You may be wondering whats happening with Joomla! these days.
We waited three years for the release of Joomla! 1.6.
But since January of 2011, a little under two years ago, we had four
major versions of Joomla! released.
What's up with Joomla!'s
release cycle and all of these new Joomla! versions?
What does this mean for you, your Web site, and your business?
Shortly before the release of Joomla! 1.6,
a new release cycle was announced by Joomla!'s Production Leadership Team or PLT.
Previously, Joomla!'s new releases were driven by a list of features.
The PLT would establish that list and when the list of features was done,
software would be released.
That meant there was a three year gap between Joomla! 1.5 and Joomla! 1.6
which was not good in the fast-moving world of technology.
So in late 2010 the PLT announced that they would move to a release cycle,
releasing a new version of Joomla! every six months.
What features were ready would be included in the new release.
If features weren't ready then they would be incorporated in the next Joomla! release.
A six month release cycle for a Web product is quite challenging.
The PLT did recognize this, because most people don't want to make a major
change to their Web site every six months.
As a result they grouped three of the six month releases into a larger release cycle.
The first two releases of the cycle are short-term releases.
A short-term release is good for only seven months before the end of life.
End of life is the point where the software is no longer supported, meaning no
more security fixes are available for it.
The third release of the cycle is the long-term release which is supported
for at least 18 months.
The start of the release cycle begins with a .0 release.
This is where the new administrator template is released along with any changes
to functionality that might break extensions.
This is a short-term or seven-month release.
The .1 release comes out six months later.
It is anticipated that there will be mostly bug fixes in this release, but minor
changes to the functionality are also typically included.
This is also a short-term or seven-month release.
The final release in the cycle is a .5 release, which is good for at least 18 months.
This should be a very stable release, fixing more bugs from the first two
releases and again introducing minor changes to functionality.
This release cycle is the Joomla! 3.x cycle.
Joomla! 3.0 was released in September 2012.
Joomla! 3.1 will be released in March of 2013 and Joomla! 3.5
will be released in September 2013.
Joomla! 3.5 will reach its end-of-life around March 2015.
With any release cycle the administrator interface should remain mostly the same.
You may see minor additions to functionality, but you won't see a new
administrator template, meaning a completely different look and feel for the
configuration side of Joomla!, and most extensions should be compatible between versions.
You may see a few extensions which break, but these will be very few.
Upgrading between versions of Joomla!
within a release cycle should be a simple one-click update.
So what's the status of the current release cycle?
There are two current versions of Joomla!
available for you to use right now.
Joomla! 2.5 is the current long-term release of Joomla!.
It is recommended that sites currently running Joomla! 2.5
should stick with that until Joomla! 3.5 is available.
That promotes maximal stability to the Web site.
Joomla! 3.0 is the start of the new release cycle.
This version of Joomla!
is still being debugged and new features are still being added.
This is a less stable version of Joomla, but it does offer some advantages
over Joomla! 2.5. Most notably Joomla! 3.0
is mobile compatible out-of-the-box.
It is also possible to design responsive Web sites using the bootstrap framework
from Twitter, which ships with Joomla! 3.0.
I'll be covering that in Joomla!
responsive Web sites also available at lynda.com.
Joomla! 1.5 which was an extremely popular version of Joomla!
is no longer supported. Neither is
Joomla! 1.0, 1.6, or 1.7.
All of these versions of Joomla!
should be migrated to Joomla! 2.5
as soon as possible.
Please see my video, Migrating from Joomla! 1.5 to Joomla! 2.5,
available here at lynda.com to learn how to migrate your older Joomla!
sites to the new version.
Which version of Joomla! should you use?
Well, it depends.
Particularly, for those who are new to Joomla!, I recommend starting with
Joomla! 2.5 while Joomla! 3.0
is the current version of Joomla!.
Joomla! 2.5 has the most documentation available and the most extensions as well.
Joomla! 2.5 will be supported three months beyond the release of Joomla! 3.5.
So it will be supported until sometime around December 2013.
As time goes on you should start building new Web sites in Joomla! 3.1.
The second release of the cycle, typically has fewer bugs and glitches.
Plus, it has better support for extensions and templates.
You'll also be on the path to move your site to Joomla!
3.5 when it's available.
If your site is currently running
Joomla! 2.5, keep your site there until Joomla! 3.5 is available.
How hard will it be to move your sites from Joomla! 2.5 to Joomla! 3.5?
No one can say for sure at this point.
However, everyone is hoping that this will be a straightforward move rather than
the more difficult migration that happens when sites move from Joomla! 1.5 to Joomla! 2.5.