A few people have been asking about Joomla! 1.6 over the past few meetups.  I have been pointing people to a few online resources for info about the development path where there are some predictions about the first stable release.  If you can't wait and you want to play around with an alpha install.  I have done one, and I will create an admin login for anyone that wants to play around... just register and e-mail me.

Joomla! 1.6 Alpha Test Site

In our last meetup I quick tour through using the popular JoomFish component to build an intelligent multilingual website using Joomla!  Having used this component to build my first multilingual website, I was quite impressed with its ease of use in pairing up content, menu, and module items for different languages.

Find out more about JoomFish at these links.

• Joom!Fish project website
• Joom!Fish JED entry
• Language Translations

Our friends at APIN.com have asked an interesting question...

 

 

 

What does it take in raw content load to bring Joomla! 1.5 to its knees?

If you want to see how Joomla! responds loaded with content, there is now a test site up for you to check out...

Can You Put 100,000 Articles Into Joomla?

We looked for this answer, but none was to be found.   Can Joomla do really LARGE websites?    That's our question and here's our answer...

A large website, Joomla or any other, is more than 50,000 articles.   For most, this would never even be a concern.   But for those of you with large aspirations, the answer is not a simple yes. 

I recently finished my first technical editing job on this Wiley plublication distributed through their developer series of books, WROX programmer to programmer.  I will have a fresh copy hot off the presses for one lucky user group member to borrow, another copy signed by the technical editor is available... but the cost is pretty steep.

Beginning Joomla! Web Site Development Cory Webb ISBN: 978-0-470-43853-4 Paperback 312 pages April 2009 If you are an instructor, you may request an evaluation copy for this title.

Our last meeting was held at the new facilities for the Motor City Free Geek Technical Center.

31690 Ryan Rd.
Warren, MI 48092

Special thanks to Ken and the Motor City Free Geek folks.

Motor City Free Geek is a small group of computer enthusiasts in the Detroit area who are banding together to share the joy of making the world a better place doing what they like to do best. In our attempts to find the most useful way to connect to our community, we have joined with a group known as Free Geek. Free Geek takes donated gently used computers and recycles them.

http://motorcityfreegeek.org/

The Joomla Project announces the immediate availability of Joomla 1.5.15 [Wojmamni ama mamni]. It has been three months since Joomla 1.5.14 was released on July 30, 2009.

The Development Working Group's goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla community.

Download

Click here to download Joomla 1.5.15 (Full package) »

Click here to find an update package. »

Durring the last couple of user group meetings the very real question of...

"What does Joomla! 1.6 look like and when does it get released"

... has  been posed.  I have done a little bit of research on this and I have put together a couple of resources below for those folks interested in knowing about the forthcoming developments of Joomla! 1.6

 What will it look like?

There are a few major changes happening to Joomla!'s ACL (access control levels), that is how you control what people are allowed to do and see on the site.  This is a major change that a host of existing plugins and components are currently trying to deal with and I imagine a bunch of current components will become obsolete over night for new projects and many new horizons of development will be opened up.

Check out this video tour by Amy Stephen of the Joomla! Development Team.

When will it get released?

http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla!_1.6_Development_Status

The short and smarmy answer I have found on the forums is "when it is done!", here is a forum thread with some decent information.  I have not seen anything committing to a particular release schedule.  Hey, this is open source community development not corporate software, insert winking smiley here.

Here is the developers Google Group

So, if you really want to know, these are the places to look and ask questions.

The Joomla! Detroit User's Group is proud to be sponosored by PACKT Publishing.  PACKT has agreed to offer us a generous discount on all of thier books along with a complimentary set of publications specifically related to Joomla!, PHP, MYSQL, and web development.  If you are getting ready to purchase some books, just e-mail me and I will pass along the code to you.  If you have a request for a complimentary book, feel free to bring me the request as well.

Thanks PACKT!

• PACKT Publishing