As I understand the issue, we are trying to provide a set of override files for the rhuk_milkway template so that someone can produce Joomla! 1.5 styled content with a Joomla! 1.6 site.

I am taking the HTML from the default system template files from the SVN 1.5 and using that HTML with the php from the SVN 1.6 default system template files to produce a set of files to go into /templates/rhuk_milkyway/html that will cause a 1.6 page to display as nearly identically to a 1.5 page as possible.

I realize after starting this, that I don't understand why anyone would want to make their 1.6 content look like 1.5 content behind the scenes, but maybe it helps with migration somehow. ;)

I started with com_content/articles/default.php

Maybe it was a little difficult because there were some things that 1.5 does that 1.6 does not and some things that 1.6 does that 1.5 did not. I was a little surprised that the functionality changed at all, actually. It's nothing monumental. The article voting is gone, and the pdf generator is gone. I'll miss the pdf, but not the voting.

To start with I got two articles and set the article/menu parameters to show everything possible.

Next I merged the 1.5 and 1.6 default.php files by taking the html from 1.5s /components/com_content/article/tmpl/default.php and using the php from 1.6s /components/com_content/article/tmpl/default.php to produce an over-ride file in /templates/rhuk_milkyway/html/com_content/article/default.php

When finished, the article page displays the same on both 1.5 and 1.6 and doing view-source or inspecting the elements on the page reveals that they are styled the same way in the html.

using the element inspector or the view source command, I can verify that the 1.6 joomla is spitting out a page that looks just like 1.5 drew it. Yay for oh-so-very many nested tables.

the file