Home Magazine Welcome

Issue 2

the Art of Joomla - Editorial

Welcome

Welcome to Issue 2 of The Art of Joomla. It's taken a little longer than expected due to the Christmas break and then the push to release version 1.5 of Joomla last month (January 2008) and organising things for the release of version 1.0.14 and planning for version 1.6.

The release of 1.5 was a fairly momentous event leaving many of the team feeling elated and numb at the same time. The release comes some two-and-a-bit years after the release of version 1.0 and also a little over five years from the first release of Mambo 4.5.0. That release of Mambo was the beginning of the rise of award-winning software that eventually spawned Joomla which carried it's spirit on without missing a beat.

I've included in this issue a blog I did a few years ago to help answer some of the early “what is the difference” questions. For those that are new to Joomla you may see the two names bandied around together and be wondering why. I've revised it a little and added some additional personal reflections on why I think Joomla can be a better choice overall (I make no apologies for being unashamedly biased) , but a lot of it boils down to personal preference and exactly what your needs are. Some of the funniest things I see are people having it out on the forums over which one is more clunky. It's funny because they are really very similar functionally and what it boils down to is which interface you like better. They both have the same content engine, same template management, same modules ... and the list goes on. But with the arrival of 1.5, that all changes.

Also in this issue we are going to give you a brief overview of some of the new features and some of the significant changes in 1.5. I'm going to look in detail at another neat menu trick you can do, and also I continue with part 2 of my series on converting existing components to the new way of doing things.

Finally on a personal note I've been elected back into the Joomla Core Team as Development Working Group coordinator. This basically means I have more strategic input into how development will be happening in upcoming versions of Joomla. One of the first major pushes is to radically change the way we plan what will be in the “next” version of Joomla. With an approach we are calling White Papers, the goals for new development will be completely driven by Joomla's community. This is a path I'm very excited about.

I also can't forget to mention my thanks to Ross Crawford who has helped me edit this issue. Thanks Ross.

Add a Comment

Name

Subject

E-mail (will not be published)

Personal Web Site/Blog

Comment

Enter the letters you see in the image