That's by design. You can copy the contents of the index.php and create a file name index.php in your child template and paste the contents there. The idea is that you should not edit files that you do not own, but you can soft fork them...

:(

Also this probably should never be implemented as it will prevent namespaced templates, I think George already comment in another similar request/issue...

Probably some kind of "copy this file(s)" to my "child template" would be a good addition.

Probably some kind of "copy this file" to my "child template" would be a good addition.

There is no real UI for copying anything from a parent to a child right now and probably there should be. But not on the current codebase, the com_templates needs needs to be rewritten from the start, I already had started working on that but since it didn't made it for 4.0 it needs to wait for 5.0. Also doing it from the scratch brings opportunities to fix UX like the one that you were mentioning at the beginning of the child template journey (combine styles/childs, etc). Finally the point about dropping the copy template is not due to child templates but because at some point templates should be namespaced and copying php files with dedicated namespaces is extremely hard (if not impossible) to do without high error rate. For those that are still confused, please read the thread: #30816

Preventing the ability to copy a file because of a mythical you will be able to do that in the future is as daft as blocking useful functionality in the core because you've never needed that functionality

PHP namespacing is not a mythical you will be able to do that in the future. Joomla is mostly namespaced ALREADY
The only reason that the current templates weren't already namespaced for 4.1 was on the PT decision to delay it (for their own reasons). My personal plan was to have both templates namespaced in 4.1 (check this) but the namespacing got postponed...

Also you can still do that, not with a GUI...

That's by design. You can copy the contents of the index.php and create a file name index.php in your child template and paste the contents there. The idea is that you should not edit files that you do not own, but you can soft fork them...

Hi @dgrammatiko,
do you think this is a good design approach?

imho it is not the best approach, because if the parent template is updated and changed by an update of Joomla one has to possibly rework all the overrides and modifications done in the child template.

P.s.: I am not the only one thinking that this feature is really unneeded:
https://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=808&t=992077

Just wanted to make clear that me adding the label "bug" is not judgment on if this is a valid bug or not, just that it isn't a new feature.

@Hackwar the request is for a new feature that doesn't exist for the new mode of the templates so clearly not a bug...

c