How do I create a custom error page (404) for Joomla 1.6?

Question

How do I create a custom error page (404) for Joomla 1.6?

I've tried a tutorial (http://docs.joomla.org/Tutorial:Create_a_Custom_404_Error_Page) but it's for 1.5 and it's not working.

Thank you.

Answer 1

The call to ->code is a call to a protected property, aka not possible any more. You have to use getCode(). The fixed code for 1.6 :

  if ($this->error->getCode() == '404') {
          header('Location: /index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=214');
          exit;
  } ;

This works for Yoomla 1.6 now. ( as a fix for the 1.5 example on http://docs.joomla.org/Creating_a_Custom_404_Error_Page - the rest on this page is accurate)

Answer 2

I think i'd solve this with a more traditional approach and simply edit the .htaccess file.

I think this is also a more search engine friendly approach too.

For some creative

Answer 3

Just simply follow these steps:

1. Create a Category (Uncategorized) (see if it’s not already there by default)
2. Create an article
   • Title: 404
   • Category: Uncategorized
   • Article Content: Opps, Page not Found (or something else)
3. Create a hidden menu
   • Menu -> Menu Manager
   • Title: Hidden, Menu Type: Hiddenmenu
4. Create a menu item inside this Hidden menu
   • Menu Type: Single Article
   • Title: Page not found
   • Alias: page-not-found
   • Template: your template which you want to use to show that page not found
   • Link Article: to the article you have created in our case 404
   • Robots: no index; no follow (for google to avoid indexing this page)

5. Then add this piece of code in your error.php of joomla you can find that inside (root_directory)\templates\system\error.php

   defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access');  if ($this->error->getCode() == '404' ) { header('Location: http://www.domain.com/page-not-found'); exit;}