1. Introduction

SE AI Article Designer turns rough notes into polished Joomla articles that match your brand. You paste in your text, say what you want ("a landing page for our spring offer, friendly tone"), and the AI lays it out using your house style. It can build hero sections, lead paragraphs, cards, call-outs, steps, statistics, FAQs, quotes, tables and galleries.

The designer is a panel directly under the article editor, so there is no pop-up and no separate screen. Every change appears in a preview first, nothing reaches your article until you choose to apply it, and every applied change can be undone.

Key principles

• Your words stay your words. The AI lays out what you wrote, word for word. It only rewrites when you ask, and it tells you if anything was changed.
• Preview first. Nothing changes in your article until you click an apply button.
• Everything is reversible. Each applied change is saved as a version you can restore. Ctrl+Z works too.
• Clean output. Articles use class-based HTML and a single shared stylesheet, so changing your house style later restyles every designed article at once.
• Your AI, your key. Use OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. You pay your provider directly.

The extension comes as one package with three parts, which are installed and updated together:

2. Requirements

• Joomla 5 or Joomla 6.
• MySQL or MariaDB. PostgreSQL is not supported, and the installer will stop with a message rather than install on it.
• PHP 8.1 or later, as Joomla itself requires, with the GD extension for image handling. WebP images also need WebP support in GD.
• An API key from at least one AI provider: OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini), or an OpenAI-compatible service, including self-hosted models.
• A licence key (a free key is fine) for live sites. Development and staging sites need no key. See Licence and editions.
• A modern browser. Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari are supported.

3. Installing and upgrading

Installing

1. In the Joomla administrator, go to System › Install › Extensions.
2. Upload pkg_seaiarticledesigner_v0.1.49.zip, the single package file.
3. When installation finishes, the message confirms: - Both plugins have been enabled for you. - Sensible default permissions have been set (see below).

Default permissions at install. If you have not set any permissions for the designer before, the installer gives:

• Manager group: Use the AI designer, Upload images, Restore versions.
• Administrator group: all of the above, plus Save and manage templates.
• Super Users can always do everything.

If you already had permissions set (for example, after uninstalling and reinstalling), they are kept as they are and the install message says so.

Upgrading

Install the newer package over the top, in the same way. Your settings, house styles, templates, history and images are kept.

After upgrading, if the panel behaves oddly, do a hard refresh of the article editor page (Ctrl+Shift+R, or Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac). The extension stamps its scripts with the version number so browsers load the new files, but a hard refresh rules out any stubborn cache.

4. Getting started in five minutes

1. Add an AI key. Go to Components › SE AI Article Designer and click Options. On the AI providers tab, paste an API key for one provider, choose it as the Default provider, and click that provider's Test button. Click Save.
2. Add your licence key (live sites only) on the Licence tab of Options. Get a free key if you do not have one yet. Development sites can skip this step.
3. Check your house style. Open House styles and edit the default style. Set your brand colours, then click Save. The fonts follow your site template unless you change them.
4. Design your first article. Go to Content › Articles › New. Below the editor you will see the AI Article Designer panel. - Paste some text into Paste your text here. - Optionally, describe what you want in What should the AI do? - Click Generate preview.
5. Refine and apply. Ask for changes in Tweak it (for example "make the opening bigger"). When you are happy, click Replace whole article, then save the article as usual.

Then check the Dashboard: the health checks show at a glance whether everything is set up correctly.

5. Licence and editions

Editions at a glance

The free edition is a full evaluation edition: every feature works, with a monthly allowance.

How the monthly allowance counts

• An article counts as "designed" the first time the AI works on it in a calendar month. Generating a layout, tweaking it, editing text and SEO suggestions on that same article do not use up further articles; they count towards that article's 30 AI requests.
• A new, unsaved article counts as one article. When you save it, its count joins the saved article, so it is not counted twice.
• The count starts again on the first day of each month. The panel and the Dashboard show how many articles you have used and the date the count resets.
• When the allowance is used up, the AI stops for new articles until the reset. You can still edit articles by hand, restore versions and undo changes. Nothing you have made is locked.

Entering your licence key

1. Go to Components › SE AI Article Designer › Options › Licence.
2. Paste your key into Licence key and click Save.
3. On the Dashboard, the Licence card shows the edition. Click Check now to confirm the key straight away.

The key is checked with the SE24 licence server when it is first entered and once a day after that. A key for a different SE24 product is refused with a clear message.

Development and staging sites

No licence key is needed, and everything is unlocked, on sites whose address is:

• localhost, or a local or private IP address (such as 127.0.0.1, 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x)
• A domain ending .test, .local, .localhost, .example, .invalid, .ddev.site, .lndo.site or .docksal.site
• A subdomain starting staging., stage. or dev. (for example staging.example.com)

The Licence card shows "Development site: everything is unlocked and no licence is needed".

If the licence server cannot be reached

Your site keeps its last confirmed edition for up to 14 days while the licence server cannot be reached, and it retries every hour. A key that has never been confirmed gets the free edition's allowance in the meantime, so a firewall that blocks the licence server never locks you out.

Licence messages

6. Permissions

Set permissions under Options › Permissions.

Users also need Joomla's normal permission to edit the article. Users without Use the AI designer do not see the panel at all.

Text filters matter too. Joomla can strip HTML from articles saved by some user groups. If a group's filter would remove the layout's markup, the panel warns that user before they apply anything, and the Dashboard's Text filter audit lists every affected group. See Troubleshooting.

7. Options reference

Open Components › SE AI Article Designer and click Options.

AI providers

Your API keys are stored in the component options and are only ever sent to the provider you choose.

Leave Model empty to use the default shown. Each Test button sends a tiny request and tells you whether the key and model work.

Any provider with a key appears in the panel's AI provider list, so editors can switch between them.

Limits

Advanced

Licence

Licence key: see section 5.

Permissions

See section 6.

8. House styles

A house style sets the colours, fonts and layout patterns the AI must use. Articles are generated as clean HTML with classes from this style, so changing the style later restyles every article that uses it.

Go to Components › SE AI Article Designer › House styles.

The list

• Default badge: the style used unless an editor chooses another.
• Make default: makes a style the default.
• Articles column: how many articles use each style.
• Delete: when a style is in use, the warning tells you how many articles use it. Those articles lose their designed look if you go ahead. You cannot delete the only house style.
• A contrast check warns when text and background colours are too close to read comfortably (below WCAG AA).

The free edition includes one house style; Pro allows as many as you like (for example, one per brand or section).

Editing a style

Name. For your reference.

Colours

Typography

• Heading font and Body font: by default these follow your site template, so designed articles match the rest of your site.
• Custom font stack: for a specific font, for example "Source Sans 3", Arial, sans-serif. The font must already be loaded by your site template.

Shape and spacing

• Corner radius: 0 to 32 pixels (0 gives square corners; default 8).
• Spacing: the basic gap between elements, 8 to 32 pixels (default 16). Larger sections use multiples of it.
• Max width: the widest the designed content may grow, up to 1600 pixels (default 900; 0 means full width).

Voice and rules. Optional guidance for the AI, such as tone of voice, UK English spelling, or words to avoid. This applies only to text the AI writes itself, such as headings it suggests, alt text, captions and button labels. It is never used to change the wording of your own text.

Layout patterns. The AI may only use the patterns ticked here:

Click Save. The shared stylesheet is regenerated straight away, and every designed article picks up the change. If the stylesheet cannot be written, you will see a message asking you to make media/com_seaiarticledesigner/css writable.

9. The designer panel

When you edit an article, the AI Article Designer panel appears directly under the editor. It has four tabs:

At the top of the panel (free edition) a line shows your monthly allowance, for example "Free edition: 2 of 5 articles designed this month. Resets 1 November 2026", with links to upgrade or enter a key.

While the AI works, the panel shows a timer. Most pages take under a minute. Long or image-heavy pages can take a few minutes, and nothing is applied until the answer arrives. The buttons are locked while a request is running, so a double click never applies anything twice.

New articles. You can use the designer before saving a new article for the first time. Images, history and the conversation are kept for it and attached to the article when you save.

10. Create tab: designing a layout

1. Give the AI your content

• What should the AI do? Optional. Describe the result you want, such as "Make this a landing page for our spring offer, friendly tone" or "Match report with a stats row and a gallery". Leave it empty to let the AI choose the layout.
• Paste your text here. Raw notes, a draft, an email: anything. The AI lays it out and keeps your wording.
• Use the current article text copies the article that is already in the editor into the box, so you can redesign it.
• Fix spelling and punctuation only (your words are otherwise kept exactly). Tick this if you want typos and punctuation corrected. Nothing else about your wording changes.

2. Choose options

• Images: add photos for the AI to place. See Images.
• Template: reuse the layout of a page you saved earlier, or leave it as "No template (AI chooses the layout)". See Templates.
• House style: which style to use (if you have more than one).
• AI provider: which provider to use for this request.

3. Generate and preview

Click Generate preview. The layout appears in the Preview, styled exactly as it will look in your article.

Under the preview you may see:

• Some of your wording was changed: see Your wording is protected.
• Please check: text that may have been dropped, text the AI may have added, or images that were uploaded but not placed.
• AI notes: anything the AI wants you to know, such as a choice it made.
• A text filter warning, if your user group's text filter would strip the layout when the article is saved.

4. Tweak it

Not quite right? Type what you want changed in Tweak it and press Enter (Shift+Enter for a new line). For example:

• "Make the opening bigger"
• "Put the photo on the right"
• "Turn the prices into a table"
• "Make the button green"
• "Use the cards pattern for the three services"

Each tweak updates the preview. Undo last tweak steps back one tweak; Start over clears the conversation.

The conversation is saved with the article, so you can reload the page or come back tomorrow and pick up where you left off. If its latest layout was never applied, the panel says so.

5. Apply

When you are happy, choose how to apply it:

Then save the article as usual. The designer never saves the article for you.

Continuing after applying. After a whole-article layout has been applied, you can keep refining it in the same conversation. The button then becomes Update the article, which replaces the article with the new version. If you edited the article by hand in the meantime, you are warned before your edits are replaced. Click Start over to get the three apply buttons back.

6. Usage line

A small line under the preview shows the provider and model used and the tokens in and out, so you can keep an eye on costs.

11. Your wording is protected

The designer is built on one rule: your text is your text. It is laid out, not rewritten.

• Word for word by default. The AI is instructed to copy every sentence exactly as you wrote it. It may add headings, labels or captions of its own where a layout needs them, but it must not change yours.
• Changes only when you ask. Wording changes only when your instruction, or a later message in Tweak it, explicitly asks for it, such as "shorten the introduction" or "rewrite this in a friendlier tone".
• Spelling-only mode. Fix spelling and punctuation only corrects typos and punctuation and nothing else.
• Voice rules don't touch your text. The house style's Voice and rules apply only to text the AI writes itself.
• Every preview is checked. Your original is compared with the AI's layout sentence by sentence. If any wording has been changed, the Some of your wording was changed box appears above the apply buttons, showing your version and the AI's version.
• One click to undo it. Click Put my wording back and the AI restores your original wording, word for word, wherever it changed it, keeping the layout.
• Dropped or added text is flagged. Please check lists text that may have been left out, and text the AI may have added.

Small rearrangements are allowed. For example, the AI may move a short list item into a table cell, as long as the words themselves are the same.

12. Images

You need the Upload images permission.

Adding images

In the Images area of the Create tab:

• Drop images onto the area, or click Choose images.
• Pick from Media browses your site's images folder. Click a folder to open it, Up one folder to go back, and click an image to add it.
• What is this image? (optional): a short note for each image, such as "Our new clubhouse, opened May 2026". It helps the AI place the image and write accurate alt text.
• Remove takes an image off the list.

What the AI does with them

The AI looks at each image, places it where it fits the content, writes alt text, and adds a caption when it helps. If an image was not used, Please check lists it as "Uploaded but not placed".

Formats and sizes

• Accepted: JPEG, PNG, GIF (the first frame, saved as PNG) and WebP (if your server's GD supports it).
• Not accepted: HEIC and AVIF, common from phones. Save them as JPEG first.
• Images over Largest image (MB) are refused, and at most Images per request can be attached.

Each upload is checked, cleaned and re-saved, so hidden data and unsafe files never reach your site. Images are saved in images/seaiarticledesigner/YEAR/MONTH/ in sizes of 480, 960 and 1600 pixels wide, so phones download small files and large screens get sharp ones.

Custom providers: images are only sent if Model accepts images is turned on for that provider.

13. Templates

A template is a page you were happy with. Choose it next time, paste in new content, and the AI lays it out the same way. Templates suit weekly newsletters, match reports, product pages and event listings.

Saving a template

You need the Save and manage templates permission.

1. When an article looks right, click Save as template in the Create tab.
2. Enter a Template name and an optional Description.
3. Click Save template.

Using a template

1. In the Create tab, choose it from the Template list.
2. Paste your new content and click Generate preview.

Updating a template

When you are working from a template, you can click Update "Template name" with this article to replace its layout with the article as it is now. Changed your mind? Click Undo that update straight away.

Managing templates

Go to Components › SE AI Article Designer › Templates.

• Edit, preview and restore opens the template, where you can:
• Change its Name and Description.
• See a Preview.
• Restore one of its Earlier versions. The last five layouts are kept, and restoring one keeps the current layout too, so you can switch back.
• Delete removes a template. Articles made from it are not affected.

The free edition includes three templates; Pro has no limit.

14. Edit text tab

Use Edit text to change parts of an existing article, such as updating a price, rewriting a paragraph or adding an FAQ, while everything else stays exactly as it was.

1. What should change? Describe the change, such as "Update the price to £49 and make the second paragraph shorter."
2. New text to use (optional). Paste any new text the AI should use, such as new opening hours or a revised paragraph.
3. Which parts may the AI change? The article is listed part by part (headings, paragraphs, list items, table cells and so on). Tick the parts the AI may touch. - Filter finds parts by their text. - Select all and Select none tick or clear everything. - Reload from editor refreshes the list after you edit the article by hand.
4. Click Propose changes.
5. Review the Proposed changes. Each one shows a word-by-word comparison: removed words struck through, new words highlighted. - Tick Accept on the changes you want. - "Wording is the same; formatting or links changed" means only the markup changed; Show HTML shows the details. - Changes "Discarded by safety checks" tried to touch something they should not have, and are not offered.
6. Click Apply accepted changes. You can undo this from the History tab.

Safeguards

• Parts you did not tick cannot change.
• If the article changed after the parts were read, you are asked to reload from the editor and try again, so nothing is overwritten by mistake.

Limits. Very long articles list their first 1,500 parts, and the panel tells you when this happens. One request can send up to the Maximum input characters setting (60,000 by default).

15. SEO tab

1. Optionally, enter a Focus (optional) phrase you want to rank for. Leave it empty to let the AI choose from the article.
2. Click Suggest titles, description and keywords.
3. Review the suggestions. Each shows what is currently on the article, and a character count with a target:

4. Edit any suggestion if you like, tick the ones you want, and click Apply to the article.
5. Save the article to keep the changes.

16. History tab and undo

Every time AI changes are applied, a version is saved. The History tab lists them, with When, Who and What (Created layout, Edited text, Applied, Restored, Undid a change).

Under Actions, for each entry:

Restoring never loses anything: the state you restore from is saved as a new version too.

If an area was edited again after the change, Undo only this change cannot remove it on its own, and you are asked to use Restore instead.

Ctrl+Z. In TinyMCE and JCE, each designer change is a single undo step, so Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac) undoes it straight away.

How many versions? Versions kept per article (default 20) controls this, and older versions are removed automatically. When an article is deleted, its history and conversation are deleted too.

The History tab is only shown to users with the Restore versions permission.

17. The Dashboard and usage log

Go to Components › SE AI Article Designer.

Licence card

• Your edition, and any notice, such as an expired key.
• Free edition: articles designed this month and the reset date.
• When the key was last checked, and when it expires.
• Check now, Enter licence key, and Upgrade to Pro or Get a free key.

Health checks

Test connection checks the default provider.

Usage this month

The number of requests, input and output tokens, and errors this month.

Text filter audit

Shows each user group's text filter and whether it would strip parts of designed layouts. Change filters under System › Global Configuration › Text Filters.

Colour contrast

Confirms whether the default house style meets WCAG AA contrast, or lists the colour pairs that do not.

Usage log

Every AI request, with Date, User, Mode, Article, Provider and model, Tokens in / out, Images and Status. Errors are recorded here too, which helps when something goes wrong. About a year of history is kept.

18. Supported editors

Tip: In TinyMCE and JCE, keep the designed sections intact when editing by hand. Type inside them as normal, but avoid deleting their outer boxes unless you intend to remove that section.

19. Modules, categories and other editors

By default the designer appears only in the article editor. To use it elsewhere, go to Options › Advanced and set Show the button to In every editor. The panel then also appears for:

• Custom modules
• Category descriptions
• Any other administrator form that uses the Joomla editor

Outside articles, the designer works in the same way, with these differences:

• The SEO tab is not shown, because those forms have no article meta fields.
• History and the Tweak it conversation last while the form is open. Once you close or reload it, use Ctrl+Z (in TinyMCE and JCE) or Joomla's own versions instead.
• Images you add are kept permanently, since the module or category may keep using them.
• On the free edition, each time you open a module or category and use the AI, it counts as one designed item for the month.

The designer works in the administrator only. It does not appear when editing from the front end of the site.

20. How designed articles appear on your site

• Designed content sits inside one <div class="sead …"> wrapper and uses the house style's classes.
• The system plugin adds the shared house style stylesheet only to pages that contain designed content, so other pages stay as light as before.
• Designed layouts are responsive: columns, cards and galleries stack on phones.
• Joomla features keep working, including page caching, multilingual sites, workflows, read more and page breaks.
• Joomla plugin tags and shortcodes, such as {loadmodule} or {loadposition}, are protected while the AI works and come back exactly as written.

Keep the System - SE AI Article Designer plugin enabled. If it is disabled, designed articles lose their styling on the site.

21. Privacy and data

What is sent to your AI provider

• Your instruction and the text you paste (or the article text you choose to use)
• The parts of the article you tick in Edit text
• Images you attach, resized and stripped of hidden data such as location
• Your house style's rules and the template's layout, if you choose one
• The current conversation in Tweak it

Requests go directly from your server to the provider you choose, using your own API key. SE24 Media never sees your content or your keys.

What is sent to the SE24 licence server

Only your licence key, your site's address and the product number, to confirm the licence. On development sites, nothing is sent.

What is stored on your site

• Versions of each article, for History (limited by Versions kept per article)
• The Tweak it conversation per article
• The usage log (about a year)
• Monthly usage counts, for the free edition (about a year)
• Images, in images/seaiarticledesigner/

Drafts that are never saved are tidied up automatically after a while.

Safety

• AI output is cleaned against a strict allowlist before it can reach your article. Scripts, forms and unsafe markup are removed.
• Uploaded images are checked, re-encoded and saved under safe names, and unsafe files are refused.

22. Troubleshooting

The panel does not appear under the editor

• Check that the user has Use the AI designer permission (Options › Permissions).
• Check that both plugins are enabled: Editors - Button - SE AI Article Designer and System - SE AI Article Designer (System › Plugins).
• Outside articles, check Show the button under Options › Advanced.
• Do a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R).
• The designer does not appear when editing from the front end of the site.

The panel broke or looks wrong after an upgrade. Do a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R). If it persists, clear Joomla's cache (System › Clear Cache) and any server or CDN cache.

"The text filter for your user group will strip this layout's HTML." Joomla's text filter for that user group removes classes or attributes the layout needs. Go to System › Global Configuration › Text Filters, find the group (the Dashboard's Text filter audit shows which), and allow the HTML, for example by setting No Filtering, or a filter that allows class and style attributes.

The layout looks right in the editor but plain on the site

• Check that the System - SE AI Article Designer plugin is enabled.
• Check that the House style stylesheet health check is OK. If it is not, save your house style. If the message mentions permissions, make media/com_seaiarticledesigner/css writable.
• Clear Joomla's cache and any CDN cache.

Test fails, or the AI returns an error

• Re-paste the API key. A key that ends early, or one your browser autofilled, is the most common cause, and the error message shows the key's length and its last four characters to help you check.
• Check the model name (or leave it empty for the default).
• Check that your provider account has credit.
• The Usage log shows the provider's error message for each failed request.

"The AI did not answer in time" or "The connection to the server was lost"

Very long articles, or many images, can take longer than your hosting allows for one request. Nothing was changed. Try:

• Working on a smaller part (for example with Edit text).
• Attaching fewer images.
• A faster model.
• Asking your host to raise the PHP time limit, and the proxy or Cloudflare timeout if you use one.

The layout was cut off at the end. Raise Maximum output tokens in Options › Limits.

"That is more text than the limit of 60,000 characters." Work on a smaller part, or raise Maximum input characters.

"You have reached the daily limit of N AI requests." An administrator has set Daily AI requests per user. It resets the next day.

Free edition: "You have designed your 5 free articles this month." The count starts again on the date shown. You can still edit, undo and restore your work. Upgrade to Pro to remove the limit.

Free edition: "This article has used the free edition's 30 AI requests for this month." Try again after the reset date, or upgrade.

An image is refused

• HEIC and AVIF photos: save them as JPEG first.
• "This server cannot process WebP images": save as JPEG or PNG, or ask your host to enable WebP in GD.
• Too large: resize it, or raise Largest image (MB).

"You have been logged out." Your Joomla session ended. Copy anything you want to keep, reload the page and log in again.

Email addresses show as "This email address is being protected from spambots". That is Joomla's Email Cloaking plugin protecting addresses in the preview. On the real page, with JavaScript running, visitors see the address normally.

After applying a whole-article layout, there is only an "Update the article" button. That is expected: you are continuing the same conversation. Click Start over for the Insert at cursor, Replace whole article and Add to end of article buttons.

The house style does not show inside the JCE or TinyMCE editing window. Hard refresh the page. If it still does not appear, check the House style stylesheet health check.

The site uses PostgreSQL. The extension supports MySQL and MariaDB only, and will not install on PostgreSQL.

23. Frequently asked questions

Will the AI rewrite my text? No, not unless you ask. It lays out your words exactly as written, warns you if anything was changed, and Put my wording back restores your original. See section 11.

Does it save the article for me? No. The designer changes the article in the editor; you save it as normal.

Can I edit a designed article by hand afterwards? Yes. It is ordinary HTML in your editor. In TinyMCE and JCE it looks like the finished page while you edit.

If I change my house style, do old articles update? Yes. Every designed article uses the shared stylesheet, so they all pick up the change.

Which AI provider should I use? Any of them works. Larger models give better layouts on long or complex pages; faster models suit quick edits and SEO suggestions. You can switch provider per request in the panel.

How much does it cost to run? You pay your AI provider at their rates. The usage line under each preview, and the Dashboard, show tokens used. Daily AI requests per user helps cap costs.

Can I use it on a development or staging site without a key? Yes. Local, .test, .local and staging./dev. sites (among others) are unlimited with no key. See section 5.

What happens when my free monthly allowance runs out? The AI pauses for new articles until the first of the next month. Everything else, including editing, history, undo and restore, keeps working.

Can the designer use images already on my site? Yes. Use Pick from Media.

Is it accessible? Designed layouts use proper headings and lists, images get alt text, and colour contrast is checked against WCAG AA. The panel works with the keyboard and follows Joomla's light and dark themes.

Which languages does the interface support? English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, French, Polish and Italian. Right-to-left administrator languages are supported. The AI writes in the language of your content.

24. Uninstalling

Go to System › Manage › Extensions, find the SE AI Article Designer package and click Uninstall. This removes all three parts.

What uninstalling removes

• Settings and licence key
• House styles and the shared stylesheet
• Templates
• History, conversations and the usage log

What it keeps

• Your articles (with their content)
• Images in images/seaiarticledesigner/

Important: without the house style stylesheet, designed articles lose their styling on the site. Their text and images remain, but they appear as plain content. If you might reinstall, keep the package installed with the plugins enabled instead.

25. Quick reference

Where things are

Keyboard

Defaults