Joomla 1.6 beta 1 possible March release

Update on Joomla 1.6 functionality

As you may know, these are some of the new functions of Joomla 1.6:

• Faster processing of Joomla pages
  • The complete Joomla system has been overhauled, which can mean as much as 25% speed increase as the server load is much lower.
• Nested categories
  • No multi-map (you need to use a tagging system if you want this)
  • Sections disappear in Joomla 1.6
• Consistent functionality and UI
  • Save and New; Save as Copy
  • Integrated trash function
• Template styles
  • Link a template style to an individual menu item
  • This means you can have different template parameters on each menu item
• Exclude modules from menu page
  • Show on everything except page X, Y Z etc
  • Timing for modules (like articles)
• Three new frontend templates
  • Trainer - simple template
  • Blog template
  • Corporate look, business template (possibly made by RocketTheme)
• Redirection component
  • Collects 404 pages for you to approve and enter the new url.
  • Creates a 301 redirect.

ACL system

The ACL system is still under development, and there has been done some changes to the system since Joomla 1.6 Alpha 2. Anyway, the main functions of the ACL system are still:

• Define your own user groups.
• Define your own content access levels.
• Multi-level permission management.

Multi-Level Permission Management

The levels of access control allow you to choose the granularity of permissions. Each layer gives you more control but the tradeoff is that it requires more work to maintain. But, if you need the power, it is now available.

Four levels of management

• Global Configuration
• Component Options
• Category
• Articles

Four Easy Rules

• By default you can’t do anything ...
  • Implicit deny.
• Until you can allow actions ...
  • Explicit allow.
• Or deny them ...
  • Explicit deny.
• and deny always wins forever after!

Looking at the same article as another user in the admin

According to Andrew, there's been a change in the way the permission to read articles in the admin is handled. In Joomla 1.5, you're no allowed to see the edit view of an article if another user has the article opened. This is very annoying for people doing phone support etc with Joomla. In Joomla 1.6, you will be able to go into the article even if another user is editing. The 'Save' users will be disabled for the second user, however. Nice feature! I've had this situation a lot of times and I've had to look at another article or make a copy of the article to see what the user is working on.

Resources

For more info on the ACL system, watch the video presentation by Andrew Eddie here
And download the complete set of presentation slides used in the video here.

Updated system requirements for Joomla 1.6

• PHP 5.2.4+ or higher
• MySQL 5.0.4+
• No legacy mode

When will Joomla 1.6 be released?

Recently, we could find the following statement on the Joomla 1.6 page:

It is impossible to give a definite time for future releases of Joomla 1.6.  Our best "guess" for the availability of future versions is late February 2010 for Beta 1 and late March of 2010 for the first stable version.  The ability to deliver at these times is directly proportional to the amount of volunteer help the project receives.

I've mentioned this before in my post Tired of waiting for Joomla 1.6?: I think it's better to wait for a stable, well thought-out Joomla 1.6 than to force the release of an unstable version with lots of problems for developers and end-users.

With Joomla 1.6 you will see quite a few major changes compared to Joomla 1.5. Thus, it's important that as much as possible has been sorted out before rolling out Joomla 1.6 to the huge number of website owners out there.

For me, the nested categories, the redirection component and the improved ACL is my main reasons to want Joomla 1.6.

What's the Joomla 1.6 feature that will mean most to you?