K2 version 2.2 released

What is K2?

K2 provides an out-of-the box integrated solution featuring rich content forms for items (think of Joomla! articles with additional fields for article images, videos, image galleries and attachments), nested-level categories, tags, comments, a system to extend the item base form with additional fields (similar to CCK for those acquainted with Drupal), a powerful plugin API to extend item, category and user forms, ACL, frontend editing, sub-templates and a lot more!

What can you use K2 for?

Using K2, you can transform your Joomla! website to a news/magazine site with author blogs, product catalogs, work portfolio, knowledge base, download/document manager, directory listing, event listing and more, all this bundled under one package! Since K2 is extensible with additional fields to its base item form, you can easily create category-specific content types, e.g. article, blog post, product page, directory listing.

What's new in K2 version 2.2

After 4 months of development, we're happy to announce today the release of version 2.2 of K2.

If you're using versions 2.0 or 2.1 (or if you used the SVN version of 2.2), upgrading is a breeze: just install the 2.2 package on top. All new functionality will be added without messing with your templates not one bit!

Version 2.2 adds many new functionalities in v2.1. To sum things up, v2.2:

• enhances frontend editing further more. Users can now moderate comments to their own articles (if they have the permission to do so of course). A true multi-author environment!
• Adds the "latest items" view which is a new way to show the latest items from specific categories or users in one page. See how we're using this already on Reporter.gr here http://bit.ly/7N8Eov and you'll get an idea of what we mean :)
• Many new features, options and other little gizmos added to the modules of K2, e.g. auto-generated feeds from contents retrieved in mod_k2_content.
• Google AJAX Search integration into mod_k2_tools. Use the power of Google within your site seamlessly. See the example here: http://bit.ly/5Sz4fr
• A user's unpublished items are now seen on the user's page if they're logged in. Makes it easier to write new items without auto-publishing or publishing later.
• More feature-rich RSS feeds with new content options.
• New backend module to quickly access K2 admin pages from the Joomla! Control Panel page.
• New refined frontend and admin form pages make using and learning K2 a joy!
• New tagging system introduces 2 ways to add tags: via a selection based tagging option (as used in 2.1) or a new super cool free-tagging option with auto-suggest features
• Now you can embed videos from any provider in the "video" tab, even if they are not supported by AllVideos (which is utilized in K2)
• Better import functionality from Joomla! Along with articles/category/section import we've now added "user import" (found the in Users menu in K2) which will help transition Joomla! users into K2's advanced ACL system. Makes adopting K2 easier on existing websites with dozens of users and more (previously you'd have to assign users from Joomla! one by one to K2). Furthermore, we have added missing user management tools in Joomla! into K2's "Users" page. E.g. the option to move many users at a time from one Joomla! or K2 user group to another. Or multi-delete. Or multi-unpublish! You name it!
• Comment editing is now possible inline using a spice of ajax! No more badly spelled comments on your site! The editing functionality in comments is available for admins and frontend editors.
• New "CSV data" type in "Extra fields" makes uploading tabular data in K2 a breeze.

Improved performance

Fotis Evangelou of Joomlaworks writes in the release notes page that performance has been improved furthermore into K2. They have also laid the foundations for a RESTful API within K2 for later versions. Developers can easily spot the new options provided to do AJAX calls into K2 content or display content from K2 in a raw and usable (to third party services) format.

Overrides for template designers

For template designers, we've now made it possible to directly override the K2 CSS by including references to the K2 frontend CSS files in their templates. K2 will look first for the K2.css, K2_ie6.css and K2_ie7.css files in the template's /css folder and if it doesn't find these files it will then pick them up from K2's /css folder. There is no need now for your template users to manually switch off the default K2 CSS.

A more detailed changelog will later be published, clearly defining the changes, improvements and other tidbits on the way to 2.2.

Do you use K2? Tell me what you use it for in the comments - I'd love to see links to your K2 powered websites.