Joomla 3.5: better—faster—safer

Joomla 3.5New features

New PHP supportBetter — Faster — Safer

A presentation by Michael Russell

What’s new in Joomla 3.5? 34 new features added PHP 7 support

A presentation by Michael Russell

New features (1)

New features (2)

New features (3)

The first thing you will notice

Before J! 3.5 After J! 3.5

The new Joomla “hassle screen”—anonymised statistics collection

So? What’s the point of this?

https://developer.joomla.org/about/stats.html

Send test mail

Giving the backend a new “corporate” look

ISIS template has some neat “advanced” features.

Extensions » Templates » Styles » isis – Default » Advanced

Giving the backend a new “corporate” look

Change the look of the login screen

AJAXifying the Permissions This is really a fix. Saving permissions within Global Configuration, Components,

Articles, Modules, and anywhere else where permissions can be configured.

Too many permission changes ⇒HTTP request too large (because everything transmitted in one big form).

Can result in data loss (data not stored in the database). Fix splits the form when the save button is clicked. Permissions are stored immediately via AJAX. If something goes wrong, an error message is displayed. How to test:

• Login as administrator• Go to Global Configuration / Components / Articles / Modules / ...• Switch to permission tab• Change any permissions• A green or red checkmark will light up

New Logout menu item Demonstration

• http://j3xdemo.enduring.com.au

Protostar template now supports “custom” CSS file

Previously• http://www.kuneze.com/blog/31-what-css-file-should-i-change

Now you only have to create a file in the folder• /templates/protostar/css/user.css

Why would you want to do this?• When testing CSS ideas, put all the CSS changes in one file and

then transfer this file to your own “real” website and adapt as needed.

New “count” features Counts for

• News feeds• Banners• Contacts• Articles

And there’s more Display the aliases and hits for featured

items Drag and drop images into articles Single button to add modules in articles New “random” order for blog lists Update Joomla! notification email facility ... and too many others to cover in this

presentation —• https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pulls?page=2&q=is%3Apr+milestone%3A%22Joomla!+3.5.0%22+is%3Aclosed+label%3A%22New+Fe

ature%22

PHP 7 PHP version 7 is the latest version. J! 3.5 is the only version compatible with PHP7 J! 3.5 will work on PHP 5.

• Minimum 5.3.10+ (PHP 5.6 or higher, recommended) Not all Joomla extensions will work with PHP 7

• Check with your extension author• Some versions of PHP 7 are known to be “buggy”

(e.g. PHP 7.0.6) Benchmark testing indicates a 200-300%

improvement in speed

PHP 7 (2) Unlikely to interest to most users

• Current take-up <5% of all Joomla websites• For most of us, it’s not an option

Not expected to be in widespread use for the next 12 months (check with your webhost)

Mainly for “commercial” sites hosted on VPS

If in doubt, stay with PHP 5.6 at this time.