Joomla!® 24-Hour Trainer

NEW FEATURES IN JOOMLA! 1.6

There are hundreds of new features and differences between Joomla 1.5 and Joomla 1.6. I'll highlight a few of these features in this lesson. Many of the new features are quite geeky and behind the scenes, but there are some terrific new features for people who build smaller websites as well.

New Look and Feel

Figure C-1 shows the control panel in Joomla 1.6, which you see just after login. It's similar to Joomla 1.5, but the icons and colors have changed.

FIGURE C-1

The front end of Joomla ships with a new template, shown in Figure C-2. Several template options and color variations are available with this new version of Joomla.

FIGURE C-2

SCAM vs. CAM

In earlier lessons, I talked about the SCAM: sections, categories, articles, and menus. Articles are assigned sections and categories; and once an article exists, it can be linked to a menu.

In Joomla 1.6, the SCAM becomes the CAM: categories, articles, and menus. You can have as many level of categories as you wish, also called nested categories. The sections are gone. I find the nested category structure to be more intuitive, and I think you will as well.

Figure C-3 shows the Category Manager in Joomla 1.6, with the sample data installed. The categories are nested inside of each other, sometimes several ...