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[ithacaindy Friend ithacaindyJoin date: January 2010Posts: 335Downloads:0Uploads:10 Thanks: 20 Thanked: 12 times in 1 posts]

#159796

The future of a K2-enabled Joomla 1.6 Teline IV may be very uncertain, following a Joomlaworks blog post published Feb. 4 (Friday).

The blog post, entitled “Why We’re Not Porting K2 to Joomla 1.6…”, says the the 1.6 lifecycle is too short (work on Joomla 1.7 supposedly begins in June) and the “unnecessary workload” 1.6 imposes on developers of free extensions, such as K2.

The post notes the largest addition to 1.6 – ACL security – is already available in the Joomla 1.5 version of K2.

“Now that 1.6 is out and to further prove our point on “practical ACL”, we plan to roll either a new component or a system plugin to allow Joomla! 1.5 and K2 users to control even “content viewing” in the frontend for guests or registered users. Maybe we’ll even work on a cool solution for the backend of Joomla! 1.5 as well…”

But here is the nail in the coffin for those expecting to see a Joomla 1.6 version of K2:

“Sorry folks, but unless something significantly changes on how Joomla! perceives the life cycle of a version, we do not plan to port K2 to Joomla! 1.6. It’s wasted time for a product which will last 6 months. It will be at least 40 days down the drain for us.”

Myself, I’ll likely either stick with Joomla 1.5 or move production to another CMS.

[Arvind Chauhan Moderator Arvind ChauhanJoin date: September 2014Posts: 3835Downloads:74Uploads:92 Thanks: 1240 Thanked: 1334 times in 848 posts]

#375374

Hi There,

We are closely following up the issue. There are two blog posts on K2 blog and few similar stuff going on in the people.joomla.org and other places also.

We do not want to jump in on anything right now and we are committed to provide K2 support whenever it would be released.

Arvind

[obliat Friend obliatJoin date: December 2010Posts: 416Downloads:12Uploads:64 Thanks: 108 Thanked: 31 times in 1 posts]

#375382

Yeah, that made me rooback to Teline IV for J1.5 – K2 Blog feature is a great tool and with K2 J1.6 support uncertain the way to get it back was downgrading. But everyone looking to make the best of Teline IV J1.6 should absolutely go for it.

[matteo2501 Friend matteo2501Join date: January 2011Posts: 35Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 6]

#375396

What do you (i mean joomlart developer) think about j 1.6. capability? Do you really think we should keep 1.5? anyway how do you think we can jump from 1.5 directly to 1.7 ?. Is 1.6 a real improvement of joomla?

[coalition Friend coalitionJoin date: December 2010Posts: 106Downloads:0Uploads:8 Thanks: 5 Thanked: 18 times in 1 posts]

#375398

I’d like to throw my two cents in here, if you don’t mind.

Although Joomla1.6 is a slight improvement over 1.5, I fail to see any enhancements that make 1.6 a major upgrade. ACL is fine but 1.6 requires a lot of rewriting and re-structuring to use, and porting seemlessly from 1.5 to 1.6 is impossible. Also, ACL from the core joomla is not a significant benefit, because most extensions requiring it have their own ACL methods, in spite of Joomla’s new ACL.

Another benefit of 1.6 is the fact that the file count for core operations is a bit lower than it is for 1.5, which helps reduce server loads, etc., but 1.6 is slower than 1.5 on my hostgator accounts and my MAMP.

Enabling the newer “profiles” in 1.6 adds some core benefits, but 1.6 is not widely accepted as a good upgrade because not all extensions developers have embraced it. It may be a waste for them to do so at this point, considering it’s been given such a short life cycle.

K2 is an awesome extension, and like many others, I have come to love and rely on it. K2’s devs are right, I think. I’m not jumping into Joomla 1.6, as I expect 1.7 may have even more core structural changes, and I like to avoid frustration whenever I can. Why waste time changing core structures on a system that will die young? LOL. Also, when is 1.7 expected to be released? Two years, three?

I expected a lot more from the joomla core dev team, but I guess this was a more difficult rewrite to achieve than expected. For me, Joomla1.6 has been quite a bit slower than 1.5, so, I don’t know what’s going on. At this point, I would not recommend upgrading “established sites” from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6. There’s too much work involved to achieve such slight enhancements.

K2 has an export feature which makes things a lot easier for me, and I’m wondering why Joomla doesn’t have that as well.

I’m pretty much disappointed by 1.6 and will not upgrade to it at all.

Walt.

[Phill Moderator PhillJoin date: February 2014Posts: 7013Downloads:40Uploads:77 Thanks: 917 Thanked: 2206 times in 1818 posts]

#375403

I’m not a JA developer but here are my opinions anyway.

J1.6 is despite what it may seem IS a big step forward. Aside from the ACL there is a lot going on under the surface making it a better package overall by quite a long way. The only short term issue holding me back from using it are the lack of extensions available, I am awaiting some specific ones to be ready. The same was said about J1.0 at the time an look how far we have come.

Having said all that I have no real need to upgrade apart from the fact I want to. My sites are all running well and only 1 would benefit from the ACL but I have a core hack in place giving the functionality I need.

As for waiting for 1.7 that is a choice only you can make. If all your requirements are available now and you are building a new site then I see no reason not to jump onto J1.6. If the Joomla team are to be believed then the jump to 1.7 should be painless. Until we actually see the development of J1.7 who can truely say. Would you not go out and buy a new TV just incase a better model comes along in 6 months?

As for K2, some of its features are built into J1.6, others can be replaced with alternatives or in some cases are built into JA ja templates. If K2 wantto continue growing their userbase then they really need to jump onboard and develop new and exciting features to complement J1.6 an onwards.

1 user says Thank You to Phill for this useful post

1. obliat

[matteo2501 Friend matteo2501Join date: January 2011Posts: 35Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 6]

#375406

I’ve already a copy-of-my-site upgraded to 1.6, i’ts been a hard work to do, but i think that going trought 1.6 will be easier to jump to 1.7. I don’t think that a 1.5 to 1.7 migration tool will be developed (or ill work better than 1.5 to 1.6 migration tool).

I’ve hear that a 1.6.1 patch relase is on the go,and will also involve databases. That’s not a good news for us, unti we’re working on our site to migrate them manually form one relase to another.

K2 developer cha make their own chose, but i think that waiting 2 years for a 1.7 will make them loose the 1.6 market as you already told. What to do? By now i’ve migrate one of tree of mi site, i think i’ll stop and wait, but this kind of panic can turn new users to other cms.

If a new version is relased, everyone must agree about it, else new users will see you as not organized, and not stable product and turn to other cms…on italian forum i see peolpe asking “what’s better?” and they receive answer like “is your chose!”.
If there is a new version it must be better according to anyone, or there can’t be a new version at all! So if you relase 1.6 you have to bring them on or people will panic.

[cgc0202 Friend cgc0202Join date: August 2007Posts: 2244Downloads:0Uploads:3 Thanks: 206 Thanked: 262 times in 1 posts]

#375427

Joomlaworks is notorious for very very slow upgrade. What’s new about that??? Let me cite an example.

I happen to like some of the extensions of Joomlaworks, including Simple Image Gallery PRO, (SIGPRO). Their Frontpage slideshow is also used by many professional sites. And, of course, their K2 has gained a following. I knew about K2 because I used to follow the Joomlaworks forum. I was hesitant to use more Joomlaworks extensions though, unless it is very essential to what I want to do.

SIGPRO is great

I have used so many photogalleries, slideshows, etc. but not too many can do what I want, to display unique set of images, as a group and as a slideshow, if needed. Also, it must be easy to setup and will not result in multiple sets of images sizes from the original to display any size you want. SIGPRO met all that.

It is a very simple module to allow you to create photogalleries (even slide show, if you want in indvidual pages. It is very easy to use. Just place your images — I might add, of any size, in a folder and add a very simple one-line script in your article and you can have a slide-show unique for each page, of any size smaller than the original that you wanted). And unlike the Joomlart Hot Topic module, the images resize properly. Add text to a text file, if you want caption.

Change your mind? Don’t like the size? No problem. Just change the specified dimensions in the one-line script. Want to change the images, add images? No problem. Just add or delete the images that you placed in the directory. Want to place the slide show elsewhere? No problem. Just move the one-line script. Want to change the framing of the slideshow. You can do that too, etc., etc., etc.

But,, and it is a big but…Or, the thing with Joomlaworks

When it comes to update or upgrade… this simple plugin extension took more than two years from the time Joomlaworks announced all their big plans to improve SIGPRO. Technical support??? You should read some of their subscribers voice their frustrations.

Joomlaworks knew about the developments of Joomla 1.6. The free very I was surprised has been upgraded, but until now, they have not upgraded the professional version. If they can’t do a simple upgrade fro a very simple plugin fast enough, why would we think they would be faster in upgrading their more complex K2 product?

Experiences, like this, from third party developers, were among the reasons I pared in adding too many third party extensions into the Joomla CMS. Instead, if I like one, I decouple them, like the forum, and just link the forum to the Joomla main site.

When is Joomla 1.7 be really out?

If memory serves me, they have been talking about the white papers for Joomla 1.6, since 2008, if not late 2007. The first stable release is January 2011 — more than two years almost three since it was planned. This is not unique with Joomla… after all, it is a voluntary endeavor.

Sure ACL is not new

I have been asking for this since like forever. And, they are standard in many open source — TikiWiki (since 2004 when I tried the latter CMS). Open source Forum softwares, like TMF, have even more sophisticated ACL, but not as refined as that of TikiWiki.

It is a big deal to have an ACL in a website, especially in a site where you solicit contributions from your community of subscribers. It is not foolproof, but it allows the webmaster, or website creator, how your content is read, edited, etc.

I am disappointed myself that Joomla has not taken more steps to improve security, especially in the first step, the registration process.

No matter how good Joomlaworks is.

Joomlaworks, even if it were very good, is a commercial company. I do not know how big it is or how dedicated the staff are, but from my experience with them, it is not very big. Otherwise, it should have taken them faster to upgrade their extensions — we are talking extensions here, not whole CMS.

From their track record, I am hesitant to cast my fate on Joomlaworks, or base my plans on their own projected direction.

If someone knows a Joomla compatible slideshow, as versatile and as portable (page specific) gallery extension, as SIGPRO, kindly let me know.

The grass is always greener, elsewhere.

Frankly, I am also disappointed with the pace of improvements in Joomla, but when I was looking at alternatives since 2005, I thought Joomla had a very vibrant and energetic core staff of developers. One of them was even my country, and I had a chance to correspond with him, at the time when they forked from Mambo.

But, from my experience, most open source initiatives have the same problem… they are so slow, and you have no guarantee when you get the things you want…. after all, it is all a voluntary initiative.

I have not used Drupal yet because I do not know much about the core staff, or how good they are in terms of improving their CMS. I do not want to simply jump ship, and be experiencing the same woes again.

I considered customized template/CMS, but to do so would make you dependent on a single person. What is their was a security leak, or if something in the script has malfunctioned? What if the creator moved on?

Cornelio

[cgc0202 Friend cgc0202Join date: August 2007Posts: 2244Downloads:0Uploads:3 Thanks: 206 Thanked: 262 times in 1 posts]

#375429

Here’s a quote from the Joomlaworks site, on SIGPRO:

<blockquote>
WHAT NEXT?
v2 includes many enhancements in the background which will enable us to make it the best gallery extension for Joomla! by far with the addition of: subtemplating for your galleries and a component to quickly create, organize and insert them inside your Joomla! articles. We’re already preparing these for v2.1 – which will come sooner than 1.3 got to 2.0.

More about the new Simple Image Gallery PRO features in coming blog posts here, at the JoomlaWorks blog.

Last Updated ( Friday, 17 April 2009 )

</blockquote>

Note the date it was updated — early 2009, almost two years since it was announced, that is from 2.0.x to 2.1. That is the definition of faster... from Joomlaworks perspective.

Imagine then how long it took for them to go from 1.3 to 2.0. And, it is not like they revolutionized how slideshows or galleries work.

Cornelio

[ithacaindy Friend ithacaindyJoin date: January 2010Posts: 335Downloads:0Uploads:10 Thanks: 20 Thanked: 12 times in 1 posts]

#375431

I have quite a bit of experience with Drupal, having run a news site on the CMS. While most chatter about Drupal is that it is a darn steep hilll to climb (particularly if you don’t have a dedicated IT shop at your beck-and-call), one advantage I found is that it is rock solid. The contributed themes (the free, that is) are usually gawd-awful to look at, but the innards are a beauty. This contrasts with Joomla (and I’m not knocking Joomla – I use it) in that J! has gorgeous templates – the envy of everyone – but its infrastructure can be pretty weak. Drupal, by the way, has a content construction kit built into the CMS – and there is a Joomla-to-Drupal module that’ll quickly convert your articles to Drupal articles, your categories to Drupal taxonomy and other items.

If J1.6 didn’t solve some of the problems with J1.5, I wouldn’t consider trying to fix something that’s not broken. I like the ACL of 1.6 and the ditching of sections. However, to gain those features, I have to do without some core functionality – such as automatically updating my twitter/facebook feeds, event calendars and such.

This puts Joomla users in a tight spot: stick with a flawed (but adopted) version, or solve the mistakes of 1.5, but be left out in the cold. This whole ‘well, Joomla is a volunteer effort, so we have to understand the slowness/problems’ would be fine if it were a completely volunteer effort. But extension developers are making money hands-over-fist selling fixes for the core. If I pay someone $100 for an application, I expect that application to stay current.

As for K2, they’ve shot themselves in the foot. I’ll dump K2 in favor of the internal Joomla 1.6 article wrapped in the fine JA Teline IV theming. I’ll use the TwitterFeed service to send updates to Twitter (where Facebook will automatically update my FB page.)

[Nick R JA JobBoard Nick RJoin date: August 2009Posts: 284Downloads:0Uploads:9 Thanks: 12 Thanked: 20 times in 1 posts]

#375439

Just a note from my side:
Every new website im going to build will be on J1.6 as soon as more templates are ready for them. A lot of great extensions are already supported. Sure, it depends on what kind of site you build, but for most sites there is no need to wait.
Even if the guys from Joomla are heading over for J1.7 (which is a natural progress, who want to stand still? Everything is in a movement and it should!) it will take more than just 6 months. I won’t expect it before the end of 2012 or early 2013…
And i would say, upgrading from J1.6 to J1.7 would be much easier than from J1.5.
If i would wait for every new release of a product to top the actual model, i would not have a TV or mac, or any other thing.

About K2…
Well, I really like this extension and use it on all my sites. You know why we use K2 on J1.5. But i can’t find a need for it in J1.6. I have this feature of categories built in, so why should i need another extension? We have to face it: It IS going to be a hard time for K2. And to drop J1.6 and concentrating on J1.7 is a huge wrong turn, they will loose more members with this step.

Summary:
Despide what a lot of people say, i recommend using J1.6. Only if a couple of guys are using it and reporting bugs, we get a steady development.
IF you don’t need ACL and nested categories etc, no need to change. But building a new website, should based on J1.6, who knows how long J1.5 will be supported…

A big thank you to Joomlart for developing templates and updating extensions to J1.6 as one of the first clubs. Well, I guess it is the only club with such a support for J1.6. Thank you!

Cheers
Nick

[cgc0202 Friend cgc0202Join date: August 2007Posts: 2244Downloads:0Uploads:3 Thanks: 206 Thanked: 262 times in 1 posts]

#375440

Ithacaindy,

What do you mean exactly by rocksolid when it comes to Drupal? Is the ACL more granular than Joomla?

The ACL of Joomla is still rather primitive. That of SMF, I can create an unlimited number of groups and really fine tune the permissions systems, more like TikiWiki. And, the access control is even more refined with TikiWiki. The webwaster can even institute a lock mechanism to prevent randomize guessing of passwords to gain entry via the login. And, a very refined registration process as a first defense from spammars and robots.

And, what is steep in the learning process of Drupal? Does it use a WYSIWYG kind of edit and composition or does it use weird syntax like many of the Wikis? I miss Wiki’s simplicity of creating links. TikiWiki just got so bulky (but Teline is now getting there, so I am rethinking the whole stuff). The MediaWiki is more simple, but I do not want the free-wheeling anyone can edit concept of Wikipedia.

is there a similar easy install process in Drupal, like Joomla? And, how is the community forum of Drupal?

My webhosting service actually supports Drupal more than Joomla. They also noted the security issues related to Joomla so they turned on something in the servers to monitor entries to a site more vigorously.

Cornelio

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