How to Change the Footer Text on Your Mambo Web Site

This tutorial shows you how to change the footer text on your Mambo web site.

The following question is very often asked: "How do I change the text that appears at the bottom of all of the pages (ie. footer) in my site so that it has MY content copyright showing? "

Ways to Change the Display of the Footer Text

There are several ways to change the display of the footer notice on your Mambo website. I will highlight four of them:

• Change your template's index.php file.
• Change the /includes/footer.php file.
• Change the language files.
• Change the /includes/version.php

How are they inter-related?

Each template consists of:

• an index.php (in your template folder, not the one in the root:: index.php);
• a css file usually template.css.css located in the root;
• image files in /templates//images/includes/footer.php which is part of the distribution of the "core" Mambo application.

Your template's index.php file "includes" the core "footer.php" into the final output of the page.
"footer.php" retrieves the copyright text from the languages files.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different options?

1. Change includes/footer.php in a way that it does not retrieve the copyright info from the language files. The alternative here is to enter your own specifics:
Advantage: This is quick and easy. The change affects the output of any template you use that calls this file (see #2, below).
Disadvantage: The includes/footer.php file is part of the core distribution - it gets overwritten when you upgrade your Mambo installation.
Details:

<div align="center"><?php echo $_VERSION->COPYRIGHT; ?></div>
<div align="center"><?php echo $_VERSION->URL; ?></div>

Use find & replace to remove these lines and replace with your own html or php or entirely remove them depending on your need.

2. Change your template's index.php in a way it does not include "includes/footer.php" and simply place your text straight into the template.
Advantage: New versions of the CMS do not necessarily affect template files, so once your template changes are made they are not changed by any upgrading of the core files.
Disadvantage: Should you change your templates you will need to make the same modifications to your new template. You also need to look at your template's css to see what styles your template uses in this footer area. Depending on your skill with .css, removing the standard footer and writing your own can be tricky.
Details:
Use find & replace to remove this line from the file /templates/index.php

<?php include_once( $mosConfig_absolute_path .'/includes/footer.php' ); ?>

3. Edit the language file. The file '/includes/footer.php' retrieves data directly from the language files.
Advantage: This can be used to change the way the footer.php displays information.
Disadvantage: This method, while possible, is not recommended unless you are very familiar with working directly in core files. Any upgrade to the CMS will overwrite the changes you have made.
Details:
Edit the language file your installation uses. For English language installations this file is '/languages/english.php'

4. Change the 'includes/version file'
Advantage: This is easy to implement and works well. You can keep the footer without making any changes to your template and it will show your own and personal Copyright notice.
Disadvantage: When a new release arrives and you update your CMS you will have to do it again.
Details: Edit the file '/includes/version.php' and change the information that you will find around lines 34 (Mambo 4.6 versions).

With your text editor, open the includes/version.php file and towards the bottom you'll see:

/** @var string URL */
var $URL = '<a href="http://mambo-foundation.org">Mambo</a> is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.

Example:
Change: '<a href="http://www.mambo-foundation.org">Mambo</a> is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.'; to '<a href="http://www.yoursite.com">SiteName</a>';

5. Make a module to include your own content copyright notice.
Advantage: This is not overwritten when your CMS is upgraded.
Disadvantage: Not so easy to do unless you are experienced in making and positioning modules. It still requires changes to your template/index.php.
Details:
Remove the 'includes/footer.php' statement in the bottom of your template's index.php and create a new module position in its place.
Make a new module and create your own copyright notice inside that module, then assign it to that new module position.

In conclusion:
You are NOT required to show the visible Mambo copyright notice and/or link on the bottom of a site.
It is NOT illegal to remove the generated footer notice.