Requirements

Requirements differ between the retail plugin on your site and the hosted lab in the browser. Read the section that matches how you plan to work.

Retail plugin requirements

You need Joomla 4, 5, or 6 with PHP 8.1 or newer. You need rights to install a system plugin and Super User access to see the Styles panel on the frontend. The plugin targets Helix Ultimate sites where durable overrides live in custom.css. RCA does not ship Helix, SP Page Builder, or JPageBuilder in the Themer ZIP.

Live write requirements

Live write is optional and off by default. When you enable it, you need a selected custom CSS file in plugin options, a long Write secret, a full site backup, Super User frontend session, and same-origin CSS targets. template.css is never written. Cross-origin CDN stylesheets are not write targets.

Hosted lab requirements

For the hosted lab only, you need a modern browser and the URL https://recreatinganew.com/themer. You do not need FTP, root access, or a Joomla login on recreatinganew.com. The lab designs against Helix and SP Page Builder fixture chrome; your live template may differ slightly after paste.

When to skip Themer entirely

Skip Themer if you need to rewrite third-party CDN CSS, if you plan to treat compiled Helix template.css as your durable brand file, or if you are not a Super User but expected the panel for all visitors. Those are product mismatches, not configuration puzzles.