Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS) that enables the creation of websites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease of use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular website software. Best of all, it is an open-source solution that is freely available to everyone.
Since Joomla is based on PHP and MySQL, youโre building powerful applications on an open platform anyone can use, share, and support. A content management system is software that keeps track of every piece of content on your Website.
Similar to how a local public library keeps track of and stores books, content can include simple text, photos, music, videos, documents, or nearly anything imaginable.
A major advantage of using a CMS is that it requires minimal technical skill or knowledge to manage. Since the CMS handles all your content, you do not have to.
Hence, Joomla! is an international project with users and contributors worldwide. It is easy to install and set up, even for beginners. Many web hosting services offer a single-click installation, allowing you to get your new site up and running in just a few minutes. As a Web designer or developer, you can quickly build sites for your clients. Then, with minimal instruction, you can enable your clients to manage their sites easily.
Joomla is used everywhere in the world to power websites of all sizes and shapes:
- Corporate websites or portals
- Corporate intranets and extranets
- Online magazines, newspapers, and publications
- E-commerce and online reservations
- Government functions
- Small business websites
- Non-profit and organizational websites
- Community-based portals
- School and church websites
- Personal or household homepages
Many companies and organizations have requirements that exceed what is available in the basic package. In these cases, Joomla’s powerful application framework allows developers to create sophisticated add-ons that extend Joomla’s capabilities in virtually unlimited directions.
The core framework enables developers to quickly and easily build:
- Inventory management systems
- Data reporting tools
- Application bridges
- Custom product catalogs
- Integrated e-commerce systems
- Complex business directories
- Reservation systems
- Communication tools
Whatโs New in Joomla 5.2.0 and 4.4.9
Whatโs new in Joomla 5?
- Dark Mode in Administrator: Joomla 5 boasts a more refined dark mode, not just for users but also for administrators.
- Web Assets and Caching: Many improvements to the web asset caching
- Schema.org Integration: Automatic activation of Schema.org data for organization and site names enhances search engine optimization.
- Code Optimisation: Speed advancements are noticed due to automatic source code optimization through the phpcs fixer.
- PHP & Bootstrap Updates: Improved compatibility with PHP 8+ and an update to Bootstrap 5.3.2 ensures that the platform remains contemporary.
- User Interface: Enhancements in dark mode for the Atum administrator template and the new Joomla modal window for select buttons promise a smoother user experience.
- Tools & Plugins: The TinyMCE editor has been updated to version 6.7, adding image alignment features. Several scheduled tasks have been moved to scheduler plugins, enhancing system performance.
- Media Management: AVIF support in the media manager and the ability to exclude archived content from smart search indexing improve media handling capabilities.
- Menu sorting: This feature allows you to sort the menu your preferred way.
- Enhanced Security: Events have been migrated to their respective classes, and removing non-functional Recaptcha plugins enhances security.
- Modern Technologies: Internal code restructuring focuses on utilizing more modern APIs. JS Import map support has been added for Web Asset Manager, along with deprecated fixes for PHP 8.2.
- Extensions & Compatibility: Joomla 5 introduces Fontawesome 6.4, and Codemirror 6, and has updated its Webauthn Library. Joomla requires PHP 8.2, MySQL 8.0.13+, MariaDB 10.4+, and PostgreSQL 12+ for optimal performance.
- Cleaner Code Base: Joomla 5 emphasizes code cleanliness. The transition from older APIs, removal of es5 support, and other heavily coded cleanups ensure the CMS runs efficiently.