Joomla 3.9.x Documentation

Introduction

Helix Ultimate is a user-friendly, modern, highly customizable and easy to integrate solution to build your next Joomla website based on your idea. Perfect to use as-is or as a blank, genesis, starter template for development. This template framework has predefined features and options that you can use for faster template development.

For many years the Helix framework has a very good reputation for being a secure and well-coded product. This means that if you choose a template powered by the Helix Ultimate framework, you can be confident that it will be a fast-loading, robust template.

Administrative interface of Helix Ultimate has been completely rebuilt from the ground, to meet the needs of tomorrow's Joomla developer. It is extremely simple and ready to use just after the installation.

Helix Ultimate package contains raw template (shaper_helixultimate - Default) and framework plugin (System - Helix Ultimate Framework). Both of these extensions have to be installed, updated and enabled to make everything work smoothly.

Helix Migration/Update Topic

Helix Ultimate is a direct successor of Helix3, but they are two separate products. That means there is no simple update from Helix3 to Helix Ultimate and there is no legacy mode. We’ve built Helix Ultimate in a robust new way to ensure the maximum efficiency. That’s why you cannot update to it from a previous version. You can use Helix3 and Helix Ultimate side by side in different page views.

You can also use this same custom.css file from previous Helix, but remember, changes have been made to the class names. Notice that new Helix is developed only with Bootstrap 4, not Bootstrap 3.

We continuously work to make Helix Ultimate better. We do not separate fixes, new features and security updates for JoomShaper products. Updates are published regularly.

License & Usage

Helix Ultimate is licensed under a GPL open source license. It is completely free to download and use.

In general, you can sell your own template based on Helix Ultimate framework on all marketplaces including your own e-Commerce platform. No license fee or credit required. But please don’t remove JoomShaper copyright marks from the source code. You should not modify the Helix Ultimate framework to avoid issues with updates in the future.

Technical Requirements

It is strongly recommended that you always check the following system requirements before Helix Ultimate framework installation:

• Joomla 3.8 or more soon
• PHP 5.6, 7.0.x, PHP 7.1 or PHP 7.2
• cURL library
• OpenSSL libraries
• PHP file_get_contents() function must be available/unlocked

For performance and security reasons, we recommend using the latest version of Joomla and the highest stable version of PHP available on your host.

Browser Requirements

The administration requirements of Helix Ultimate in order of preference are as follows:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Safari
• Opera
• Brave
• Microsoft Edge

General Information

Basic knowledge about Helix Ultimate Plugin and Helix Ultimate template. If you are a developer, you know what is a Joomla plugin, and what does it do along with customization. You may find more information about Joomla plugins here.

If you are a non-developer user, you don’t need to do anything with the Helix Ultimate plugin. Just keep using and personalizing the Helix Ultimate template.

Updating

Updates are published regularly. If an update to either the Helix Ultimate framework or a Helix-powered template is available, you should see a notifcation in Joomla admin area.
You can also navigate to Extensions > Extensions Manager > Update, select Find Updates to load all available updates, if they are not already shown.

Another method of updating is similar to the process of installing Helix Ultimate by the first time. You would just need to download the latest Helix Ultimate template package file*, and install at Extensions ? Extensions Manager ? Install. Select the "Choose File" button and locate the downloaded ZIP and click Upload & Install to begin the update. There is no need to uninstall first before the installation process. 

*From JoomShaper site  or Template developer site - if this is template based on Helix engine.

Access to settings

Helix Ultimate offers a clean and rich set of customization tools in Helix Ultimate. These are completely frontend based and work in real-time. To access the Helix Ultimate default, login to Joomla admin panel, go to Extensions > Templates > Styles. Open ‘shaper_helixultimate - Default’.

Click the Template Options button - it will open the Helix Ultimate default settings sidebar along with your website homepage.

To the left side of the screen, you get the Helix Ultimate default settings options categorized in group like Basic, Presets, Layout Builder, Navigation, Typography, Blog, Custom Code, and Advanced. Let’s learn about each of these options in next sections below.