Migrating to Joomla 1.6 – Are You Sure?

As you might be aware of, Joomla has released a new version of its popular content management software – this dynamic portal engine has been finally advanced to Joomla 1.6, on January 11th 2011. From the official Joomla 1.6 release announcement the company has unveiled the range of new functions and features the new version delivers to designers, developers, admins and webmasters, as well as about manifold style improvements Joomla has undergone.

So what’s new in Joomla 1.6?

• new admin, template choices: Joomla 1.6 offers a whole new look at the Administrator Interface with some new templates that extend the Joomla! system;
• template styles: Joomla 1.6 offers a whole new world of versatility by allowing webmasters to create template styles. Basically, you can easily clone your template to apply custom changes or edits to it, and then assign it to specific menu items to create unique pages;
• core layout files are tableless: new for Joomla 1.6, all core output files are written in XHTML 1.0 Strict. HTML 5 is also supported in Joomla 1.6;
• codemirror editor: finally, there’s a color-coded editor for easier HTML and CSS editing in Joomla;
• media manager improvements: the Flash-based media uploader brings the ability for users to upload multiple files at one time. You can also upload multiple images at once to the Media Manager.
• SEO features: meta-keywords and meta-descriptions can be assigned to articles, categories, and menu items, and you can easily add a site name to the HTML page title;
• new package installation capability: developers can now pack their components allowing users to install one file and include multiple extensions all at the same time;
• easily included language capabilities: with Joomla 1.6?s new language structure, developers are allowed to include additional language packages right with their extensions;
• integrated ACL capability: the development team has made it very easy to include advanced ACL features inside of any 3rd party component. With just a few code changes your component can allow your users to take advantage of the revolutionary ACL structure for their users;
• upgraded system requirements: the new operating requirements for Joomla 1.6 (particularly PHP 5.2) offers developers a great advantage by allowing them to take advantage of object-oriented programming and functionality;
• nested categories: with infinite layers of categories, creating a representation of your site map in Joomla! is a breeze;
• easy extension updates: you can easily update those extensions from within Joomla, without visiting dozens of extension developer’s websites, in Joomla 1.6;
• new plugin format: with the release of Joomla 1.6, plugins now have the same common structure as components and modules;
• consistent component programming: Joomla 1.6 provides a new and cohesive method for building components;
• for more principal changes introduced in Joomla 1.6, you may read the information offered by the Joomla Documentation.