The source of the problem resides precisely here :
\components\com_content\src\Model\ArticleModel.php
lines 231 - 250, which have been newly introduced.

formerly there was just one line :
line 230: $data->params->merge($registry);

Obviously with the new code, the fallback/hierarchical logic concerning settings-priorities ( which setting overrides which ( should be : Menu-item > Article-Settings -> general/component settings )) has been ignored or implemented in a faulty way here.

Hope that helps

@Lab5-Switzerland That code was added to fix another bug (see #47752 for more details). But there was a bug in that PR causes the regression.

The change I made in this PR fixes the regression, and also make sure the bug was fixed by PR #47752 still kept.

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 0b6a755

I was able to reproduce the problem - You can set an individual browser titel in the articles options which is ignored and set only after applying the patch. Tested on 5.4.7

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 0b6a755

I was able to reproduce the problem - You can set an individual browser titel in the articles options which is ignored and set only after applying the patch. Tested on 5.4.7

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 0b6a755

Commit fixes the issue

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 0b6a755

Commit fixes the issue

RTC

RTC

Test Summary: Displaying the author was not 100% working before the PR and still not 100% working. If global is set to Show and the article setting is Hide, the author is shown anyway. It would be great if another tester could verify this after applying the PR.

Tested with JBT

• Installed Blog Sample Data
• Created my_child_template from Cassiopeia
  • mkdir -p templates/cassiopeia_my_child_template/html/com_content/article
  • cp components/com_content/tmpl/article/default.php templates/cassiopeia_my_child_template/html/com_content/article/hlu.php
  • editied hlu.php before first <div> inserted <div class="hlu-layout" style="background:yellow;"> and added </div> in the end
  • Set one articles > Options > Layout > hlu
• Before PR seen the errors
  • #48058
    • Alternative Layout in article options is not used
  • Other articles options (hide category, hide author and hide hits) are also ignored
  • Tested three articles with article > Options > Author Show / Hide / Global
    • With Global Articles > Author > Hide they are ⚠️ hidden / hidden / hidden
    • With Global Articles > Author > Show they are shown / shown / shown
• Applied PR with Patch Tester
  • Alternative layout in article is used
  • Other article options (hide category, hide author and hide hits) are used
  • Different articles are using global layout and all the other global settings
  • Tested three articles with article > Options > Author Show / Hide / Global
    • With Global Articles > Author > Hide they are shown / hidden / hidden
    • With Global Articles > Author > Show they are shown / ❌ shown / shown
• Identical code style fix in components/com_modules/src/Dispatcher/Dispatcher.php file was already merged with #48068

* Identical code style fix in `components/com_modules/src/Dispatcher/Dispatcher.php` file was already merged with [[5.4] [AI] Fix code style in com_modules frontend Dispatcher #48068](https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/48068)

I've just triggered a branch update so this unrelated change is not shown anymore for this PR here.

Thanks @muhme for extensive testing. So as I understand, the false case happens when:

• The Author setting inside article set to Hide
• Global setting for Author set to Show

And when you view the article, Author is still being displayed which is wrong? If so, I could not replicate the issue. With my test, the Author is not being displayed for the article as expected

Maybe you can give me more information:

• What's the active menu item when you view the article ?
• And in that menu item, what value you set for Author parameter ?

There are different places to control the parameter, so maybe my setup is different with yours.

@joomdonation Could there be some cache issues when page cache with the cache plugin is enabled, which is the case by default, when changing options during the test?

@richard67 I guess not because other test cases are OK except that one fail

There are different places to control the parameter

Yes, I forgot the menu item, which is set 'Use Global (show)', I will retest ...

Test Summary: I retested using menu item settings and distinguished between the Category Blog view and the Single Article view. I marked four places where I expected a different result. In each case, the affected article is configured to hide the author, but the author is still shown in the Single Article view, which I did not expect. Perhaps there is an explanation for this?

• Used are the top level Blog menu item
• Used three articles with article > Options > Author: Show / Hide / Global
• With menu item > Options > Author > Use Global
  • With Global Articles > Author > Hide
    • Category Blog article entries: hidden / hidden / hidden
    • The articles self: shown / hidden / hidden
  • With Global Articles > Author > Show
    • Category Blog article entries: shown / shown / shown
    • The articles self: shown / ❓ shown / shown
• With menu item > Options > Author > Use Article Settings
  • With Global Articles > Author > Hide
    • Category Blog article entries: shown / hidden / hidden
    • The articles self: shown / hidden / hidden
  • With Global Articles > Author > Show
    • Category Blog article entries: shown / hidden / shown
    • The articles self: shown / ❓ shown / shown
• With menu item > Options > Author > Hide
  • With Global Articles > Author > Hide
    • Category Blog article entries: hidden / hidden / hidden
    • The articles self: shown / hidden / hidden
  • With Global Articles > Author > Show
    • Category Blog article entries: hidden / hidden / hidden
    • The articles self: shown / ❓ shown / hidden
• With menu item > Options > Author > Show
  • With Global Articles > Author > Hide
    • Category Blog article entries: shown / shown / shown
    • The articles self: shown / hidden / shown
  • With Global Articles > Author > Show
    • Category Blog article entries: shown / shown / shown
    • The articles self: shown / ❓ shown / shown

@muhme In case the menu item links directly to the article, the setting of menu item takes higher priority. So if you set Author to Show in menu item param, it will be shown, and does not depend on the value set for the option inside article.

If the menu item is not linked directly to the article, the setting inside the article will take higher priority

That's how it works.

The current behavior is nothing different with the behavior before the PR #47752 . What really need to be tested is the case menu item is not linked directly to the article and the parameter inside the menu set to Use Article Settings (basically, confirm that what was fixed in PR #47752 still work after this change)

So :

• The menu item should not be linked directly to article
• Edit the menu item, set Author to Use Article Settings
• Access to the article
• Edit the article, change Author to Show/Hide and Use Global. Confirm that Author for that article is Show/Hide/Same as Global

So I tested again the your unsuccessful tests and the test results are recorded in table below. In my case, if parameter inside the article set to Hide, the result is Hide, not Shown as in your test.

Is your test site public accessible? Happy to review the false tests directly on your site.

So I tested all of your unsuccessful tests and my tests results are different with yours for some reasons. Below are the table list the settings from menu item, the global setting, the article setting for Author parameter and the last column shown the result on article page:

If your site is public accessible, I'm happy to go through every case with you on the site (submitted this before but it was lost for some reasons, so I post it again)

So I tested all of your unsuccessful tests and my tests results are different with yours for some reasons. Below are the table list the settings from menu item, the global setting, the article setting for Author parameter and the last column shown the result on article page:

If your site is public accessible, I'm happy to go through every case with you on the site (submitted this before but it was lost for some reasons, so I post it again)

New system test proposed by @LadySolveig : #48071
Maybe that could help with testing here?

Hope it helps, I left a detailed explanation of the hierarchy logic at the beginning of the test.
If I need to make any further adjustments because I’ve got something mixed up, just let me know.
https://github.com/LadySolveig/joomla-cms/blob/d1365352e1ab0fbfc640211a026ae254bc2cc0ca/tests/System/integration/site/components/com_content/ArticleOptionsHierarchy.cy.js#L2

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on a90a1b4

Thanks @joomdonation for the fix, Sorry for the troubles.

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on a90a1b4

Thanks @joomdonation for the fix, Sorry for the troubles.

If the false case happens when:

• The Author setting inside article set to Hide
• Global setting for Author set to Show

Where Author is still being displayed, then it's not the case with me either.
If the problem is somewhere else, I can test.

Completeing final test before merge

The current behavior is nothing different with the behavior before the PR

✅ Yes!, I retetested the 48 tests from my retest with 5.4.6 with the same result

Continued with:
✅ New System Test from #48071 (big thank you @LadySolveig !) fails before this PR and passed with this PR
✅ Test from #47752 gets before and after this PR the same result

Thank you very much @joomdonation for your contribution. Thank you very much @LadySolveig for writing System Tests.

Thanks to @Lab5-Switzerland, @brianteeman, @CSGoat0 and @richard67 for supporting this PR. Thanks to @MacJoom, @angieradtke and @CSGoat0 for testing.

Thanks everyone !

@CSGoat0 No need to say sorry. Mistakes happen to all of us. Thanks for jumping in and contributing!

Hi everyone and thank you for your great work fixing this.

Not to rush or anything, but I just wanted to add that this regression created a very visible and unpredictable issue on my site this morning, because it ignored the selected template layout and just rendered every article with the default one.

Again, thanks for fixing it - I just copied this file manually for now.

Shouldn't this fix also get applied to the Joomla 6 branches?
Joomla 6 also has this problem:

• set a custom layout for a single article in the article options
• assign a menu item to the article with the "Single article" view
• the article is displayed with the default layout, not the custom layout that is set in the options

This is now fixed if I apply commit 00e3bdd to ArticleModel.php in Joomla 5.4.7, so the article is displayed with the selected custom layout in J 5.4.7.
But there is no fix committed in the 6.1-dev or 6.2-dev branches.

Thanks!

Hi @duvi, soon there will be upmerge from 5.4 to 6.1.

Yes, and that’s done via an upmerge by our hard-working release managers. Feel free to also take a look at the branching strategy in the README here in the repository If you like.

Ok, sorry and thank you!

Thanks for your understanding

will this be fixed in the next 6.x release?

will this be fixed in the next 6.x release?

@uruk-hai-21 As it has been merged into the 5.4-dev branch, it will also be merged up into the 6.1-dev, 6.2-dev and 7.0-dev branches by the corresponding release managers, and so it will be also fixed in the next 6.1.3 release.

I think this is a super feature, that there is no need to create an xml file override any more for a template override for single article view, because it takes the template that is assigned in the article options.

Would it be possible to also have this feature / behaviour for the category views, or for example for the single contact view? Or basically everywhere where it's possible to set the layout at the item / category options, to have consistent behaviour in all components.

Thank you!

@duvi For feature requests see #46934 .