3 minutes reading time (541 words)

Getting extensions ready for Joomla 4: Søren Beck Jensen (Component Creator)

November-Componentcreator Component Creator

Joomla 4 Beta 5 has been released, meaning that the Release Candidate version is one step closer. The Joomla Community Magazine continues to approach developers, to see first-hand how they are preparing for the arrival of the next major version of Joomla.

On this occasion, it is the turn of Søren Beck Jensen, the man behind Component Creator, a component to create components.

First of all, we want to thank Søren for the time he has taken to answer our questions.

What will happen with the extensions when Joomla 4 is released? Will they be compatible, or will the developers have to provide complete new versions?

In Component Creator, we have implemented the ability to generate Joomla 4 compatible components, and we have seen an increasing number of users using the feature which means we have been getting bug reports and fixing bugs. We will continue to support building Joomla 3 components as well for as long as Joomla supports it.

Most of our users are developers who develop custom solutions for clients, so many of them are now getting ready to upgrade these components to be Joomla 4 compatible. I don’t think we have many developers who are developing components for public release.

What should users do when they migrate to J4 with the extensions? What should they expect from their extension providers?

This question is not so related with Component Creator, but I am not such a big fan of ever ending backwards compatibility. It just creates a lot of junk code. So I feel that extension developers should, of course, provide a Joomla 4 compatible version and I feel that they should offer a data migration of some sorts. But I do not necessarily think that it should be possible to 1-click upgrade from 3 to 4.

As a developer, it is important to start working on the update as soon as possible?

Honestly… with the slow releases from Joomla, I am not so sure it is important. It is important to keep an eye on the discussions and on what changes we can expect. If you are developing some of the most popular extensions for Joomla, then yes. You need to keep up with Joomla and prepare a Joomla 4 release version of your extension quickly after Joomla releases a new alpha or beta release. This is so you can launch your Joomla 4 compatible extension immediately after Joomla 4 is released.

How the different types of versions impact on the update of extensions (alpha, beta, RC)

In Component Creator we do not pay much attention to Alpha releases, but when a beta is out we check for feature changes and try to get them implemented so the components our users generate follow the standards.

How do you expect the launch of Joomla 4 to impact your business?

I think a lot of users will scramble to get their sites upgraded to Joomla 4 when it is out. They will probably realize that some extensions they use will not have a compatible version, and they might decide to develop their own using Component Creator so all in all I am hoping that this will bring many developers who are looking to speed up their Joomla 4 development.

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