After much anticipation and progression from Joomla 1.6 and Joomla 1.7, the next long-term Joomla release went live last week, Joomla 2.5.

I’m also happy to report that our extensions are Joomla 2.5 ready:

• Advanced Site Search - Available to subscribers since January 24 (download)
• Agora Bulletin Board - Available to subscribers for download on February 17 (try the demo!)
• JCal Pro®/RSVP - Beta version available free to the public for testing since January 24 (download)
• sh404SEF® - Available to subscribers since January 24 (download)

Joomla 1.6 will reach end-of-life on August 19, 2011 and all users should upgrade to version 1.7 before that date.

Version 1.7.0 was released to the public yesterday and includes an important fix for a cross-site scripting vulnerability in Joomla 1.6, underscoring the urgency of upgrading. 

Upgrading from Joomla 1.6.5 to 1.7.0 (and future versions) is now a simple 1-click task built right into the Joomla core. We recommend that all Joomla 1.6 users use this quick and simple method. Please note that this upgrade path is specific for Joomla 1.6.5 ONLY.

In addition to security enhancements and 1-click upgrades, Joomla 1.7 contains a number of feature enhancements including better form validation, batch processing of articles and an improved ability to restrict article submission to specific categories.

Full details can be found on the official announcement at Joomla.org.

It's an exciting time to be in the development labs here at Anything Digital. We've been actively recruiting new folks for our various extensions and services, and as a result many things are happening all at once. 

I don't want to spoil your Labor Day surprise (at least for our American clients and followers), but keep your eye on this blog and our twitter account for some big announcements next week. 

In simpler times, the vast majority of Joomla extensions simply installed using the Joomla installer and operated as expected ‘out-of-the-box’. However, as Joomla has become more sophisticated, it appears that developers are starting to release their own libraries/frameworks that run inside Joomla, and are required for their extensions to operate.

As Joomla 1.5 continues to add new features and bug fixes to the codebase, it gets closer and closer to becoming a true, enterprise-class content management system. However, there are still some features absent from the core functionality which limit the widespread adoption of Joomla in large-scale, mission-critical environments. Perhaps the most obvious of these ‘killer features' are customizable access controls (i.e. advanced user/usergroup permissioning), nested content categories, customizable user registration and revision control. The latter is the management of multiple revisions or ‘versions' of the same unit of information. In colaborative environments, revision control is a mustr but even for the lone editor or content provider, revision control provides a very convenient content back-up solution for those times when you accidentally delete a few hours of writing.