I recently migrated a website from Jekyll to Joomla (currently 3.9). Therefore I made an own Joomla Template. It is already in production, but of course it gets regular updates. I use a quite standard development/release approach, versioning like 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1 and so on. These numbers are always up to date in templateDetails.xml. Nothing special so far. But this has some very inconvenient issues:
templateDetails.xml, so I don't have to do this on every upgrade. But I can imagine this may cause problems when I change the configuration in the back end without updating the template. This would result in potential configuration loss after an upgrade. Can I keep any style configuration when upgrading?templateDetails.xml, so they are stored in my zip file?Edit: As Irfan asked for, here is my current templateDetails.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<extension version="3.8" type="template">
<name>####</name>
<creationDate>2018-11-03</creationDate>
<author>####</author>
<authorEmail>####@####.de</authorEmail>
<authorUrl>https://###.##.##</authorUrl>
<copyright>SV FOO BAR e.V.</copyright>
<license>TBA</license>
<version>0.4.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<description>Joomla-Template fuer die Vereinshomepage des SV FOO BAR e.V.</description>
<files>
<filename>index.php</filename>
<filename>templateDetails.xml</filename>
<filename>template_preview.png</filename>
<filename>template_thumbnail.png</filename>
<filename>main.css</filename>
<filename>favicon.ico</filename>
<folder>images</folder>
<folder>html</folder>
<folder>language</folder>
<folder>js</folder>
</files>
<positions>
<position>breadcrumb</position>
<position>left</position>
<position>right</position>
<position>footer</position>
</positions>
<languages folder="language">
<language tag="de-DE">de-DE/de-DE.tpl_svFOOBAR.ini</language>
</languages>
<config>
<fields name="params">
<fieldset name="advanced">
<field
name="sitedescription"
type="text"
label="JGLOBAL_DESCRIPTION"
description="JGLOBAL_SUBHEADING_DESC"
default="This is my slogan"
filter="string" />
<field
name="copyright-from"
type="number"
default="2005"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COPYRIGHT_FROM"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COPYRIGHT_FROM"
step="1"
required="true" />
</fieldset>
<fieldset name="cookieconsent">
<field
type="spacer"
name="cookieconsent_separator_general"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_SEPARATOR_general" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_activate"
type="checkbox"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_ACTIVATE"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_ACTIVATE"
checked="1"
value="1" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_position"
type="list"
default="top"
required="true"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_POSITION"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_POSITION">
<option value="top">TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_POSITION_BANNER_TOP</option>
<option value="top-pushdown">TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_POSITION_BANNER_TOP_PUSHDOWN</option>
<option value="bottom">TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_POSITION_BANNER_BOTTOM</option>
<option value="bottom-left">TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_POSITION_FLOATING_LEFT</option>
<option value="bottom-right">TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_POSITION_FLOATING_RIGHT</option>
</field>
<field
type="spacer"
name="cookieconsent_separator_colors"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_SEPARATOR_COLORS" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_color_banner"
required="true"
type="color"
default="#efefef"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_COLOR_BANNER"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_COLOR_BANNER" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_color_button"
required="true"
type="color"
default="#8ec760"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_COLOR_BUTTON"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_COLOR_BUTTON" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_color_banner_text"
required="true"
type="color"
default="#404040"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_COLOR_BANNER_TEXT"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_COLOR_BANNER_TEXT" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_color_button_text"
required="true"
type="color"
default="#ffffff"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_COLOR_BUTTON_TEXT"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_COLOR_BUTTON_TEXT" />
<field
type="spacer"
name="cookieconsent_separator_texts"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_SEPARATOR_TEXTS" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_learnmore_text"
type="text"
default="Mehr erfahren"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_LEARNMORE_TEXT"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_LEARNMORE_TEXT"
filter="string" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_learnmore_link"
type="url"
default="impressum-datenschutz"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_LEARNMORE_LINK"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_LEARNMORE_LINK" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_message"
type="textarea"
default="Um die Funktionalität und den Inhalt der Website zu optimieren, verwenden wir Cookies. Durch die Nutzung unserer Website stimmst du der Verwendung von Cookies zu."
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_MESSAGE"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_MESSAGE"
rows="10"
cols="5" />
<field
name="cookieconsent_dismiss_button"
type="text"
default="Verstanden"
label="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_LABEL_COOKIECONSENT_DISMISS_BUTTON"
description="TPL_SVFOOBAR_FIELDS_DESCRIPTION_COOKIECONSENT_DISMISS_BUTTON" />
</fieldset>
</fields>
</config>
</extension>
Try updating the extension tag to include a method of upgrade:
<extension version="3.8" type="template" method="upgrade" client="site">