Joomla! 3.4 - What to expect

The tireless Joomla! community are slowly getting closer to a release date for the much anticipated Joomla 3.4 so today we have decided to go through some of the features we can look forward to with this release.

Those who have been watching this space for a while would have noticed the suggested release date of July has been extended. Time-lines are a tricky thing when dealing with any project and in this Joomla! is no different especially considering the volunteer nature of the community.

Following are some of the features you can expect to find in the upcoming release of Joomla 3.4..

Decoupling of Components from New Installs

Joomla! by default includes a number of extension packages when first installed. In a lot of cases these extensions tend to go unused so in Joomla! 3.4 you will see the first de-coupling of an extension. In particular you will see the removal of the 'Weblinks' component and all its modules and plugins. If you wish to use this extension you have no need to worry as it will be made available as a separate installation. I believe this to be an important first step in making Joomla a more accessible and streamline CMS and easing the learning curve for those starting out with Joomla.

Composer Integration

This release will allow you to update your dependencies including Joomla! Framework classes via Composer. Composer is a dependency manager for PHP allowing you to pull in all the required libraries, dependencies and manage them all in one place.

Continued Microdata Integration

Joomla! 3.3 brought the introduction of Microdata to your articles, making your Joomla content more readable and understandable to other computers. This allows things like search engines to better understand your site content therefore improving SEO and accessibility. In Joomla! 3.4 you can expect additional flexibility to the Microdata library as well as greater integration with core layouts.

Frontend Module Editing

On of the most looked forward to features of Joomla! 3.4 is the introduction of front end editing for modules. Originally it was hoped that this feature could be added in Joomla 3.3 however that not been the case we will finally get to enjoy in Joomla 3.4. Once logged in a site administrator can hover over any module to display an edit icon. Clicking on this edit icon will open the settings for your module all within your site frontend. This is great for giving your clients extra control in editing their site content without having to dive in to the Joomla backend. No longer will you have to explain that only articles can be edited from the frontend.

On a finishing note all our templates and extensions have been tested with the development version of Joomla 3.4 with out any issues. As before this update is available via the one click update process within you Joomla administration.