Joomla! Community Magazine™

The JCM Team is proud to present you the October Issue of the Joomla! Community Magazine.

The advent of Joomla 5 heralds a new era for web developers and site managers, as it promises a suite of enhancements, optimisations, and fixes that streamline website creation and management. As we delve into the new features and improvements, it's pivotal to appreciate the developmental strides and transformations from Joomla 4 to Joomla 5.

These are more than just code!

For the July 2023 issue I had written a Joomla Magazine article about my first experiences with Joomla 5.0alpha1. I started with an empty installation and tried out some features: Creating articles, installing and using extensions. Now we are in October 2023. The final release of Joomla 5.0.0 is out since October 17, 2023, as well as the “bridge release” Joomla 4.4.0. One day later, I had all my sites on J4.4.0 without significant difficulties.

My next goal was a reality check for Joomla 5.0.0!

We all know that volunteering is a challenging decision and time consuming. In the case of Joomla, it can also be very difficult for no tech people and for non native English speakers.

So you created your own Joomla extension, maybe for a client, maybe for general usage, and now you're wondering how to best manage it for the future. You will have to handle bugfixes, store it somehow, create releases and maybe improve it with new features. So how could we do this? There are several ways you can do this, but today I'd like to show you the one possible solution that works good for me.

“fyi now that the main joomla.org site is on j4. my next target is the magazine”. That was the first sentence of the very first direct message I ever got from George Wilson. Followed by a link, and “i've got a backup here that i'll be working on over the next few weeks. don't need anything from you either (for now). but just to make you aware so that when the moment comes it isn't a total surprise”.

Come and meet Joomla User Group Wien! It has been active for almost a decade now and also looking for new Joomlers to come and visit. This time we found Florian available to answer our questions. I would’ve loved to do it in person, as I (Hans) liked Vienna when I was there for a half marathon. But enough about me, let’s go and start the interview.

Sigrid Gramlinger loves to contribute to Joomla. In her opinion, her role as newly elected Production Department Coordinator entails: making sure everyone in the department does their work the best way possible, providing them with a safe and pleasant place where they can excel and grow together, and keep improving Joomla so it remains the best CMS to create websites with. 

What is our marketing strategy? How are we going to increase our volunteer base? What will we do to make Joomla more popular? These are just a few of the issues on the plate of Joomla’s Outreach Department. Right up the alley for Louise Hawkins, who was the Marketing Team Lead until she got elected as Outreach Department Coordinator.

Maybe you’re wondering if volunteering for Joomla is your thing. You might be uncertain about your English or your knowledge, or about what would be expected in terms of commitment and time. I get that. I was really hesitant about all these things myself. But I did it anyway, I found a team that suits me, started working, and soon discovered that volunteering can be rewarding in ways I had never expected. And I’m not the only one: in this article, five Joomlers tell us what volunteering brings for them! 

She has been passionate about Joomla since version 2.5, and over the years become more involved in the Joomla Community. After her first term as Joomla’s treasurer on the Board of Open Source Matters, she got re-elected for a second term. It very much looks like together is her favorite word. Here’s Nadja Lamisch!

Our journey is coming to an end… 

Joomla 4.3 Co-Release Managers Olivier and SD, share their experience as release managers now that their branch has been surpassed by the release of 4.4 and 5.0.

Four years have passed since our last encounter at JoomlaDay Madrid 2019. The enthusiasm for reuniting with old friends, meeting new people, and exchanging the latest insights into Joomla and web development was tangible. This is how this JoomlaDay ES 2023 went.

Rolf Dautrich was a professional in IT and one day he was asked to create a website, and he chose Joomla. Since this time, this site has got some brothers and sisters. As he described himself, he is a hobbyist who doesn't create websites commercially, only for “friends and family”. Let's listen to his story, which has followed the development of Joomla from the outset and throughout version changes.

Joomla documentation is plentiful and easy for anyone to contribute to. Over the years the Joomla Documentation Wiki has grown considerably, which in itself is good, but also brings challenges.