One of the powerful features of an IDE like Eclipse is the ability for it to "read" your code and give you some assistance about your API as you type. This could include things like class property or methods names, constants, functions, argument lists, and so on. Eclipse/PDT and ZendStudio do this by parsing a PHP class directly, but they also look at your docblocks and some other special comments where the raw PHP is not enough. This article is a bag of tricks that help you get the most out of code assistance using Eclipse/PDT or Zend Studio in those awkward corners of your code that you might have through previously inaccessible.

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The Joomla database structure has remained relatively constant since Joomla 1.0 was first launched in 2005, and even beyond that to Mambo 4.5.2.  After six years, it was time to refactor, fix many issues holding Joomla back, and set the stage for the next five or six years of development.  The Converting Old Extensions guide has been updated to include changes in the Joomla 1.6 database schema, and this article provides further information on how that might affect common database SQL queries.

Read more about database upgrades in Joomla 1.6

The previous article, "when should site owners upgrade to Joomla 1.6?", looked at the things a Joomla web site owner would consider when trying to answer that question. But what about the developer?  Do they have the luxury of "it depends" or is the question more critical, or less urgent for them.  This article looks at some of the issues that face the Joomla extension developer and how they differ greatly from that of the web site owner.

Read more about when developers should upgrade to Joomla 1.6

Should I upgrade my site to Joomla 1.6?  Can I upgrade it?  Where are the extensions for Joomla 1.6?  Is Joomla 1.6 stable?

These are but some of the many questions rushing around the Joomla community at this very moment.  But because of the wide variety of web sites built on, and extensions built for Joomla 1.5, such questions don't always have a definitive answer.  This article attempts to provide some information about how to weigh up these questions for your own site, because every web site is different.

Read more about when site owners should upgrade to Joomla 1.6

My previous video outlined some of the changes that are required to make a plugin install in Joomla 1.6.  There are a number of other modifications that are required concerning changes to event names that the extension developer needs to be aware of in order for plugins to work successfully in Joomla 1.6.

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