but with an installed version of the sh404SEF® component.

sh40SEF builds and manages SEF URL for the Joomla! CMS. It uses a plug-in system to adapt to various components. sh404SEF® is used in two ways: to "create" URLs and to "revert" URLs.

The nature of the SEF component is managing to capture and represent the Issue Tracker links in a manner that is not intended. There are two possible solutions to resolve this problem.

The method supplied provides a sh404SEF routine that is installed with the component.

The alternative if this does not suit your site involves reconfiguring the sh404SEF component so that it does not handle the Issue Tracker URLs. This is achieved by going to the sh404SEF Configuration panel in the Back End and choosing the ‘Components Panel’. Navigate down the list of components until the ‘Issue Tracker’ component is located. Change the first column value to ‘Use Joomla router’. Similarly change the fourth column value to be ‘Use Joomla router’. Finally change the fifth column to ‘disable shURL’.

Other SEF components may generate similar problems, but we currently have not seen any reported.