A friend asked me to help him change something on his Joomla website, but I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding the file system and routing. From what I've read so far, looks like SEF urls are activated. Now if the sub directory is /index.php/standings, for instance, how can I figure out which templates/modules/etc are being used/loaded for that url?
note - I only have FTP access, but could get access to admin if necessary.
You'll need admin access.
For the template(s) sign-in to the backend then go to Extensions > Template Manager.
You'll see details of all the templates installed on the site and there will be one default template (marked with a star) for location 'Site' .
All pages on the site will use this template unless other templates have been assigned to specific pages. To find other assigned templates look for a check mark in the assigned column, click the template name, then under the the Menu Assignment tab look for which menu items the template has been assigned to.
For the modules/etc . From the backend go to Menus and locate the menu with the standings link. This listing will give you some information about type of link, e.g. 'Articles ยป Single Article' if the menu item is a article, or maybe it will be a component or one of the many other types of Joomla menu links.
Open the standings menu item, then click the module assignment tab and you'll see details of which modules are assigigned to this menu item.
Lastly, if the standings menu link is a single article, locate and open the article (from Content > Article Manager) and look for dynamic content which could come from a plugin, it will be enclosed by curly braces: eg {plugin-id}. The name will give you some indication of where to look.
Good luck!