I have been really frustrated recently because when I upgraded to Joomla 1.5.7 I found that the titles on each page were showing twice!.

How to Fix the Joomla v1.5.7 page titles shows twice problem.

This problem was identified in earlier versions of Joomla and something was done about it. However I don't think this a coding error. I think this is related to the actual functionality that the developers were trying to achieve.

The article parameters allows the page to be shown:   In the Parameters (Advanced) bit. Show or use Global.

You can set the default Global show title yes/no by selecting Content/Article Manager from the admin menu or indeed override the global setting in the article itself.

Then you click on the Parameters icon top right of the screen. You can then set all the global default parameters for all articles using this flash popup facility.

Here's where the confusion sets in

If you look at the menus you created for your content, be it for an article or a list or a blog type menu, there is a new parameter called Parameters (System). This was the fix for this problem about titles showing twice in your pages. You can now control if the Page Title is shown or not and also created a different page title name at the same time.

So now we have 3 controls for showing page titles! the global setting, the article setting and the menu setting!

Unfortunately the default Global setting for the menu control is set to Yes to show page title. If your articles global setting is also set to Yes then logic says that it will show twice!. or you could code it to check that the global setting or indeed the article setting itself but this means core file hacking which I don't like or can even do as I cant php code.

The global or the article setting should work ok because its a simple either/or scenario. However, the menu setting is where the functionality is flawed in my opinion. If the default were set to No then we would stand a chance of something manageable. The way it is in v1.5.7 remains a functionality bug in my opinion.

How to Fix Joomla v1.5.7 duplicated titles (almost)

There are several different ways you can minimise the 'damage' that duplicated titles causes, you cannot completely eliminate it until the developers sort out the functionality. You should go to the Joomla website forum to find out what other ways it can be fixed.

I will record below how I minimized the problem:-

Computer Services Birmingham is the website I updated recently to Joomla v1.5.7 which I migrated from Joomla 1.0. This took about 4 hours to achieve using the migration facility for Joomla.

You can clearly see on this website that there are many menu options and many articles. Other than the front page, you won't see anywhere else any duplicated Page Titles!

This is how I achieved it (almost)

1. In admin go to menu Content/Article Manager then click on the Parameters Icon top right of the screen.
2. Set 'Show Page Titles' to Yes
3. Next, you edit your template css file. It's a simple fix but effective.
4. Look for the css class called componentheading it may mixed with contentheading.
5.  If they are shown together separate them into their own css group like the example below.
6. Set the contentheading as display: none; as shown below and hey presto the problem is fixed!
7. Of course if you are using a specialist template the css for contentheading may be different so you will have to find it, I use a commercial template.
8. On your homepage any articles will not have titles, to overcome this put your page title in the intro part of your article. This is the one and only drawback with this method (I did say that nothing is perfect!).

Example CSS coding

I must say this is not my idea I found this method after hours of trawling through the Joomla forums and I put it all together to make a fix for me. It may not work for you but the way I have setup the Computer Services website is typical, so may work for most of you.

I am a great believer in Joomla and I will always praise the marvelous developers who brought us the brilliant development for Free. They deserve a pat on the back for what they have achieved since splitting from mambo.

I hope this fixes the "Joomla v1.5.7 page titles shows twice" problem for you too.