Contributor Blogs

Pizza, Bugs, and Fun March 3, 2012

atarr@tarrconsulting.com (Andrea Tarr) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

We are announcing a Joomla! Pizza Bugs and Fun event scheduled for Saturday, March 3, 2012. The event is global for virtual participants with local venues where ever they are organized. We squashed a lot of bugs last month, but as more people use a new release, we always find more. We'll also have documentation ready to be worked on.

Joomla ® 2.5 - ¡Características Extra! ¡Actualizaciones Fáciles!

isidro.baquero@community.joomla.org (Isidro Baquero) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:52:41 +0000

Con el lanzamiento de Joomla! 2.5, la comunidad de usuarios ha puesto un gran énfasis en que la instalación del CMS y el proceso de gestión de cambios sean tan simples y directos como sea posible.

Esto permitirá a los usuarios migrar más fácilmente y con frecuencia a la última versión de Joomla!, y aprovechar todas las ventajas de seguridad asociadas con el funcionamiento del nuevo código. Creemos que los usuarios Joomla! de todo el mundo agradecerán realmente este nuevo proceso.

Comience ahora mismo:

Joomla 2.5 Includes New Version of Joomla PHP Framework

drmmr763@gmail.com (Chad Windnagle) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:50:01 +0000

The Joomla Project’s latest CMS release includes a release of the project’s PHP Framework: Joomla Platform. In 2010 the project made plans to officially decouple the core of Joomla (now the Platform) from the CMS. This allows site implementers to utilize both the full featured CMS, and as well as allow developers to use the light but powerful Joomla Platform core to power web applications.
The Joomla 2.5 CMS release includes notable features that until now have been available only to those developers who have been using the Joomla Platform as a stand alone application. Among others, some of my favorites are:

JWeb
JImage
JWebClient
JGrid

Marketing Material for Joomla 2.5

steve.burge@extensions.joomla.org (Steve Burge) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Joomla 2.5 is right around the corner. For those of you who want to blog about the launch, talk with your customers or update your extension / template information, here are some resources you can use:

New Features in 2.5 - Windows Azure support

sudhi@hooduku.com (Sudhi Seshachala) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:56:13 +0000

The artcile New Features in 2.5 showcases several new features in Joomla 2.5. In addition to supporting MS SQL Databases covering SQLServer 2008 and SQLAZure, Joomla 2.5 supports Azure Storage CDN and Azure deployment. Windows Azure is the Cloud platform from Microsoft. To learn more, please visit Windows Azure. Sign up here for a Windows Azure Free Trial account. This article covers a use case to deploy new Joomla site on Windows Azure. I will follow up with another use case where we will cover migration of Joomla 2.5 site (Windows Server and SQLServer Database) to Windows Azure. Migration will require customizations to Joomla Scaffolder framework.

New Features in Joomla! 2.5

atarr@tarrconsulting.com (Andrea Tarr) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:23:44 +0000

Joomla 2.5, due out in January 2012, will have a host of new features including new search functionality, multi-database support, and update notification. The following article describes these features. Many people in the community have contributed to making these features possible, some of whom are listed here. Moving from 1.7 to 2.5 can be done with the one-click upgrade within Joomla and most extensions that run on 1.7 should also run on 2.5.

El Villarreal CF usa Joomla!

isidro.baquero@community.joomla.org (Isidro Baquero) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:54:30 +0000

El Villarreal CF, equipo de fútbol de la Primera División de la Liga española que ha disputado la UEFA Champions League este año, acaba de inaugurar su nuevo portal oficial, completamente realizado con Joomla!.

El portal http://www.villarrealcf.es ha sido desarrollado usando Joomla! 1.5 junto con extensiones como K2 y Joom!Fish. Aún le queda algo de desarrollo por delante, pero según parece el club quería tenerla antes de Navidad.

El fútbol está considerado como el deporte más popular del mundo. Nacido en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, actualmente es jugado por más de 250 millones de personas en más de 200 países, siendo el deporte con mayor audiencia televisiva a nivel mundial.

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Villareal CF, a First Division spanish football (soccer) team which has played the UEFA Champions LEague this season, has just launched its new official website, completely done using Joomla!.

The website http://www.villarrealcf.es has been built using Joomla! 1.5 along side with extensions like K2 and Joom!Fish. There's some development pending yet (like the english translation), but probably the club wanted to have it live before Christmas.

Football is considered as the most popular sport in the world. Born during the second half of the 19th century, it's currently played regularly by over 250 million people from over 200 countries, having the highest global television audience in sport.

Todos a Bordo

guillermo.bravo@community.joomla.org (Guillermo Bravo) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Ahora que Joomla.org también habla español y está más cerca de todos los hispanoparlantes, debemos comenzar a colaborar de manera real y efectiva.

La comunidad Joomla! quiere integrar a todas las personas de habla hispana, que de alguna forma estén involucrados con el software Joomla!, para que podamos compartir el conocimiento y crecer como familia. Notarás que de esta forma, Joomla! está con nosotros y cada día más cercana, cumpliendo todas nuestras necesidades y de la forma más eficiente posible, porque la unión hace la fuera y compartir el conocimiento es crecer personal y profesionalmente.

Thanks to Pizza, Bugs and Fun Participants!

atarr@tarrconsulting.com (Andrea Tarr) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:01:31 +0000

Thanks to everyone who participanted in the Joomla! Pizza, Bugs and Fun this past weekend. Over 60 people worldwide tested, coded/fixed and documented new features and issues in Joomla! 2.5, helping to get it ready for release. Some of the countries represented were the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, Israel, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, Algeria and India. Over half of the people participating were not in the Joomla Bug Squad so we had a lot of new volunteers. It was great to see so many people come out to help.

Statistics over the Weekend

These are the statistics from the Joomla CMS Issue Tracker and Joomla CMS Feature Tracker for the period. Thanks must also go out to the people not on these charts including those who did documentation, those who tested but didn't have a login to the trackers and those giving support.

The charts are in two groups. The Issue tracker is for fixing or improving existing features while the Feature tracker is for creating new features for 2.5.

Joomla! también habla español

guillermo.bravo@community.joomla.org (Guillermo Bravo) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Joomla! también habla español!

Esta ha sido una semana intensa para la comunidad hispanohablante. Se formó un grupo en español vía Skype y de inmediato nos propusimos un objetivo en común: Lograr, que a través de los canales sociales de Joomla!, se publicara contenido en nuestro idioma.

Ese objetivo dió el paso inicial para que se comenzara a publicar contenido en español en la Joomla! Community Magazine, el que luego sería informado a través de los canales sociales de Joomla! a toda la comunidad.

Getting Ready for Mutli-Database Support

elin.waring@opensourcematters.org (Elin Waring ) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:20:04 +0000

There was some big news this week in Joomla! CMS development with the merging of massive rewriting of queries. Why? And why rewrite? Because this makes it possible to run the Joomla! CMS on many different databases, not just MySQL and MySQLi as in the past.

As people who follow these things know, for many years there has been a goal to make Joomla! “database agnostic” which is to say to allow Joomla to run on any database. For a while the Platform has had drivers for Microsoft databases SQLSrv and SQLAzure . There are also pull requests (that is, requests to merge code into the platform) on Postgresql, Oracle, SQLite and PDO drivers. Great work by Gabriele Pongelli (Postgres), Sudhi Seshachala and the team at Hoodooku (Microsoft databases) and Omar Ramos (Oracle, SQLite and PDO). If you want to work on a driver for another database (db2 anyone? Drizzle?) you can just fork the platform and go for it!

Last Steps to Joomla 2.5!

jean-marie.simonet@community.joomla.org (Jean Marie Simonet) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:10:38 +0000

Version 11.3 of the Platform has just been merged into the CMS and we are down to the last few weeks before 2.5!
We plan to release Version 2.5 beta on or before December 20th.

To make this schedule, we have until December 12th to propose and test new features.

1. Please test the present state of the CMS with your favorite extensions and report any bug on the Tracker.
TEST: The CMS can be downloaded from https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/downloads (Not for production sites!)
REPORT ISSUES: Please post on the tracker http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemBrowse&tracker_id=8103

2. Please test the New Features (and propose some with code attached if you want):
TEST: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemBrowse&tracker_id=8549
Specially look at those with Status "Pending" when testing

One does not need to be a geek or PHP guru to test the proposed patches. And your efforts will really help in getting your favorite CMS in good shape for 2.5!

As many of you know, version 2.5 is the long-term-support release that ends the 1.6/1.7/2.5 series.
As such, the update to 2.5 will be seamless and will be handled exactly the same as the update from 1.6 to 1.7 or 1.7.2 to 1.7.3.
It is expected that all extensions should work without changes for version 2.5. However, extension developers should test their programs to make sure.

We hope to get some great new features into version 2.5, but we need the community to help with the process. Thanks!

Mexico CIty Runs Joomla

steve.burge@extensions.joomla.org (Steve Burge) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 07:39:07 +0000

Mexico City is, by some counts, the second largest city in the world. Over 18 million people live in the Distrito Federal (Federal District) that forms the city.

How has government of Mexico City decided to keep in touch with those millions of citizens? Joomla. http://www.df.gob.mx now runs on Joomla 1.7 (the name D.F. is short for Distrito Federal and is how Mexicans normally refer to the city).

In addition to Mexico City, many other Mexican government websites run on Joomla including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Palacio Nacional.

These Mexican sites are part of a trend. Joomla has a good claim to be the most popular way that governments build websites. You can find nearly 3000 more examples at http://joomlagov.info.

A Report From Joomla!day Italy 2011

Robert.Deutz@opensourcematters.org (Alessandro Rossi) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:40:49 +0000

The fourth Joomla!Day Italy took place on October 22nd in Florence

Organized by AlexRed, Ste and Gegè, the admins of joomla.it , and hosted at the prestigious hall of the Palace of Congresses of Florence’s expo, the conference was followed by more than 1200 people, from all Italy's regions, throughout the day.

Many followed the live streaming feed of the conference, with peaks of 350 concurrent users and a total of 9000 unique hits over the whole day.

Photos and the videos of the event are available on the Joomladay.it site (http://www.joomladay.it ).

Pizza, Bugs, and Fun 2011

atarr@tarrconsulting.com (Andrea Tarr) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:47:24 +0000

We are announcing a Joomla! Pizza Bugs and Fun 2011 event scheduled for Saturday, December 10, 2011. The event is global for virtual participants with local venues where ever they are organized. The official start time is 9am in each time zone. Help us prepare Joomla! 2.5 for release early in January 2012!

Languages: 1.7.3 improvements

jean-marie.simonet@community.joomla.org (Jean Marie Simonet) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:51:26 +0000

1.7.3 is introducing quite a few improvements concerning multilanguage and languages in general.

A. Multilanguage

1. In 1.7.1 was introduced the new Multilanguage Status Module: http://community.joomla.org/blogs/community/1501-171-new-multilanguage-status-module.html
In 1.7.3, a necessary improvement is implemented: checking the status of the Contacts linked to an Author, as it is necessary to create a unique contact per author and tagged to 'All' languages OR one contact per published Content Language.
If an error occurs, a message is added in the modal with the user name concerned (Thanks Marc Studer and Christophe Demko):

2. It is now possible to customize the Site Name depending on the Content Language displayed.
A new parameter has been created in Extensions=>Language Manager=>Content tab=>Edit a Content Language:

3. By enabling a parameter when editing the Language filter plugin, users will at last get a new feature that has been expected for long:
the Content Language prefix will not be used anymore in the url for the Site default language when SEF is on!
(Thanks to all who participated in trying to patch this —See: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=25037 — and to Christophe Demko who solved it.)
Extensions=>Plugin Manager=>Filter by System=>Edit System - Language Filter

Front-end result:

4. The batch processing in various Managers in back-end now includes a Language field.
It is now possible to batch-change language for ticked items, as well as batch-copy including Language change to another Menu (in Menu Manager) or another Category (Thanks Michael Babker). We hope to also include Menu Associations in this process for 2.5 .

B. General Languages improvements

1. Global Configuration now includes a default Offline Message per Language pack.
If this option is chosen, the offline message will be customized depending on the site language displayed.
It is always possible to override this value by using an xx-XX.override.ini ( See http://docs.joomla.org/International_Enhancements_for_Version_1.6#Language_String_Overrides )

2. The Administrator Help menu may now propose different forums to link to, depending on Language.
A registered language pack may propose a link to the Official Language sub-forum on forum.joomla.org. Custom distributions may propose links to their own external Community Forum by adding in their customized sample data the said link.
Users may decide of their preferred help forum.
Module Manager=>Filter by Administrator=>Edit Admin Menu

3. A new column has been added in the Installed Languages Managers to display the Language tag (en-GB, fr-FR, it-IT, etc.)

Thanks again to all who participated in implementing these improvements and do not forget to upgrade to 1.7.3 !
http://www.joomla.org/announcements/release-news/5392-joomla-173-released.html

And last but not least, we do now have an official multilanguage demo site (now updated to 1.7.3) where users can log in back-end to make sure they structure their site correctly:
See: http://multilingual-joomla-demo.cloudaccess.net/

Proposed 2012 CLT Goals

wendy.robinson@forum.joomla.org (Wendy Robinson) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:18:45 +0000

For the first part of the 2012 budget process, the CLT has come up with the following goals.

Goal #1: Final Rollout of the New Site Templates

Task: Rollout each new site template as they are ready

Task: Open up a channel where people can provide feedback and report any usage issues

Task: Respond to reported issues

Target Date for Completion: As they are ready, between now and February 2012

Resources required: Volunteer time.

Goal #2: Assess the amount of data channels currently in use and try to condense where possible

Task: Have a team of individuals from the CLT perform an analysis of the current community channels and see where some merging of resources and content can be done.

Task: Combine research into a document to share with the CLT and request community feedback as well.

Target Date for completion: February 2012

Resources required: Volunteer time.

Goal #3: Rollout Paid features for JRD/JED Directories.

Task: Implement payment system

Task: Define rules and guidelines, terms and conditions

Task: Testing period before launch

Target Date for completion: January 2012 for task #1 and #3. As soon as requested legal guidance is provided for Task #2

Resources Required: Legal guidance and documentation, which needs to be provided through OSM. This has been requested, currently waiting for that information.

Goal #4: Template Directory (JTD) Launch

Task: Launch a working version of the Template Directory

Task: Recruit a team of editors and put it to work

Resources Required:

Legal guidance and documentation to determine that the Terms of Use for the site are aligned with our ™
Possible Travel for team members to meet face to face
Volunteer time is also required.

Target Date for completion: February 2012

We'd like to thank all of the volunteers on the various CWG teams who have helped to make the above goals possible for 2012. The Joomla community is lucky to have so many hard working people making these exciting things happen!

We invite the community to provide feedback here in the CWG group of the Joomla People site: http://people.joomla.org/groups/viewdiscussion/1371-2012-proposed-clt-goals.html?groupid=398

Proposed PLT 2012 Goals

atarr@tarrconsulting.com (Andrea Tarr) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:57:12 +0000

As part of the normal budgeting process, the Production Leadership Team has come up with four goals for 2012. Those goals concern releases of the Joomla Platform and the Joomla CMS, continuing maintenance updates, and outreach and promotion to a technical audience.

Community feedback requested on OSM's top 2012 goal ideas

paul.orwig@community.joomla.org (Paul Orwig) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:29:08 +0000

As part of the Joomla! project's 2012 goal setting and budget planning proposed process, the Open Source Matters board of directors (OSM) has come up with some ideas for possible top OSM 2012 goals and priorities. Those ideas are listed below.

The Busiest Year Ever for Joomla!Days

steve.burge@extensions.joomla.org (Steve Burge) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:48:51 +0000

During the last year we've shared some hard numbers behind Joomla's growth. We saw that Joomla.org has grown 50% in 2 years and also that there were now 1/2 million forum users, 25 million Joomlacode downloads of Joomla and over 8000 extensions on the JED.

This weekend marks another important milestone: 2011 will be the busiest year ever for Joomla!Days.

The community have a done a great job listing all over the Joomla!Days that have taken place: http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla!Days. The previous high was 23 events in 2009. This year there have been 21 events already and four more are planned for this week alone:

Thank You

It's worth taking a moment to thank all of the organizers who have made all of the previous 100+ events possible.

The Dutch community deserves a mention: every year they've run a Joomla!Day once and sometimes even twice.

Also, welcome to the newcomers in 2011: Chile, Algeria, Malaysia, Greece, Chicago, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milwaukee, Israel.

We hope to see all of you at a Joomla!Day in 2012. If you think you can help us hold even more events next year, the Joomla community has a great guide on how to get started.