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Is it possible to override the default field template just in my component? How would I go about doing it?

The template I specifically want to override is "joomla.form.renderlabel", which is stored at layouts/joomla/form/renderlabel.php.

I know that I could create a template override, but this would override all admin fields for all components; I just want to override them in my component, or even more specifically, in one of my admin views. So I'm looking for a way to programatically modify which template is used.

From what I can tell, 'joomla.form.renderlabel' is hard coded into the FormField object, so to use a different label I would need to override that. But since it's so high in the inheritance chain I think I would also have to override like... so much of Joomla. Following the chain up, I especially begin to despair as I get to the FormHelper class.

Before I give up, I want to see if any experienced Joomla people know of some easy way to do this.

Right now I have some Javascript that does what I want: extracts descriptions and prints them underneath the labels rather than have them appear on hover. But this script is hacky and runs into problems with subforms. I feel like overriding the field template would be the right way to do it... but I also feel like it could be even more hacky if it means fighting with Joomla's architecture.

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    If you did a template override, then in your override code you could use the Application Input to get the 'option' and execute your special code only if it's your component. Would that be a suitable solution?
    – Robbie Jackson
    Commented Oct 30, 2023 at 22:36
  • @RobbieJackson I do really like that solution! I am looking for a way to do it all in the component ideally, but this may be the fallback I go with if that doesn't work out; it's certainly more elegant than the Javascript.
    – Obscerno
    Commented Oct 30, 2023 at 23:21

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JLayouts do support component level overrides (but not view level). Create the override (layouts/joomla/form/renderlabel.php) in your component's directory. In frontend and/or backend, depending on where you want it to take effect. The lookup order is as following:

[0] => templates/mytemplate/html/layouts/com_mycomponent
[1] => components/com_mycomponent/layouts
[2] => templates/mytemplate/html/layouts
[3] => layouts

Documentation: JLayout Improvements for Joomla!.

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  • Excellent! That worked for me. I did run into an issue where I accidentally put layouts/... at the top level of my component, but it needed to go at admin/layouts/.... If you put it at the top level it will overwrite the core Joomla layouts, so to others: be careful!
    – Obscerno
    Commented Oct 31, 2023 at 16:22
  • Also, Robbie Jackson suggested in a comment that within a template override you could detect the component. This same technique could be used within the component-specific template in this answer, except instead of the component you'd detect the view and display content differently based on that.
    – Obscerno
    Commented Oct 31, 2023 at 16:26

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