When you publish a layout, Webal Layouts keeps it inside Joomla's own template styles. It does not make new files for your pages, and it adds nothing extra to the pages that visitors load.
A layout is kept in a template style
A template style is a saved set of settings for a template. You find the list under System, then Site Template Styles. A layout is the text of one setting in a style of a child theme of Cassiopeia.
One style can hold up to three layouts:
- the layout of ordinary pages,
- the layout of error pages, which includes the 404 page, and
- the layout of the offline page.
Because a layout is part of a style, the tools of Joomla work on it as they do on any style. You can duplicate, rename or delete the style, give it the Default star, and choose which menu items use it. The page Using a layout shows the easy ways to do this from the builder.
Your unpublished changes
While you work, the builder saves a draft of your changes on the server, so you can close the tab and come back. A draft is a file in the temporary folder of your site. There is one for each person, style and page type, and the server does not let the web reach that folder. A draft is removed after 30 days. Only the builder reads it, and visitors never see it.
Press Publish to make the layout live. The status next to the name says Live when nothing is waiting, and Unpublished changes when a draft differs from the live layout.
Nothing extra on the page
A page that Webal Layouts draws loads no style sheet and no script of its own, and it adds no style rules inside the page. The class names in its page code come from Cassiopeia and from the toolkit that it is built on, and both are already on your page.
The one exception is a section with a background picture. It gets a class wbll-bg- followed by the section's handle, and one scoped style rule for that class, which places the picture and its shade. Webal Layouts adds that rule through Joomla's Web Asset Manager, so a site's Content Security Policy nonce applies to it, and it never writes a style attribute. A layout with no picture adds no rule. See Colours and user.css.
We checked this on 5 November 2026 with a test page drawn from a layout and the same page built by hand with Cassiopeia's own positions. Both loaded the same style sheets and scripts, in the same order. The layout page had about 4 percent fewer parts in the page code and about 4 percent less data to send. An automatic accessibility checker found no violations in 8 runs, at 390 and 1,400 pixels wide, in light and in dark colours. We did not check with a screen reader, and we did not run Lighthouse on this test page.
Saved layouts are not secret
Joomla shows a page in any template style to anyone who knows the number of that style, by adding templateStyle= and the number to the address. So keep nothing private in a layout, and do not rely on an unassigned style staying hidden. The list screen and the builder both say this.
Keep the plugin on
The plugin System - Webal Layouts protects your layouts when you press Save on a style in Joomla's own style screen. Joomla drops any setting that the theme does not declare, and the plugin makes sure that a layout survives this.
Saving a style in Joomla's own screen
- The layouts of an existing style, for pages, for error pages and for the offline page, are written only by the builder. When you save the style in Joomla's own screen, the stored layouts are kept exactly as they were, and what that screen posts for them is ignored. Every other setting is saved as you posted it. So an old copy of the screen can never overwrite a layout that you published after you opened it.
- The builder is not affected, and a layout that you change in the builder is still checked and refused when it is not valid.
- Joomla's Duplicate in its list of styles copies the stored settings, so the copy carries the layouts.
- Save as Copy in the style screen carries what the screen was opened with, and the style that you copied from does not change.
Only styles of a theme that uses Webal Layouts
The plugin, the list of layouts and the count of saved layouts apply only to styles of a theme that uses Webal Layouts. That is the child theme in the package, or a child of Cassiopeia whose index.php has the one line that hands the page to Webal Layouts. Styles of other themes are neither changed nor counted.
If the plugin is switched off or missing, the list says: "While it is off, Joomla can erase the layouts of a style the next time that style is saved in Site Template Styles. Switch the plugin on again (System, Manage, Plugins, search for Webal Layouts) before saving any style."
A layout that cannot be read
If a saved layout is damaged, or was made by a newer version of Webal Layouts, visitors see the standard Cassiopeia page and no message. A person who is signed in and may manage layouts sees one short notice on that page, for example "This page uses a saved layout that cannot be read, so the standard Cassiopeia page is shown. Open Components, Webal Layouts to see the problem."
Try it
- Open Components, then Webal Layouts.
- Look at the columns of the list: Name, Default, Pages using it, Can it be drawn?, Error pages, Offline page and Builder.
- Open System, then Site Template Styles. The same layouts are listed there as template styles.
- Scroll to the bottom of the Webal Layouts screen and read the note that saved layouts are not secret.