When Joomla 1.6 was released, one of the first questions people had was if current Joomla extensions would be compatible. It's been known for a long time that the changes in Joomla 1.6 mean that every single extension used needs an update.
For some developers, this is an easy task. For others, it's something compared to a nightmare.
I asked a group of developers to share their opinions on the Joomla 1.6 release, and what it will mean for their companies.
As I wrote in my post on the Joomla 1.6 launch - much of the success of version 1.6 will depend on the availability of extensions and templates.
Here are the opinions from some Joomla extension and template developers:
Daniel Chapman - NinjaForge.com:
It means that it is finally time to move to JQuery, rather than having to support 3 version of MooTools on all our extensions. Luckily, using Nooku shields us from the worst of the J1.6 issues. Though it might be time to put more effort into converting things over. Only NinjaBoard runs on 1.6 at the moment.
Alexis - freakedout.de:
The release of Joomla 1.6 means that we have to invest a large part of our resources to upgrade most of our extensions. Until other major devs have upgraded theirs this will remain a limited market.
Those extensions that made you install 1.5 will have to be upgraded to 1.6 to make people want to use 1.6. I think a considerable amount of time will pass until we will see 1.6 production sites.
I just think this will cost us all some sales and money, but no doubt things will have to move forward and will, only thing i am wondering is, how fast that will go.
Kyle Ledbetter - PixelPraise:
For AdminPraise, Joomla 1.6 opens creative doors and possibilities that I've been dreaming of for years. I've been able to dramatically change the layout of the Joomla admin with my templates, but have always been restricted by the core layouts. With 1.6 I can finally override the HTML output of those layouts and optimize the interior space of the Joomla admin.
Another killer feature is the ability to set different admin templates on the user profile. This will allow different users to pick their Joomla flavor, as we have multiple great choices for the admin. You could even create a specific admin template for a specific person with specific duties. It also opens doors for mobile optimized Joomla admin templates.
Fotis Evangelou - JoomlaWorks:
ACL, nested level categories and framework improvements are the most important stuff.
Content wise we're covered with K2 (which we'll port to 1.6 early Feb).For developers, there are some benefits for small stuff like plugins that hook up with com_content I think, e.g. you can easily extend the com_content form and so onm, but not something jaw-dropping in my opinion.
We'll see the benefits of the new framework soon. One potentially good thing is the move to php 5.2.x and mysql 5, but it's bad we didn't see new stuff like compatibility with more databases (unlike Drupal 7).
Robert Gavick - GavickPro:
We are really happy with this new Joomla! version. Therefore, we would like to thank the entire Joomla Community for making this happen.
How does it influence GavickPro and our work?
There will be a lot of changes as we have to convert a lot of our templates to Joomla! 1.6.
Unfortunately, not all of them will be updated because of lack of time and people who will work on it.
At the moment, we have our Gavern Framework prepared which is created especially for Joomla! 1.6. Moreover, we are updating our extensions for J! 1.6 and, at the moment, we have NEWS SHOW PRO GK4 prepared. Shortly, there will be some tutorials available for Joomla! 1.6 support.
Andrew Rogers - StackIdeas:
We would appreciate if a proper documentation of this new release is made available. We find it difficult to code now especially in calling certain functions to run; a guessing game whether certain code works or not.
It also involves more time now for coding because some processes takes a host of steps in order for a code to work. Overall, the new version is much easier on the eyes. It just need time to get used to the new goodies.