We were out to lunch with some fellow Joomla developers last week and the topic of Joomla 1.6 came up. I typically don't rush out and get something the second it comes out and hardly ever look at anything before it's released, but some of the things people were talking about did make me curious. However, Joomla 1.6 has a lot riding on it's shoulders and it's always interesting to know what's on the way. Therefore, I decided to go have a look. This is mainly a picture tour and first glimpse for those of you unaware of the upcoming changes.
More information on the underlying architechtural changes can be found in the "Lifting the Lid on Joomla 1.6" presentation. Please note that the release schedule for Joomla 1.6 is still very in flux, and as of now, this is the most up-to-date information on it's timeline.
Here is the information for the version I downloaded:
Pictures speak a thousand words, so I'll let them do most of the talking.
Administrator Login
Not much different with the administrator login screen. The change in administrator template did get me excited to see what changed inside.
Administrator Control Panel
The administrator control panel keeps pretty much the same functionality with a little change in the look.
User Menu
The user menu has some new items added. The ability to modify user groups and user access levels easily through the administrator backend is a feature that people have been requesting for a long time.
User Groups Manager
I'm still curious to see how well the user groups work. Hopefully components don't go overboard using them and functionality with existing 1.5 won't break too much when new groups are added.
User Access Level Manager
Same with user access levels. I think it's nice to have access to these as long as the functionality isn't overused by developers.
Edit User
The big difference with editing a user is assigning different user groups.
Edit Menu Item
It looks like they added some new stuff to editing a menu item. The module assignment should cut down on the amount of jumping back and forth between the module manager and editing menu items.
Category Manager
Good-bye Sections, hello nested categories! This is another feature that I'm glad to see moved into the core Joomla. Previously, if you wanted more than two levels of grouping for articles, you had to use a third party component.
Redirect Component
Another feature that makes sense to have out of the box. It looks like this component just allows for very simple redirections, but that's all I typically need. I have a lot of customers that ask for this and end up having to use a third party component.
Extension Manager Updates
I'm curious to see how they do extension updates from the extension manager. Will it be automatic like Wordpress or will it still be a very manual process? Even an updated method similar to Drupal's notifications, but still manual installation, would be great. The CMS Market Connect Tool is also out there to help bridge this notification gap in the meantime for developers who take advantage of it.
Extension Manager Warnings
I think warning messages is a great idea! I'm not sure it makes sense in Extension Manager, but I'm glad to see it. Hopefully they make it open so other developers can write checks that will warn users when something isn't setup correctly on their system. We were playing with the idea of making a component to do something like this at CMS Market, but if it's built into the system, I'd love to be able to use it.
Nothing too shocking, but I like what I'm seeing. If the developers do a good job adding the new features, I'm very excited to migrate all my sites to Joomla 1.6 as soon as it is released.
