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[iguinee Friend iguineeJoin date: December 2009Posts: 453Downloads:10Uploads:39 Thanks: 58 Thanked: 32 times in 1 posts]

#161101

Hi All,

We were all waiting for J! 1.6 and it arrived with much hope. However, may be after reading what is to follow, you will reconsider your decision.

I was waiting for k2 to go J! 1.6 before upgrading to the latest Joomla!, then I learned that K2 is not planning to be compatible with J! 1.6.

6 Reasons why not J! 1.6

1. J! 1.6 is still new
2. there are still many extensions that are not J! 1.6 compatible (as of 6th March 2011, almost 3 months after it was lunched)
3. the migration from J! 1.5 to J! 1.6 is not yet that fluid and require hours and hours of work
4. J! 1.6 is not staying for long as the developers are already thinking about developing J! 1.7 around summer this year
5. J! 1.5 still works and has many extensions
6. if you have a running J! 1.5, you do not want upgrade to J! 1.6 and then few months later, upgrade to J! 1.7

This is mainly why, personally, I will stick to J! 1.5, at least until there is a clear view where the recent upgrades are leading.

Read this news about k2

What’s your view?

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

#379954

Let’s address your reasons.

1. Yes, J1.6 is new and 1.6.1 is about to be released with over 150 bug fixes. However, you could say the same about any piece of software. If you did there would never be any advancement as nobody would try any new software. J1.6 is a great leap forward and I for one think it is worth the upgrade.

2. True, many extensions are not yet ready but a huge amount are. The same happened with J1.5 and look where we are now. There are many reasons why extensions have not instantly appeared but mainly it is because developers simply have not got the time. Other extensions are simply not required anymore as the core of Joomla takes care of it. Others will be left to die as their developers have lost interest. It was always going to be the case. However, many superb new extensions are appearing daily on the JED and many are being updated as we speak. The move to J1.7 should be a lot faster as most extensions will work out of the box.

3. Migration. Yes, that will always be hard. The migration tools have been getting better every day but are still not perfect but are very close. I migrated a site last week and it only took 2hrs. I was fortunate in that the template had been upgraded to J1.6 so all the settings and positions were exactly the same. In fact the migration was easier than it often is to upgrade a template. Anyone who has changed from an old template to a new or from one template club to another will know exactly what I mean. Fortunately JA have upgraded a growing number of templates to work with J1.6

4. The move to J1.7 will be nothing like the move to J1.6. J1.7 will use the same engine as J1.6 but with enhancements or bug fixes rather than the complete system change that we have with 1.6. Only time will tell but the current plan should mean that most extensions or templates J1.6 ready should work with J1.7 or only require very minor edits if they do not. It should also be an upgrad rather than a migration so as it stands do not fear the change.

5. Yes, J1.5 works and if you have a site running well on it then fine. If you need a new feature of J1.6 then upgrade. If you have a new site and all the extensions yo need are ready then there is no reason not to go to J1.6

6. As we have already said, J1.5-J1.6 is a migration. J1.6 to J1.7 is an upgrade which should be a simle task. The current plan is for it to be as simple as any normal security release of J1.5. Something we all have to do. It may mean the odd extension will need upgrading to but hopefully not. It is currently too early to tell.

As for K2 yes, that news has been posted a number of times. For me it is no great loss simply because many of the features of K2 such as the ACL are now simply not needed as J1.6 has more powerfull options. If K2 is going to have a future in Joomla then it needs to look at completely new ideas to improve on J1.6. At the moment I feel it has lost its way a little and hopefully the delay will allow their team to come up with something special in time for J1.7.

1 user says Thank You to Phill for this useful post

1. tfosnom

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

#380085

Myself, I am waiting for Joomla 1.6.1 to appear before migrating from Joomla 1.5.x. While much of 1.6 simply fix problems with J1.5, killing sections in favor of hierachical categories provides more flexibility than J1.5. The 1.6 ACL (at least the user interface) is muddy and misunderstood. I was hoping for more granual permissions, such as those available through Drupal. As for K2 or not, the only item the current version provides that isn’t rolled-into J1.6 is tags – which I think is a great concept.

Aside from the internals, I’ve noticed a growing number of developers either updating their code or offering 1.6 alternatives. The other reason why I’ll likely upgrade from J1.5 is the new version of the OS behaves better with the JA Teline IV.

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