Joomla 1.6 is designed to offer better site control and a more polished user experience. There are a variety of improvements to the software, enhancing website management and access, a more robust organizational structure for content control, and various other user-experience improvements throughout the software.
“With new features and capabilities such as the hierarchical design of the access control system, semantic XHTML layouts, one-click extension updates and multi-language functionality, Joomla 1.6 has evolved to become the most user-friendly and powerful tool yet for developing a web presence,” said Ryan Ozimek, president of Open Source Matters, a not-for-profit created to provide organization, legal, and financial support to the Joomla project. “This has been accomplished through the tireless feedback and work on 1.6 by the thousands of members of the Joomla community over the past year.”
Joomla is one of the easiest to use and most extensible content management systems available, making it the most popular and downloaded open source website software in the industry today (it has been downloaded more than 22 million times). It is used for everything from small personal websites to the backend management for some of the largest enterprises and highest traffic sites on the Web, including sites operated by Citibank, eBay, General Electric and McDonalds.
Joomla 1.6 offers a new access control system which allows site administrators control over who can view and manage content. It also brings unlimited depth organization models, which allows content creators to define categories and create a category tree with as many (or as few) levels for organizing articles as needed.
Additionally, this release unveils one-click extension updates which greatly simplifies the process of adding extensions. Sites can now be built in multiple languages with the new multi-language functionality.
In addition, developers and implementers will enjoy the new ability Joomla 1.6 provides in allowing extensions to be built with granular control and permissions. This makes it easier to create more advanced, enterprise-focused applications and extensions for Joomla.
“The current Joomla Platform provides developers with the tools they need to rapidly build the Web of the future,” said Ron Severdia, a member of the Joomla production leadership team. “Although 1.6 is being released today, the Joomla production team is not resting on its laurels. We’re hard at work developing even more powerful Joomla features for the future, such as new search capabilities and new ways to leverage website content.”
