Joomla 3.5 is Coming!
On 27th January 2016 Joomla announced the release of Joomla 3.5 beta. Like any beta version this release is for testing purposes and should not be used on production servers. There will be no upgrade from this beta version to the final stable release. If you want to help out the Joomla community by testing this new version, or are just curious to find out what it's like, it would be best to run a clean installation on a test server or create a copy of your existing setup and install the beta there.
What's New in Joomla 3.5
Here are some of the new features you can expect to find in this new version:
System Plugin: Joomla Update Notification
It is important to keep Joomla updated, as updates often contain important security fixes. This new plugin will allow you to select an email address (Must be an existing super user) so that whenever a new update is released you will be notified directly by email.
System Plugin: Joomla Statistics
In order to keep improving Joomla, the developers who work on the Joomla project need information to help them understand Joomla users habits and preferences. This plugin helps the developers to help you by sending anonymous data to the Joomla server. Now you can do your bit to help the Joomla project simply by using this plugin.
Drag & Drop images in the TinyMCE editor
There is an update to the TinyMCE editor, and the layout has changed slightly. You can now see the buttons for adding images, read more etc without having to scroll down. Additionally the editor now supports drag & drop for images in the editor window. You only have to drop the image you want to use into the editor area and the file is automatically uploaded to the server and inserted in your content
PHP7 & No Backwards Compatibility
Due to changes with PHP 7, Joomla 3.5 may not be compatible with plugins and extensions released previously. Because of this you should test all of your third party extensions before upgrading to prevent any issues. According to the Joomla.org website, this is a very minor change and they do not expect any issues from it.
Other features that might get into the new version
- Count items
- Ability to add a user CSS file to Protostar
- Add site and admin links to Module User
- Download system/environment information
When is the stable release due?
Although the date keeps changing, the current expected release date is February 17th, 2016. You can stay updated about the Joomla 3.5 release date here.
Component Creator compatibility
We have tested various components and found that there has been changes in the way tags fields are managed. Com_tags now uses a generic helper file instead of its own. We have adapted our components so tag fields will work in 3.5 and previous version of 3.x series except from 3.0 (Tags were added in the 3.1 version of Joomla)
