Joomla! 1.6

www.joomla.org

#jd09de JoomlaDay.de, 26 September 2009

An update on Joomla 1.6

Akarawuth Tamrareang

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About Me

Akarawuth Tamrareang [JoomlaCorner]

- Joomla! Bug Squad / Joomla! Event Mentor (Asia Region) and Summer of Code administrator

- Founder JoomlaCorner.com - Founder Marvelic Engine Co.,Ltd.

follow me : http://twitter.com/joomlacorner

email : akarawuth@joomlacorner.com akarawuth.tamrareang@community.joomla.org

- President Open Source Education and Development Association (OSEDA)

Hi, my name is Akarawuth Tamrareang and I'm Joomla Bug Squad team, Asia area events manager and Summer of Code administrator. I’m come from Bangkok,Thailand. I'm here today to talk to you about the upcoming 1.6 release of Joomla!.

Basic Requirements

Joomla! 1.6 now requires :-PHP 5.2+-MySQL 5.0.4+

3Perhaps from a hosting point of view what the biggest change for Joomla! with 1.6 is the requirement that hosting providers will require PHP 5.2 and MySQL 5.0.4 to run Joomla! 1.6 as opposed to the older versions that Joomla! 1.5 tolerated. This change shouldn't impact most people but it is best to check now to see if your host is going to support it or if they have plans to support it in the future.

New Features

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• UI Redesign• Nested categories• ACL and customisable user groups

• Improved Extension Manager• Redirect Manager• Integrated Trash• Featured Items• Under the hood changes

So 1.6 has a whole heap of new features slated for it, basically rounding out the feature set. 1.6 will feature a user interface redesign with tableless layouts for both the site and the administrator backend. As a part of this the back end will have more MVC style extensions which will mean that you can use layout overrides in administrator templates more successfully. Nested categories replaces the old section category system that has existed for the longest of times enabling you to layer as many categories as desired. New ACL features are on the table to make more user groups to have more fine grained controlled over who can view the content as well as what editing tasks that you can do. The extension manager gets a refresh with some more useful support features such as system wide extension updating. There is also a new extension called the redirect manager that provides the ability to detect dead links and puts them into a list so that you can redirect them to the correct links. Integrated trash now shifts the trash into the standard list views for extensions removing the need to go to a different extension to manage the trash. Frontpage content items now get identified as 'featured items' giving you the option to build more interesting combinations and under the hood 1.6 has had many other changes.

UI Redesign

5So lets get started with our tour around 1.6's updates. The first is the new template called "Blue Stork" with a new UI look and feel with tonnes of smaller changes under the hood. There are also minor changes to the menu structure to put some items in more appropriate places. The Site menu has had a redesign to now include some items that were previously in the Help menu such as System Information. Other items have been culled from the menu and now live in a more appropriate location. A new addition to the menu is the user menu which now contains links to new functionality introduced with the updated user manager for 1.6 and has some of the items previously found else where such as the private messaging and mass mail system. The content menu is the last with a slight redesign and you'll note the media manager is now located in this menu. Sections are also gone as they are merged into categories.

UI Redesign

6So lets get started with our tour around 1.6's updates. The first is the new template called "Blue Stork" with a new UI look and feel with tonnes of smaller changes under the hood. There are also minor changes to the menu structure to put some items in more appropriate places. The Site menu has had a redesign to now include some items that were previously in the Help menu such as System Information. Other items have been culled from the menu and now live in a more appropriate location. A new addition to the menu is the user menu which now contains links to new functionality introduced with the updated user manager for 1.6 and has some of the items previously found else where such as the private messaging and mass mail system. The content menu is the last with a slight redesign and you'll note the media manager is now located in this menu. Sections are also gone as they are merged into categories.

UI Redesign

7So lets get started with our tour around 1.6's updates. The first is the new template called "Blue Stork" with a new UI look and feel with tonnes of smaller changes under the hood. There are also minor changes to the menu structure to put some items in more appropriate places. The Site menu has had a redesign to now include some items that were previously in the Help menu such as System Information. Other items have been culled from the menu and now live in a more appropriate location. A new addition to the menu is the user menu which now contains links to new functionality introduced with the updated user manager for 1.6 and has some of the items previously found else where such as the private messaging and mass mail system. The content menu is the last with a slight redesign and you'll note the media manager is now located in this menu. Sections are also gone as they are merged into categories.

UI Redesign

8So lets get started with our tour around 1.6's updates. The first is the new template called "Blue Stork" with a new UI look and feel with tonnes of smaller changes under the hood. There are also minor changes to the menu structure to put some items in more appropriate places. The Site menu has had a redesign to now include some items that were previously in the Help menu such as System Information. Other items have been culled from the menu and now live in a more appropriate location. A new addition to the menu is the user menu which now contains links to new functionality introduced with the updated user manager for 1.6 and has some of the items previously found else where such as the private messaging and mass mail system. The content menu is the last with a slight redesign and you'll note the media manager is now located in this menu. Sections are also gone as they are merged into categories.

UI Redesign

9So lets get started with our tour around 1.6's updates. The first is the new template called "Blue Stork" with a new UI look and feel with tonnes of smaller changes under the hood. There are also minor changes to the menu structure to put some items in more appropriate places. The Site menu has had a redesign to now include some items that were previously in the Help menu such as System Information. Other items have been culled from the menu and now live in a more appropriate location. A new addition to the menu is the user menu which now contains links to new functionality introduced with the updated user manager for 1.6 and has some of the items previously found else where such as the private messaging and mass mail system. The content menu is the last with a slight redesign and you'll note the media manager is now located in this menu. Sections are also gone as they are merged into categories.

Nested Categories

10Next on our list is the nested categories. As you can see here, there are three levels of categories which is an improvement on the current system. Alternatively you can also have only one level of categories as well so the old section category limitations are now gone. Interface wise apart from the new tree style structure, creating and managing these new categories is the same as it has been previously.

• 1.6 introduces greater ACL support:• Type 1 rules: What can you do?- Controlled by group permissions

• Type 2 rules: What can you do to this item?- Controlled by the item

• Type 3 rules: What can I see? - Controlled by the access level system

ACL

11So ACL has been a long requested feature for Joomla!, and in 1.6 it now features a rich ACL. So there are now three types of ACL rules that can be used to control different aspects of the system. This enables a large amount of flexibility in the system without adding extra complexity that is unnecessary. For those familiar with Joomla! 1.5, the type 3 permissions control the views which is the same as the existing public, registered and special permissions. This has been expanded in 1.6 to enable you to create your own groups and then assign content to those groups. Joomla! 1.6's type 1 permissions have historically been hard coded into Joomla! 1.5, so what 1.6 is doing is liberating them and making them more visible and controllable. So with type 1 rules you can control who gets access to what extension in the backend. Type 2 permissions are a new feature for 1.6's release and allows you control down to individual content items. So you might wish to grant the ability for a user to edit a specific content item or just a specific category and Type 2 rules will handle this for you. Type 2 rules are still being discussed and built.

• Type 1 rules are “roles”- Users are assigned to groups- Groups are assigned permissions

• Type 2 rules are “discretionary ACLS”- Users are assigned permissions on individual items- Similar to how Windows works with files

• Type 3 rules are simple view ACLs- Levels are assigned to groups- Items are assigned levels- Users in groups can see items of that level

ACL Translation

12So when you think about traditional systems, some comparisons can be easily drawn. Type 1 rules are more like high level roles which are assigned to groups and then users get access to them. Type 1 roles control users ability to do generic tasks like manage extensions. Type 2 rules are more like discretionary ACL controls available in items like Windows that allow you to grant specific permissions on specific items to specific users. So a user can edit a content item, a user can create items and edit their own items in a particular category but not others. Type 3 rules are the sort that we have in 1.5 at the moment. So you can create a group and then set content to be viewable by particular groups. These permissions inherit so that if a user is in a child group, then a content item being assigned to a parent will grant the user access.

• Users can now be in more than one group

ACL - Group Membership

13To add to all of this power is the ability for users to be in more than one group. So now users can be placed into multiple groups and any permissions applied to parent groups works down the tree where relevant. This means that multiple groups can be created and then content assigned to those groups via Type 3 rules to permit more complex views of information. Overall the User Manager looks the same as it has had previously though some items have been shifted around with the addition of the group membership management panel.

•Creating new groups now supported•You can customise their access control

ACL - Group Permission

14In addition to being able to put users in multiple groups, 1.6 now grants you the ability to create new groups and then assign the Type 1 permissions to the individual group. Type 1 rules, labelled here as "Actions Permitted", are inherited down the tree from the parent groups as well.

•Levels are assigned to groups•Users can see items that have been assigned a level which their group is a member of.

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ACL - Level Permission

Level permissions, the Type 3 permissions, are controlled with a level editor where you can select the different groups who have access to a particular level. So you can create a new level and then assign the groups you wish to see that particular level.

• Single manage screen for uninstalling extensions• Joomla! wide or extension specific updates• Ability to upload large extensions and discover them• Warnings tab for helping you work out problems with your install

Improved Extension Manager

16In Joomla! 1.5, the extension manager merged the different installers into a single universal installer for all extension types however each extension type had its own tab to be uninstalled from. With Joomla! 1.6, there is now a universal extension list to enable extensions to be controlled from a single point and removed from a single point. The new extension manager also features upgrades for extensions, a new way of installing extensions called discover which allows you to upload an extension in place via FTP or SFTP and then "discover" them to get them installed. There is a new warnings tab to help work out why installing new extensions isn't working.

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Extension Manager - Manage Screen

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Extension Manager - Discover and Warnings

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Extension Manager - Updates

In Joomla! 1.5, the extension manager merged the different installers into a single universal installer for all extension types however each extension type had its own tab to be uninstalled from. With Joomla! 1.6, there is now a universal extension list to enable extensions to be controlled from a single point and removed from a single point. The new extension manager also features upgrades for extensions, a new way of installing extensions called discover which allows you to upload an extension in place via FTP or SFTP and then "discover" them to get them installed. There is a new warnings tab to help work out why installing new extensions isn't working.

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Redirect Manager

• Catches hits to bad links so that you can redirect them

The Redirect Manager catches hits to error links and adds them to a list to enable you to look up those links and redirect them to the right place. This is a great feature for maintaining page rank with search engines for when you have incoming links that point to content that you've removed or just have a bad link. Bad links are automatically added to the list so all you need to do is periodically go in and point them in the right direction.

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Integrated Trash

• Trash is now just another state

Trash now appears inline with everything else. As you can see there are published items along side the trashed item there. Deleting an item once sends it to the trash, deleting it again will then delete the item forever. By default trashed items are hidden from view but by changing the state you can see trashed items as well.

• Replaces front page and provides more power

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Featured Items

Features items is a new take on an old feature. Joomla! has had the "frontpage" concept for a long time where an item could be marked to appear in a special front page view. Featured takes this concept and will enable you to make better use of the flag so that instead of just having a overall site "featured" list you can focus on individual items from specific categories. So a category with employee biographies might have the CEO featured to stick out in the list. This takes the existing frontpage concept to a new level.

• New JForm for customizable forms• Layout overrides for administrator components• Improved accessibility for frontend and backend

• This is just a selection of the changes

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Under the Hood

But this is just a small taste of what is available with Joomla! 1.6, new features such as JForm enable developers even more power when customising Joomla! and integrating extensions into the Joomla! core product. Layout overrides for administrator extensions will give template designers even more control over what they do with Joomla! and improvements in accessibility for templates both backend and front end will be helpful to people.

Questions?

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Thanks you!

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