Joomla! Community Magazine™

[ this article is part of a series ]

After a few years of no Dutch JoomlaDays, it was finally time again!
On Friday 12 and Saturday 13 May 2023, the Joomla Netherlands Foundation organized the JoomlaDagen for the 15th time. The ROC in Tilburg (a school focused on IT education) was our host for this edition. We have been given three rooms to organize the sessions in, in addition to the general room where the canteen was also located.

I remember when the internet was first popularised and the words “world wide web” and “internet” became essential for any headline writer. Soon after the point that the average person in the street would rant “If I hear one more mention of this wibbly wobbly web thingy Im going to” and you can use your own imagination to end that sentence.

If you want to learn more about Joomla, you have the Joomla documentation, tutorials (written ones, like the ones in the Joomla Community Magazine, and video tutorials), or you can ask questions in the forum, on social media, in the Joomla Improvers channel on Mattermost or on StackExchange. But, people, nothing beats a book. Yes, a book. With pages, and all the information nicely structured in chapters and paragraphs. Are you looking for books about Joomla 4? We hear you: here’s a list of books! For beginners, experienced users, and developers. Start reading!

“The Article Newsflash Module will display a fixed number of Articles from a specific Category or a set of Categories.”

Newsflash? Sounds dramatic doesn’t it? It suggests breaking news that is so important that it interrupts everything else. And maybe you have news that your website visitors really have to see over any other content. Lucky then that this is a module, and we can place modules almost anywhere in Joomla.

For a long time now we have been interviewing lots of Joomler volunteers and Joomla Teams. Now it is time to introduce a new series, interviewing Joomla User Groups (JUG). Are you in a JUG? Then we’d love to get to know you!

JoomlaDayUSA, in its third year, was finally able to meet in person. The conference was held entirely virtual for the first two years - which was a challenge in and of itself. 2023's conference, held in Austin, Texas, was also attended worldwide in a hybrid format. This statement screams success to those who took an idea and brought it to life four years ago.

This is the second part of the small series of 3 articles about the Contact Component (com_contact).

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

Wait, what? Joomla 5? Surely that’s a typo?
It is not. You read correctly: Joomla 5 is on the horizon and due to land in October 2023. JCM has the pleasure to meet with Release Manager Harald Leithner, who is excited about all the improvements coming our way!

What’s in store for Joomla 4.4? JCM meets the Release Managers, Allon Moritz and Martin Kopp. Let’s find out who they are and what they like most about Joomla 4!

The CloudFest Hackathon is an annual event in Rust (Germany) that brings together developers, designers, and open source enthusiasts from around the world. They collaborate and innovate on various projects, aiming to create cutting-edge solutions that address different challenges in the world of web hosting and content management systems. Like last year, a team worked on a new core Joomla feature: a multidomain solution. In this interview, Elisa Foltyn and Timo Feuerstein tell us what happened. 

At the moment of writing (mid April 2023), Crystal Dionysopoulos has survived her first few weeks as President of the Board of Directors of Open Source Matters (the organisation that powers Joomla). We at the JCM are very curious about our new president: what is she like, what will she bring and how can we all help her move Joomla forward?

FOSS Backstage is an annual conference in Berlin that is all about the behind-the-scenes work at open source projects, from community management to leadership. Robert Deutz, Sigrid Gramlinger, Jules Weigel, and I were lucky to attend on March 13th and 14th on behalf of Joomla. We all learned a lot from the diverse and engaging sessions, all of which were recorded and are freely available. Here are some of my top takeaways from the two days of learning and networking!

If you are a movie buff then you will have recognised the title of this article as a quotation from the Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams. But like all great quotations, that everyone knows, it is never said in the movie. The actual line is "If they build it he will come".

Get a brief overview of OSM happenings from the current board president. 

In the last magazine article: Guiding you through Guided Tours, we looked at guided tours (available in Joomla 4.3) and walked through their use. We stopped at the point of creating a guided tour as an administrator and as a developer.
Now we will finish that journey so you can build your own!

There are events, people, that illustrate the international and building side of Joomla.
Olivier Buisard of Simplifyyourweb grew up in France but his career path brought him closer to Open Source Matters' headquarters. Since then, he has lived in New York, but still has ties to his home country.

If anyone knows from personal experience what it’s like to be on the Board of Directors of Open Source Matters (the organisation powering Joomla), it would be Luca Marzo. He recently started his seventh term as Secretary of the Board, elected by us, the people of Joomla. After six terms on the Board, is there still any fun left? And what makes a good Board? Read and find out!

[ this article is part of a series - see part 1 here ]