After many test I can say that T4 framework completely fails to recognize and route alternative article layouts assigned from the backend (specifically the custom tour.php layout ereditated from the JA Trip template quickstart).
Instead of rendering the alternative layout, Joomla silently falls back to loading the standard default.php layout. Testing the override pipeline with standard PHP debugging (die(); ) confirmed that the tour.php template file is entirely ignored by the T4 routing system under this Joomla version, even when placed natively in the /html/ folder or inside the /local/ override system.
This behavior seems related to recent changes in the Joomla 6.1.2 Event Dispatcher, causing the T4 system plugin to fail to intercept and divert the article view before rendering.
To keep the staging and production environments running, I had to implement a hardcoded bypass directly inside templates/ja_trip/local/html/com_content/article/default.php.
By intercepting the raw JSON attribute string of the article and looking for the custom layout assignment, I manually force the inclusion of the layout file:
// Temporary Bypass for Joomla 6.1.2 alternative layout bug
$attribsStr = is_string($this->item->attribs) ? $this->item->attribs : json_encode($this->item->attribs);
if (strpos($attribsStr, 'ja_trip:tour') !== false) {
include __DIR__ . '/tour.php';
return;
}
While this temporary "bridge" inside the local folder keeps custom fields and layout intact and safe from template updates, it is obviously a hotfix.
Could the development team please investigate how the T4 System Plugin handles layout routing in Joomla 6.1.2?
I would highly appreciate an official update/patch for the T4 Framework so I can safely remove this custom code bypass and stay fully aligned with your official release pipeline.
Looking forward to your feedback.
Best regards,
Francus