#1468 Posted in ‘CommentBox’

Where to store user CSS

Latest post by Peter Neff on Tuesday, 30 December 2025 21:58 EET

Tuesday, 30 December 2025 15:49 EET

Peter Neff

Is there a file to store user CSS for CommentBox?

 

we found, some css are stored in administrator/components/com_commentbox/src/Helper/CommentBoxHelper.php and they are working too, but for us it looks wrong to have frontend CSS inside the backend storage.

what is the correct solution or place to store?

Tuesday, 30 December 2025 18:48 EET

Lefteris Kavadas

Hi Peter,

Good question — this is actually intentional and related to how CommentBox handles styling.

The CSS you see inside

administrator/components/com_commentbox/src/Helper/CommentBoxHelper.php

is core CSS, mainly used for essential elements like the editor/input field. This CSS should not be modified, which is why it lives close to the rendering logic rather than in a template stylesheet.

CommentBox uses Shadow DOM on purpose to avoid CSS conflicts with templates and third-party extensions. Because of this, global frontend CSS files usually cannot fully affect CommentBox styles.

Recommended ways to customize styling

  1. Component Options (preferred). Most visual styling (colors, spacing, etc.) can be adjusted directly from the CommentBox component options. This is the safest and update-proof approach.
  2. Regular site CSS (limited impact). You can add CSS to your template’s stylesheet, but only styles that are inherited by the Shadow DOM (e.g. fonts, some colors) will apply.
  3. Shadow DOM override (advanced / full control). If you need full control, the correct approach is to create a layout override for: components/com_commentbox/layouts/commentbox/application.php . Inside that file, you’ll find a