Linelabox Template Architect is one of five nominees in the category "Your favourite tool in your Joomla workflow" at the J!Awards 2026. These are the first community awards organised by the Joomla project. The shortlist was drawn from public nominations between 17 August and 13 September, and the five tools with the most nominations went through to the vote. If you nominated us, thank you. For a tool that has only recently been released in its new form, it means a great deal to us.
What are the Joomla J!Awards?
The J!Awards are the Joomla project's community awards, and 2026 is their first year. In the project's own words, they "celebrate the people, projects, extensions and businesses that help make Joomla better".
There is no jury. The public nominated, the most frequently nominated entries formed the shortlist, and the nominee with the most votes wins. You can find the details in the press release announcing the awards.
For a small independent project, what matters is precisely that the community decides, not a jury. We did not make the shortlist thanks to a marketing budget, but because the people who use Linelabox took a moment to write down our name.
What is Linelabox Template Architect?
Linelabox is a visual tool for building Joomla templates. You design the layout, styles and module positions in the editor, and the result is a real, installable Joomla template. You download it as a standard installation ZIP and install it through the Joomla extension manager, just like any other template. It is not a page builder your website depends on. The template you download is yours.
Linelabox is not a new idea. We have been working on Linelabox since 2018 and the tool has gone through several forms. The current version, under the name Template Architect, has been rebuilt from the ground up and was introduced in September 2026.
The main changes this year
- New Template Architect editor. The platform has been reworked so that a visual design produces a clean Joomla template ready to install without manual edits. Supported version: Joomla 5+.
- Free for good. The Template Architect editor will stay free. Only the optional AI-assisted building service will be paid. Older versions of Linelabox limited the number of free downloads. That limit is gone.
- Phoca Cart support. Linelabox can design templates for online shops running on Phoca Cart, including the catalogue, category, product, cart, checkout and user account pages. If you build a shop on Joomla, you no longer have to style every shop page by hand.
- AI that does not generate arbitrary code. The optional AI layer proposes a structure and assembles the template from registered, safe building blocks. The result is as readable and maintainable as a template assembled by hand in the editor. This feature is currently available to selected testers.
Why Linelabox belongs in a Joomla workflow
In a Joomla project, the template is usually where the most time is lost. Either you buy a ready-made template and then bend it into the shape the client wants, or you write your own from scratch. Template Architect offers a third way. You assemble the design visually, set the layout and module positions the way the project needs them, and download a standard template with no dependency on any further extension.
For agencies and developers who build Joomla websites again and again, that means a faster start to every project. For people running smaller websites, it means a template of their own without having to write PHP and CSS. If you use Linelabox on every new website, "Your favourite tool in your Joomla workflow" is an accurate description. That is exactly how we made our case for the vote.
Not using Linelabox yet?
Trying it costs you nothing. At linelabox.com you can design your first template, download it and install it in your Joomla site. The editor is free and will stay free.
Linelabox is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Joomla! project.
We will update this post with the result after the Joomla World Conference.