PHP CMS & Community Software

Happy Tuesday! We’ve got two unique free themes for you today, and they are quite a study in contrasts.

Our first theme, Splendio, dazzles with an unconventional yet stylish design from Design Disease that pops out of the box — literally.

How you use this theme is limited only by your imagination! It comes loaded with features: six widget areas (one in the right sidebar and up to five in the footer), featured header images, and a custom background. In addition, there’s a showcase page template (pictured in the screenshot above) that includes a featured slider for sticky posts, and a nifty compact listing of your latest posts. For details on how to set up the Splendio theme on your blog, consult the Theme Showcase.

Our next theme, Suburbia, is as orderly and minimalistic as Splendio is eccentric and playful. Designed by WPShower, Suburbia’s attractive arrangement of posts inside a grid make it an excellent choice for magazine-oriented sites.

Suburbia makes use of featured images to display your posts in a clean, refined style. If you’d like a post to have a larger featured image, mark it as a sticky post. In this manner, you can highlight your most important content. In addition to featured images, Suburbia supports five optional widget areas (four in the footer and one in the sidebar on single posts and pages), a custom background, and custom header image. As always, you can click on over to the Theme Showcase to read more about Suburbia.

We look forward to seeing how you use these two great themes.

Would you like to post videos to your blog while you’re on the go? Are you interested in a photography theme that’s also video-friendly? Well, look no further, because we have some news for you.

The VideoPress upgrade, which allows you to upload and embed your own videos on your blog, now comfortably handles videos from iPhones and iPads. You can shoot vertically or horizontally, and we’ll take care of rotating it for you so that your video looks great when it’s published on your site.

If you don’t already have VideoPress on your WordPress.com account, head on over to VideoPress.com, we’ll get you up and running in no time. And don’t forget to install the free WordPress App on your iPhone or iPad!

Duotone: Now Video-Friendly

If you’re a photoblogger, you’re probably familiar with the cool Duotone theme, which changes color to match the first image in every post and page. The big news is that Duotone now seamlessly supports VideoPress videos, so now you can engage visitors with photographs and videos!

Learn More about VideoPress

If you use VideoPress on your self-hosted WordPress site, keep an eye on the VideoPress Blog – we have some exciting annoucements coming out soon, just for you!

You can find more details about VideoPress by checking out the following resources:

• VideoPress.com
• WordPress Support: VideoPress

Voting is now open for the 2012 election of at large directors of the Drupal Association. Two directors will be elected from among the ten candidates.

About the Drupal Association elections

When we designed a new governance structure for the Drupal Association last year, we decided that most of the board is selected through a nominating committee with the goal to carefully balance many factors like needed skills and geographical and sector representation. However, it was also deemed important that we have directors chosen directly by the Drupal community to make sure that the community is always well-represented.

We're holding our first open community elections! Two community "at large" directors will be elected to the Drupal Association Board of Directors, and YOU can get to say who they are!

Where to find out about candidates

• Review their nomination profiles.
• Read the notes from the two all candidates' meetings at http://groups.drupal.org/node/207398.

Who can vote?

Voting is open to all individuals who registered an account on drupal.org prior to January 18, 2012 and who have logged into that account at least once in the one-year period prior to February 3, 2012.

There is no need to register to vote. The voting system has been set up and prepopulated with the list of eligible voters.

How to vote

• Log in to this site.
• Visit the https://association.drupal.org/2012-vote page. After clicking through, you will be asked to rank each of the eligible voters, from 1st (top choice) to 10th (last choice). You also need to check a box confirming you're an eligible voter. Make your selections and save the form. That's it!

How does voting work?

The voting is done using the "Instant Runoff" voting method, powered by Decisions module. For more about this method of voting, please see this helpful YouTube video which explains it with post-it notes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA3_t-08Vr0

Can I change my mind after I've voted?

Yes! Before the close of voting, you can return to the voting form, cancel your previous vote, and submit a new vote.

When will voting close?

Voting will close at midnight UTC on Tuesday, February 7, 2012.

How will results be determined and announced?

When voting closes, a four-member elections team will review the results and post them to this site (association.drupal.org). Results will then be forwarded to the Drupal Association board for ratification.

The election team includes Angela Byron, DA board member; Cary Gordon, DA board member; Nedjo Rogers, DA advisory board member; and Thomas Svenson, Drupal community member who participated in the community process of planning the elections.

Why was voting delayed?

We had focused a bit too much on organizing the elections and left finalizing the actual voting system till the last minute. After several community members and Drupal Association staff pitched in, we got the elections system up about 3 hours after the planned opening of voting.

Wait. Only XXX eligible voters? What gives?

Despite the fact that the voting form lists far fewer, there are actually 270K Drupal.org accounts that fit the voter eligibility criteria. Valid accounts are added to the electorate list when they visit the Association website. These shenanigans are due to the Bakery module, our single-sign on solution, and the requirement to reconcile peoples' Association.drupal.org user IDs and their Drupal.org user IDs.

Problems and solutions

If you believe you are eligible to vote and try to vote and cannot or encounter some error, please post an issue to the Drupal Association issue queue, selecting "elections" as the component.

More about the elections

• The nominations announcement.
• The elections plan.
• All elections posts.

Today, I’m excited to introduce the latest additions to our collection of premium themes.

Designed by Andy Rutledge, Currents, is a responsive, minimal yet attractive premium theme from WooThemes.

Currents is perfect for news driven sites. The phrase, “less is more” couldn’t be more true. This clean and minimal design maximises your reader’s focus on the content. Having said that, the theme is packed with many customization options — a wide featured post slider, custom news areas, six alternative color styles, and more. Together, all of these features help you to control how to present current events you want to share with your readers.

Think your readers might check your site on a mobile device? No problem! Currents makes your site look great on an iPad, iPhone or any other mobile device.

This is not all about this great theme, Currents — so be sure to read about it on the Theme Showcase.

Next up is Debut – a beautifully designed theme by Luke McDonald of Press75.

Debut is a mobile-ready theme custom tailored to present your content in a professional and eye-catching manner. Five beautifully designed post formats provide you the flexibility needed to display media of all types. Musicians may be specially interested in the audio post format which expands into a multi-track playlist. Highlighting specific content couldn’t be easier with Debut’s Home page template which includes an innovative, customizable content slider as well as a featured area that can display in both grid and list styles.

Read about its features in detail in the Theme Showcase!

The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 2.5.1. This is a security release. The Production Leadership Team's goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla community. Learn more about Joomla! developement at the Developer Site.

The update process is very simple, and complete instructions are available here. Note that there are now easier and better ways of updating than FTPing the files.

Download New Installations: Click here to download Joomla 2.5.1 (Full package) » Update Package: Click here to download Joomla 2.5.1 (Update package) »

Note: Please read the update instructions before updating.

Instructions

• New installation and technical requirements
  
• Migration from Joomla! 1.5.x

Want to test drive Joomla? Try the online demo or the Joomla JumpBox. Documentation is available for beginners.

Please note that you should always backup your site before upgrading.

Release Notes

Check the Joomla 2.5.1 Post-Release FAQs to see if there are important items and helpful hints discovered after the release.

Statistics for the 2.5.1 release period (24 January 2012 to 2 February 2012)

• Joomla 2.5.1 contains:
  
  • 2 security issues fixed
  • 30 tracker issues fixed

Joomla 2.5.1 uses version 11.4 of the Joomlal Platform.

Security Issues Fixed

• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure. More information »
• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure. More information »

Tracker Issues Fixed Category Summary Link 27842 Batch processing broken Administration 27844 Version Module for Admin to show Joomla version in Footer admin Template Administration 27868 Joomla 1.7.x batch processing allow move items to trashed categories Administration 27893 New version module interferes with license notice in Hathor Administration 27941 Add warning/no warning icons on Database screen Administration 27818 Update 1.7 strings to 2.5 Code Quality 27829 $app variable can possibly not be set causing a PHP error Code Quality 26986 Batch processing of articles doesn't work for users with restricted rights Components 27581 Basic Search contact search is broken Components 27700 com_redirect redirects should use 301 redirect not 303 Components 27872 Error in Banner Track Clicks Components 27886 An unpublished linked contact leads to articles not being displayed. Components 27774 Joomla on Windows Azure - Load time is slow Database 27890 mod_menu invalid rendering of items of type alias and url Front End 27887 Extension Manager: Database does not fix update problem Installation 27895 Version Number Module Not Assigned to Menus Installation 27916 Path of home sub-menu items contain "News Feeds" Installation 27919 Extension Manager: Database does not fix text filter problem Installation 27920 Update SQL query requires temp table permissions Installation 27880 Please first make a selection from the lis't: Huge error on 40+ sites Javascript 27905 Upgrade MooTools to version 1.4.3 Javascript 27796 COM_USERS_FITLER_NOTES Languages 27929 *Installing sample data and defining as site lang another lang then English breaks links Languages 27864 User profile page does not HTML escape the user's name Layouts 27873 The related articles modules (mod_related_items) are not showing Modules 27896 mod_search head search link title not escaped Modules 27662 Can't update #__update_sites table at extension install on SQL Server Plugins 27862 Code error plgUserProfile line 188 Plugins 27885 TinyMCE settings in SQL don't reflect recent changes in options. SQL Files 27938 labels missing for Smart Search / Finder module Templates

 

Joomla! Bug Squad

Thanks to the Joomla Bug Squad for their dedicated efforts investigating reports, fixing problems, and applying patches to Joomla. If you find a bug in Joomla, please report it on the Joomla! CMS Issue Tracker.

Active members of the Joomla Bug Squad during this last release cycle include: A Firoozmandan, Akarawuth Tamrareang, Alain Rivest, Andrea Tarr, Andrew Eddie, Ashwin Date, Bill Richardson, Brian Teeman, Chris Davenport, Christophe Demko, Denise McLaurin, Dennis Hermacki, Elin Waring, Emerson Rocha Luiz, Francisco Marzoa, Ian MacLennan, Jacob Waisner, Jacques Rentzke, James Brice, Janich Rasmussen, Jean-Marie Simonet, Jennifer Marriott, Jeremy Wilken, Kevin Griffiths, Loyd Headrick, Mark Dexter, Matt Thomas, Michael Babker, Mutuga Kigumi, Neil McNulty, Nikolai Plath, Ofer Cohen, Prasit Gebsaap, Rachmat Wakjaer, Rob Clayburn, Roland Dalmulder, Rouven Weßling, Rune Sjøen, Samuel Moffatt, Shaun Maunder, Sudhi Seshachala, Tim Plummer, Tom Fuller, Troy Hall, Viet Hoang Vu.

Bug Squad Leadership: Mark Dexter Coordinator; Elin Waring and Marijke Stuivenberg, Team Leaders.

Joomla! Security Strike Team

A big thanks to the Joomla! Security Strike Team for their ongoing work to keep Joomla secure. Members include: Airton Torres, Alan Langford, Bill Richardson, Elin Waring, Jason Kendall, Marijke Stuivenberg, Mark Dexter, Omar Ramos, Rouven Weßling, Samuel Moffatt.

The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.7.5. This is a security release.

Note that most users should update their sites to version 2.5.1 instead, which is now released. Version 1.7.5 is only intended for those users who for some reason are unable to update to version 2.5.1. Version 1.7 will reach end of life on 24 February 2012.

The Production Leadership Team's goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla community. Learn more about Joomla! developement at the Developer Site.

If you are upgrading your existing 1.7 site, you should be aware that the method of upgrading has changed since Joomla 1.5 so we recommend you look at the instructions. Download Click here to download Joomla 1.7.5 (Full package) » Click here to download Joomla 1.7.5 (Upgrade packages) » Instructions

• New installation and technical requirements
• Upgrade from an existing Joomla 1.7 version
• Migration from Joomla! 1.5.x

Want to test drive Joomla? Try the online demo or the Joomla JumpBox. Documentation is available for beginners.

Please note that you should always backup your site before upgrading.

Release Notes

Check the Joomla 1.7.5 Post-Release FAQs to see if there are important items and helpful hints discovered after the release.

Statistics for the 1.7.5 release

• Joomla 1.7.5 contains:
  
  • 3 security issues fixed

Security

• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure. More information »
• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure. More information »
• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure. More information »

Joomla! Bug Squad

Thanks to the Joomla Bug Squad for their dedicated efforts investigating reports, fixing problems, and applying patches to Joomla. If you find a bug in Joomla, please report it on the CMS Issue Tracker.

Active members of the Joomla Bug Squad during this last release cycle include: A Firoozmandan, Akarawuth Tamrareang, Alain Rivest, Andrea Tarr, Andrew Eddie, Ashwin Date, Bill Richardson, Brian Teeman, Chris Davenport, Christophe Demko, Denise McLaurin, Dennis Hermacki, Elin Waring, Emerson Rocha Luiz, Francisco Marzoa, Ian MacLennan, Jacob Waisner, Jacques Rentzke, James Brice, Janich Rasmussen, Jean-Marie Simonet, Jennifer Marriott, Jeremy Wilken, Kevin Griffiths, Loyd Headrick, Mark Dexter, Matt Thomas, Michael Babker, Mutuga Kigumi, Neil McNulty, Nikolai Plath, Ofer Cohen, Prasit Gebsaap, Rachmat Wakjaer, Rob Clayburn, Roland Dalmulder, Rouven Weßling, Rune Sjøen, Samuel Moffatt, Shaun Maunder, Sudhi Seshachala, Tim Plummer, Tom Fuller, Troy Hall, Viet Hoang Vu.

Bug Squad Leadership: Mark Dexter Coordinator; Elin Waring and Marijke Stuivenberg, Team Leaders.

Joomla! Security Strike Team

A big thanks to the Joomla! Security Strike Team for their ongoing work to keep Joomla secure. Members include: Airton Torres, Alan Langford, Bill Richardson, Elin Waring, Jason Kendall, Marijke Stuivenberg, Mark Dexter, Omar Ramos, Rouven Weßling, Samuel Moffatt.

The February issue of the Joomla Community Magazine is here!

Our stories: EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

Open Minds, by Alice Grevet

FEATURE STORIES

JAB is not Just Another Beer!, by Dianne Henning

5 Great SEO Resources: Be Your Very Own SEO Expert for Free, by Milena Mitova

The Roadmap For a Great Joomla! 3.0 UX, by Paul Orwig

LEADERSHIP CONNECTIONS

Leadership Highlights from January 2012, by Alice Grevet

ADMINISTRATORS TOOLKIT

Joomla ACL: Access Levels, by Jen Kramer

THE JOOMLA! HAIKUS

Post your haikus for February, by Paul Orwig

WEBSITE CASE STUDIES

Website Case Study: FTSE Global Markets, by Dianne Henning

HELP WANTED

The Joomla! Project Wants You - February 2012, by Paul Orwig

DID YOU KNOW...?

Help! With 1.7 Out and 2.5 Just In, What Should I Do? Upgrade or Wait?, by Milena Mitova

JOOMLA! EVENTS AND USER GROUPS

JoomlaDay events: From Bangkok to Guatemala City, by Jacques Rentzke

DEVELOPERS WORKBENCH

Developing a Smart Search Plugin, by Michael Babker

Customizing an Extension's Edit Screen, by Randy Carey

BUSINESS MATTERS

Microformats – a way to display more content in the search engines, by Grigor Mihov

JOOMLA! IN THE PRESS/MEDIA

Joomla! in the Press/Media - February 2012, by Mark W. Bender

JOOMLA! BOOKS

Download the Free Joomla! 2.5 - Beginner's Guide, by Hagen Graf

 

In our next issue

We want to publish your Joomla! story in the next JCM issue! So take a look at our Author Resources content to get a better idea of what we are looking for, and then register to become a JCM author and submit your Joomla! story!

We’ve recently noticed that a fair number of you have been bringing your tumblelogs over from Tumblr to WordPress.com using one of the variety of Tumblr to WXR conversion tools which exist on the web. We thought you would appreciate an easier way to import your content, so we bring you 3 easy steps to import your content.

Authenticate with Tumblr

To bring your tumblelog’s content to WordPress.com, head to Tools → Import in your WordPress.com dashboard and look for the Tumblr importer. If you don’t already have an account here on WordPress.com then head over and signup first.

Click the link to get started and then enter the email address you used to sign up to Tumblr, your Tumblr password and click Connect to Tumblr.

Start the Import

The importer will then fetch a list of your blogs and let you pick which one to import. Click Import this blog to get going.

Once you have started, the import progress will be shown on the import page and you will be sent an email when the import is finished. We try super hard to make sure that all your Tumblr content, including your Videos, are imported into your WordPress.com blog. Videos you had uploaded to Tumblr are imported into VideoPress and other embeds are converted to use shortcodes. Sometimes the importer finds an embed it can’t convert and a list of these is included in the import completion email for you to check.

If your Tumblr site has a custom domain (like you.com instead of you.tumblr.com), then you’ll need to disable the custom domain temporarily while the import is processed. You can do this by going to your Tumblr Dashboard, clicking on the Settings button and then un-ticking the “Use a Custom Domain” checkbox:

Then you’ll want to set up Domain Mapping on your WordPress.com blog so that your readers can use the same domain to reach your site as before.

Style Your New Site

WordPress.com supports Post Formats which allow you to distinguish between the different types of content you post on your site. While you wait for your content to be imported why not customize the design of your site by picking one of our post-format-enabled, Tumblelog-ready themes.

If you have any trouble importing your blog  you’re welcome to contact support where one of our Happiness Engineers will be glad to help out. To learn all about WordPress.com’s features, we encourage you to check out our handy tutorial. We also provide comprehensive feature documentation at our support site.

Drupal 7.11 and 6.23, maintenance releases which fix security vulnerabilities are now available for download.

Drupal 7.12 and 6.24 also fix other issues reported through the bug tracking system.

Download Drupal 7.12
Download Drupal 6.24

Upgrading your existing Drupal 7 and 6 sites is strongly recommended. There are no new features in these releases. For more information about the Drupal 7.x release series, consult the Drupal 7.0 release announcement, more information on the 6.x releases can be found in the Drupal 6.0 release announcement. Drupal 5 is no longer maintained, upgrading to Drupal 6 is recommended.

Security information

We have a security announcement mailing list, a history of all security advisories, and an RSS feed with the most recent security advisories. We strongly advise Drupal administrators to sign up for the list.

Drupal 7 and 6 include the built-in Update status module, which informs you about important updates to your modules and themes.

Bug reports

Both Drupal 7.x and 6.x branches are being maintained, so given enough bug fixes (not just bug reports) more maintenance releases will be made available, according to our monthly release cycle.

Changelog

Drupal 7.11 only includes fixes for security issues. Drupal 7.12 also includes bugfixes. The full list of changes between the 7.10 and 7.12 releases can be found by reading the 7.12 release notes. A complete list of all bug fixes in the stable 7.x branch can be found in the git commit log.

Drupal 6.23 only includes fixes for security issues. Drupal 6.24 also includes bugfixes. The full list of changes between the 6.22 and 6.24 releases can be found by reading the 6.24 release notes. A complete list of all bug fixes in the stable 6.x branch can be found at git commit log.

Security vulnerabilities

Drupal 7.11 and 6.23 were released in response to the discovery of security vulnerabilities. Details can be found in the official security advisory:

• SA-CORE-2012-001

To fix the security problem, please upgrade Drupal.

What is included with each release?

We made two versions of both Drupal 7 and 6 available, so you can choose to only include security fixes (Drupal 7.11 and 6.23 respectively) or security fixes and bugfixes (Drupal 7.12 and 6.24). You can choose your preferred version. We are trying to make it easier and quicker to roll out security updates by making security-only releases available as well as ones with bugfixes included. We hope this helps you roll out the fixes as soon as possible. Read more details in the handbook.

Update notes

The default.settings.php file was changed in Drupal 7.12, to add documentation about PDO attribute override capabilities that were added as a result of #1309278: Make PDO connection options configurable.

The robots.txt file was changed in Drupal 6.24 to block filter tips from search engines. The .htaccess and (default.)settings.php files were not changed in Drupal 6. Additionally, indexes were added to the node_comment_statistics and comment tables, for performance.

Known issues

Bug fixes in 7.12 release cause problems with the Internationalization (i18n) module. i18n users are encouraged to update to 7.11 to get the security fixes, and hold off on the 7.12 upgrade until #1351678: Follow menu_link_get_preferred active trail handling for custom menus and #1050466: The taxonomy index should be maintained in a node hook, not a field hook are resolved. (Note: Help here would be greatly appreciated!)

Elections for at large Drupal Association elections are kicking into high gear with two all candidates meetings this week before voting opens Friday.

Election candidates will participate in all candidates meetings are scheduled over the next two days (Wed., Thurs. or Fri., depending on your location). The first meeting, intended to work for people in the Asia and the Pacific, is scheduled for 01:00 UTC on Thursday. That's 5 PM PST on Wednesday for those in the US and Canada.

The second all candidates meeting at 17:00 UTC Thursday is timed for participants in Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

Then on Friday voting will open. Details on voting will be posted to association.drupal.org.

See the elections announcement for more on how to learn about the candidates.

Want to receive WordPress.com notifications instantly, even when you’re not on WordPress.com?

Add the new WordPress.com extension for Chrome and as soon as you get a new follower or a new like on one of your posts, a notification will appear in your browser:

Simply click the icon to view your latest WordPress.com notifications:

Start following new blogs without visiting WordPress.com

The Chrome extension also makes it easy to follow sites from your WordPress.com account by displaying a Follow button whenever you’re browsing a site that has an RSS feed.

Clicking the Follow button will add new posts from the website to your reader, and send you an email each time an update is published. (You can change your default email settings if you like.)

When you visit a WordPress.com site, you’ll notice that the extension icon will turn blue, but keep in mind that you can follow blogs on Blogger, Tumblr, and other services, too.

Quickly post cool stuff you find while browsing the web

Press This is a lightning-fast way to publish content on your blog without ever visiting WordPress.com. Click the WordPress.com extension, then select Press This whenever you find something on the web that you’d like to share on your blog, and a pop-up editor will appear:

Select the blog you’d like to post to, then hit publish to share a link to the site. Your blog will be updated, and you can continue browsing the web from wherever you left off.

If you’d like to publish an excerpt of text along with the link to the site, simply highlight the material with your cursor before clicking Press This:

And it will appear in the editor for you to publish along with the link:

We hope this makes it easier for you to share cool stuff on your blog quickly! If there’s anything you’d like to see in future versions of the extension, be sure to let us know.

The final session selections for DrupalCon Denver were announced this week. DrupalCon will take place March 19-23, 2012. Get your tickets soon so that you don't miss out on over 100 sessions across 8 tracks! This year we have added tracks specifically for Non-profit, Government & Education, in addition to Community, Commerce, Mobile, Design & User Experience, Business & Strategy, Coding & Development, Site Building, and Core Conversations.

Conference Dates:
March 19 - Pre-conference trainings -- over 16 from beginners to advanced + API Hack-a-thon

March 20 - 22 - Three complete days of 104 sessions starting with Keynotes: Dries Buytaert, Founder of Drupal and Drupal Project lead, Mitchell Baker, chairperson for the Mozilla Foundation, and Luke Wroblewski, digital product leader coming to talk about mobile.

March 22 - Drupal Means Business - included with conference registration to learn how to integrate Drupal into your business.

March 23 - All-day Contribution Sprint -- one of the largest anywhere!

Plus, parties, ski trips, networking, contests and more, all for the $350 conference fee! Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for helping this to remain one of the lowest cost open source conferences around.

Get your ticket to DrupalCon Denver today. What are you waiting for? We want to see you in Denver!

P.S. Conference registration is $350 until February 21 or when tickets are gone! Early registration helps us to plan the conference and keep our costs low by only ordering what is needed. A limited number of 1/2-priced student tickets are still available.

Follow @drupalcon on Twitter or find us on Facebook.

Are you addicted to checking your site stats? You are not alone. The stats dashboard has always been one of the most popular admin screens. It’s gratifying to know that people are visiting your place online.

With the WordPress.com front page evolving into a one-stop shop for posting, exploring, following and reading blogs, it seemed natural to put your blog stats there, too.

You’ll still find your stats in the dashboard for a while, but the My Stats tab on the WordPress.com home page will soon be their permanent home. We hope this makes it easier for you to keep tabs on your traffic!

If you’d like to attract more visitors to your site, check out these great resources on boosting your blog readership:

• Learn WordPress.com: Get Famous
• WordPress.com Support: Getting More Traffic

(Note to Jetpack users: Your stats will still be available in your wp-admin dashboard. However, you may still enjoy viewing your stats on WordPress.com.)

Some of you may have noticed an inability to connect to our site earlier today. The provider (NERO) who serves our host (OSUOSL) is currently facing faults in some of their routers. Corrective measures were taken earlier to resolve most of the issues, but they will need to perform some maintenance on the devices. Until then, there may still be some connectivity issues. While they will make attempts to route traffic through other devices during the maintenance window, it is possible that some users may be unable to connect during that time.

Maintenance on the devices will occur between 11:00 - 14:00 UTC, January 26.

Thanks,
The phpBB Team

Joomla, one of the world’s most popular open source content management systems (CMS) used for everything from websites to blogs to Intranets, today announces the immediate availability of Joomla 2.5. Along with new features such as advanced search and automatic notification of Joomla core and extension updates, the Joomla CMS for the first time includes multi-database support with the addition of Microsoft SQL Server. Previous versions of Joomla were compatible exclusively with MySQL databases.

“Multi-database support is a huge step forward for Joomla, which is already powering more than 1.6 million websites worldwide. It ensures companies and organization, both large and small, will save even more money and time by adopting Joomla,” said Ryan Ozimek, president of Open Source Matters, a non-profit created to provide organization, legal and financial support to the Joomla project. “No longer will Joomla developers be tied down to a particular database or have to spend more money and time integrating other software to get Joomla to communicate with their database. This enhances Joomla’s scalability immensely.”

Other key features in Joomla 2.5 includes:

• Automatic notification when a Joomla or extension update is available. When logged into the control panel, site administrators will instantly have access to new notification buttons that allows them to see and act on the latest updates. In addition to updates for the Joomla CMS, a second button offers third party extension notification updates.
• A better natural language search engine to the Joomla core. Complete with auto-completion and stemming (for example if you type “running” in a search field you also see run), it is faster and more versatile than the standard search.

“We literally received thousands of pieces of input at ideas.joomla.org into what functionality should be added to Joomla 2.5, and overwhelmingly enhanced notifications and more elegant search topped the list,” said Mark Dexter of the Joomla Production Leadership Team. “In fact, the automatic notification for core and extension updates received the most votes for a feature that people wanted in 2.5. But we didn’t stop with just those two. Joomla 2.5 is a major overhaul with more than 24 new features that we have highlighted at joom.la/25features.”

Joomla 2.5 adheres to Joomla’s newly-adopted six-month release cycle that began with the previous  Joomla CMS release of Joomla 1.7 in July, 2011. Downloading the latest version of Joomla is the best way to ensure organizational and personal security needs are being met since it will have the most recent updates to protect against the latest security threats.

Joomla 2.5 is truly a collaborative community-driven software project developed with the feedback gathered from more than 2.5 million Joomla forum posts, 540,000 Joomla forum members and data from more than 8,800 Joomla extensions.  To download Joomla 2.5, go to http://www.joomla.org/download.html.

 

 

The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 2.5.0. This is a security release. Version 2.5.0 is is the next update from version 1.7. (Note that we have skipped from version 1.7.x to 2.5.x.)

Version 2.5.0 is the second release made within the new six-month release cycle that started with the delivery of Joomla 1.6 in January 2011. Version 2.5 is also a long-term-support (LTS) release that will be supported for at least 18 months.

The Production Leadership Team's goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla community. Learn more about Joomla! developement at the Developer Site.

Version 1.7 will reach end of life one month from today, on 24 February 2012. All users of version 1.7 should update to version 2.5.0 before that time. The update process is very simple, and complete instructions are available here. Note that there are now easier and better ways of updating than FTPing the files.

Download New Installations: Click here to download Joomla 2.5.0 (Full package) » Update Package: Click here to download Joomla 2.5.0 (Update package) »

Note: Please read the update instructions before updating.

Instructions

• New installation and technical requirements
  
• Migration from Joomla! 1.5.x

Want to test drive Joomla? Try the online demo or the Joomla JumpBox. Documentation is available for beginners.

Please note that you should always backup your site before upgrading.

Release Notes

Check the Joomla 2.5.0 Post-Release FAQs to see if there are important items and helpful hints discovered after the release.

Statistics for the 2.5.0 release period (14 November 2011 to 24 January 2012)

• Joomla 2.5.0 contains:
  • 26 new features added
  • 4 security issues fixed
  • 356 tracker issues fixed

Joomla 2.5.0 uses version 11.4 of the Joomlal Platform.

New Features Added

In addition to the new Joomla Platform, the following new features have been added, with links to the Feature tracker issue.

• Add ablility to turn off the email to user when an Admin creates a user (Andrea Tarr)
• Improvements for batch processing (Michael Babker)
• Menu item parameter "Note" (Marcell van Geest)
• No "new user notification" email sent to admin (Kenny Wickstrom)
• Implementing default text per language in syndicate module (Jean-Marie Simonet)
• Implementing image option for the offline.php default page (Jean-Marie Simonet)
• Joomla! update notification button in the quickicons module (Nicholas Dionysopoulos)
• Debug Plugin Reloaded (Nikolai Plath)
• *Option to set Joomla to Site Offline (YES) during installation (fade2grey)
  
• Patch to enable change of newsfeed display direction (Mathieu Cattin)
• Add a true autoloader to the CMS (Rouven Weßling)
• Database Version Check (Mark Dexter)
• "Select a Menu Item Type" in modal box in menu item edit page (Dennis Hermatski)
• Improving SEO: New system plugin: languagecode (Jean-Marie Simonet)
• Manager for Language Overrides (Patrick Alt)
• Easier workflow by linking Menu Manager: Add Menu to Module Manager: Module Menu (Andrew Eddie, Jacques Rentzke)
• Add an option to filter the mod_whosonline by groups of the connected user (Christophe Demko)
• Add a check for native ZIP support to the Installation (Rouven Weßling)
• Add ability to support other databases starting with Microsoft SQL Server / Windows Azure (Hooduku Team)
• mod_status optimization (Kyle Ledbetter)
• Category filtering on content doesn't including sub-categories (Ofer Cohen)
• User Notes (Andrew Eddie)
• Use the images and urls fields to create simple standardized layouts (Elin Waring)
• Custom Black List in Text Filters - Ready to test - Makes it possible to overwrite default blacklist - Joomla 1.7 (Tore B. Krudtaa, Denise McLaurin)
• Captcha in the core (Jonnathan S. Lima, Rouven Weßling, Nicola Galgano)
• Finder Integration (Rob Schley, Michael Babker, Elin Waring, Chris Davenport, Omar Ramos, Viet Hoang Vu, Jean Marie Simonet, Rouven Weßling, Louis Landry, Gabriele Pongelli)

Security Issues Fixed

• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure. More information »
• Medium Priority - Core - XSS Vulnerability. More information »
• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure. More information »
• Medium Priority - Core - XSS Vulnerability. More information »

Tracker Issues Fixed Category Summary Link 23890 Edit own action in User Manager** ACL 24602 Users with create rights in a category but not component can't create subcategories** ACL 27216 Edit state option does not work as expected on front end ACL 27606 Code cleaning for user notes ACL 27761 No parent categories showing in one scenario ACL 27766 ACL Issues when user has edit (but not create) permission in specific categories. ACL 20899 Changing 'Home' to a 'External Link' or 'Menu Item Alias' causes '404 Component Not Found' error on Administration 22158 Templates are still available for assignment after being unpublished Administration 22178 When 'No Editor' is selected for user HTML still re-formats when a file is saved.. Administration 22425 Improve .htaccess rewrite efficency Administration 22564 Temp folder has to include JPATH_ROOT for gz extension upload to work Administration 23696 Menus creation fail with 1.5-style menus metadata: using SimpleXMLElement attributes missing (string Administration 23827 Option to display Blog subcategory content within Blog is missing Administration 23837 *Installation unexpectedly terminated: Method not supported for this extension type: template + Administration 23849 Toolbar images are not properly centered over their text in IE8 - Bluestork Administration 23891 Toggle enabled state in User Manager Administration 23897 Bug in profile edition on admin side Administration 23918 the filter 'Hide protected extensions' is selected when all extensions are selected Administration 23938 Fix a couple of issues related to path configuration Administration 23939 No empty menus in menu Administration 23946 Fix various IE7 issues with Hathor Administration 24015 Web services configuration option still there Administration 24028 Can't bulk delete users Administration 24038 Menu views blanked out in menu item type select modal in Hathor Administration 24039 More PHP strict compatibility fixes Administration 24040 Move hardcoded bluestork image in mod_logged to media/system Administration 24043 In Chrome the pagination buttons are misaligned in admin Hathor plus remove duplicate css Administration 24092 View administrator/index.php?option=com_languages&view=installed displays site AND admin languag Administration 24114 Article editor fails to define global settings if plugin disabled and still set at default Administration 24138 Hathor security css and image update/fixes Administration 24139 A couple of possible extraneous images in Admin Administration 24160 Backend com_languages XXS Administration 24169 Hathor security review fixes Administration 24255 Fix background color in high contrast batch fieldsets Administration 24292 Refresh Cache in Extension Manager: Failed loading XML file Administration 24305 3rd party components install in location "site" instead of "administrator" Administration 24328 Inconsistent term for User Group Administration 24336 *PHP warning in extension manger Administration 24360 User Profile Date showing wrong Birthday date Administration 24457 Language fixes and new warnings for com_installer Administration 24475 Multiple groups are a problem in the user manager Administration 24523 Improve the cpanel of admin templates + correting some errors Administration 24558 Improve the Directory Permissions in com_admin Administration 24599 Templates filter searches all extensions Administration 24736 Don't always load Mootools (More) in the backend. Administration 24835 Administrator (with a capital A) does weird stuff Administration 24881 Problems with aliases when there is a menu alias menu type Administration 24884 Missing messages for some menu item types having no Basic Options Administration 24887 Incorrect redirection after saving an admin module Administration 25006 Alternative Layout Not Implemented in com_search com_users Administration 25088 *Systeminformation > Directory Permissions: List incomplete Administration 25239 Cant set template style Administration 25262 Logout in administration menu not working Administration 25447 New feature: Add Site name after Page title Administration 25650 Can't insert image for menu item Administration 25730 Incorrect call of onUserBeforeSave while blocking/activating user in backend plugins aren't loaded Administration 25739 Batch actions for articles Administration 25796 *Editing template files is impossible if Codemirror and editor None are disabled Administration 26041 Menu type manager slows down considerably as menu tree gets larger Administration 26069 Don't render <meta name="rights"> when it has no content. Administration 26221 Disabling admin module Title breaks layout Administration 26293 The com_config component does not refresh current component page when clicking on Save & Close Administration 26370 Remove the module position preview icons if the option is disabled Administration 26378 Template and module managers using different icons for duplicate Administration 26582 Recursive permanent deletion of nested categories Administration 26821 Plug-in Manager problem mixing pagination and filter Administration 26893 Text Filter settings ignored in Category Manager Administration 27124 Plug-Ins Manager missing string on no results Administration 27158 Fatal PHP Error on calling method JMenuSite::getDefault() in Administrator Administration 27177 Joomla! automatically adds the From email address to the Replyto email array Administration 27257 Unexpected behavior of children in Categories and Menu Items Administration 27258 Wrong # cols in tfoot of Installer view from com_languages Administration 27259 Remove diff files from installation folder Administration 27370 Search Result Menu Administration 27400 Strict standards: Declaration of CategoriesModelCategory Administration 27401 Strict standards: Declaration of TemplatesModelStyle Administration 27405 Menu item save as copy does not work Administration 27411 *Batch language action broken for categories. Administration 27451 Add a Admin Menu Item for adding a New User Notes Category Administration 27469 Fixing Update Notification to call specific icons Administration 27478 Extension Database screen has malformed slider with no errors Administration 27488 JInstaller: :Install: Error on upgrade 1.7.3 to 2.5 Beta 1 Administration 27492 SQL Date issue Administration 27519 Setting a home menu item with language duplicates the menu Administration 27534 * regression : Message when trashing/publishing/etc. items does not reflect anymore the number of it Administration 27543 Double Slashes with CodeMirror use Administration 27551 Smart Search patch to show warning if content plug-in not enabled Administration 27557 Code style fix and Hathor CSS fixes to Extensions/Installer Administration 27577 Clean up of various things in com_templates Administration 27631 Smart Search indexing does not properly account for item published states Administration 27638 Web links metadata fields missing from user interface Administration 27640 logs/error.php visible to anyone Administration 27671 Hathor Global configuration not working Administration 27683 *Smartsearch remaining issues after commit #27565 ** Administration 27696 Add a context to onGetIcon event Administration 27707 *Regression: Debug on breaks template assignments to menu items Administration 27798 Tracker #27896 messed up CSS in Hathor control panel Administration 27799 Php errors in smart search content map tab in Hathor Administration 27812 image float issues Administration 27287 com_users fail to redirect properly on login failure Authentication and Login 27436 User Notes breaks admin login for some groups Authentication and Login 25491 Incorrect check in page_heading in weblinks Code Quality 27117 More autoformatting fixes Code Quality 27137 End of line inconsistencies Code Quality 27252 Remove calls to import() that are now handled by the platform Code Quality 27255 Fix some E_STRICT warnings Code Quality 27261 strict standards on initialise Code Quality 27383 PHP 5.3 Strict Mode complains aboiut Strict Standards on some methods Code Quality 27395 another strict when click on image tab in editor area Code Quality 27398 *Strict standards BannersModelBanners::getItems() Code Quality 27402 *Simplifying code for copy title/alias for menu item Code Quality 27406 Use JDate::toSql() Code Quality 27409 Remove unnecessary import calls and fix up docblocks Code Quality 27416 *Strict in com_users Code Quality 27447 Fix the use of several deprecated functions Code Quality 27470 Tweaks to CLI scripts Code Quality 27484 Updates for Finder plugins Code Quality 27491 Fix JFormFieldFilters Code Quality 27498 Strict Standards: and other finder bugs Code Quality 27563 Author tag in xml Code Quality 27580 Smart Search - Duplicate Code Cleanup Strict Errors with FinderControllerUpdater Code Quality 27676 SQL Server - Fix MySQL Specific Query in administrator/includes/application.php Code Quality 27736 Remove the use of more deprecated functions Code Quality 27740 Remove files that are now linked Code Quality 27747 Strict standards: Module manager Code Quality 27793 Notice errors in Hathor article edit Code Quality 27795 Strict standards: Declaration of LanguagesModelLanguage::delete() should be compatible with that of Code Quality 27810 *Strict error when creating/editing a Content Language Code Quality 24533 Last updated on article without updating it bugs Components 25643 JComponentHelper::renderComponent assumes $app variable unchanged Components 25790 Some queries not correctly dealing with trash Components 26642 user registration model should always use frontend urls Components 26816 Extension manager - modules status Components 26887 Duplicated (unnecesary) pagination code in featured contact's default_items.php Components 26895 Unused code Com_Contact Components 26974 Article button for wysiwyg creating links different from links created by menu items Components 26982 *Articles filtering parameters not implemented for Contacts 'Other information' Components 27189 Spelling mistake in com_menu function name incorrect Components 27273 Sorting broken in com_contact single category view Components 27342 *Type display in Plugin Manager "Select Type" filter dropdown broken Components 27392 MenusHelper::getAssociations() returns invalid data if no associations Components 27393 undefined $option com_media Components 27481 Update finder to 2.5 databases cleaning Components 27486 Smart Search db errors on upgraded 1.7.2 to 2.5 b1 Components 27524 Smart Search index does not auto update Components 27552 Bad character in Smart Search newsfeeds plug-in Components 27573 Incorrect route created by Smart Search contact plug-in Components 27605 Smart Search caching issues. Components 27653 *patch for captcha fields on reset remind and contact forms Components 27654 Smart Search - Fix use of CHAR_LENGTH MySQL command Components 27664 SQL Server - Language column in grids displays as "Undefined" if item language set to All Components 27689 Smart Search sorting issues** Components 27694 *Finder search broken because of filters Country and Region Components 27708 Com_content arrticle view params: image and links -> Position Links/URLS Components 27717 error saving _finder_tokens with big articles Components 27730 Smart Search stemmer support not working** Components 27791 SQL Server - Cannot access Smart Search Filter Edit View Components 27050 com_newsfeeds fix - mysql specific query fixed Database 27413 Two fixes to Database files to support seamless installation on multidb Database 27442 Add the #__user_notes table in sqlsrv and sqlazure Database 27443 get_table_constraints renamed to getTableConstraints to support backup in sqlserver Database 27452 SQLServer nameQuote Database 27453 toSQL Date format Database 27454 SQLQuery with function! Database 27455 Group by clause in articles missing 2 new columns Database 27458 Menu Manager error: Strict standards: Declaration of MenusModelItem::batch() Database 27459 NameQuote missing for sqlsrv to handle reserved words like "option" Database 27461 Query issue in SQLServer Database 27464 com_config - db query standardized Database 27465 SQLAzure /SQLServer specific -- duplicate class loader issue Database 27479 Finder schema to support SQLServer Database 27574 Error in opening Joomla 2.5 website if no database available Database 27607 Sample Data for SQLServer and SQLAzure Database 27608 Usernotes had db specific query Database 27630 Issue with replacePrefix -- valid only for SQLServer Database 27634 PHP Strict error for SQLServer Database 27649 unique identifier it convert into corresponding text. Database 27650 sample sites - category not found Database 27672 Toggle registered users in user manager Database 27673 Sort in Users management - backend Database 27719 SQL Server - Error updating #__schemas table Database 27752 Smart Search - "web page not found error" Database 27753 500 error in Language Manager - DB specific Database 27754 404 category not found - due to syntax change in platform Database 27760 500 error in Tempaate Manager - DB specific Database 27764 server not found error in Extension Manager - DB specific Database 27785 Internationalization support for Joomla on SQLAzure is breaking. Database 27789 SQL Server - Smart Search Statistics view fails to load Database 26805 Update MooTools to version 1.4 and SqueezeBox to 1.3 External Libraries 24712 Module template and plugin preprocess forms not passing content group or any group to allow editin Forms 25291 Front end clear link for media field and file field closes form Forms 27131 Adding 'Last' in menu item ordering Forms 27246 JFormFieldTimezone default value not set Forms 27407 Use the new JFormFieldPlugins Forms 27467 Use the new url filtering for fields Forms 27635 JForm issue with Fabrik - proposed solution Forms 27670 Something in 22409 broke frontend editing of weblinks Front End 27206 Wrong length of #__newsfeeds alias column in joomla.sql Installation 27228 Remove the prefix check in the installation since it's buggy Installation 27340 * Bug in preinstall check Installation 27346 *Installation problem on step 1 - server without JSON Installation 27368 JInstaller::getInstance() not returning a global object Installation 27450 Update version information and add new extensions to installation Installation 27472 Global Text Filter Default values not added to joomla.sql Installation 27516 Step 6 of Joomla 2.5b1 Installation CSS/Layout errors Installation 27523 Failed loading XML file mod_finder_status.xml Installation 27646 *Add a check for Magic Quotes GPC to the installation Installation 27657 *Multidb: can not install without mysql support Installation 27678 PHP 5.4 (E_STRICT): installation fails due to strict warnings Installation 27681 Database check feature improvements Installation 27787 Installation Folder not directory Installation 26442 In banners module open link in popup window does not work. Javascript 26597 Fix JavaScript that relies on MooTools 1.2 ** Javascript 27408 Fix some of the new Javascript Javascript 27520 Smart Search Filter / Fx.Scroll Javascript 26721 Cache calls function "getHeadData" which is not defined in "JDocumentRaw" Joomla! Libraries 27349 Replace deprecated method getEscaped Joomla! Libraries 27656 Backward compatibility issue with JRules() and JRule() Joomla! Libraries 27702 Error in sql query Joomla! Libraries 27790 *Error on uninstalling language pack since 2.5beta Joomla! Libraries 26380 Menu items of different languages can't have same alias menu items are cached for each user Languages 27118 *Login Module redirects issue with multilanguage Languages 27163 Inaccurate language string for empty Introtext Languages 27196 Unable to add a trashed Content Language again Languages 27233 Language String Changes for Consistency Languages 27289 bad english in en-GB.mod_syndicate.ini Languages 27294 *Validation through W3C broken on multilanguage sites Languages 27308 Backend or back-end Languages 27309 centred spelling en-GB Languages 27310 sef or SEF Languages 27311 normally not normaly - spelling Languages 27312 Logged in or Logged-in Languages 27313 template component language Languages 27314 Login component language Languages 27315 utilize not en-GB Languages 27316 customize not en-GB Languages 27367 Capitalise quick icon Languages 27391 *Alternate meta tags for multilingual sites Languages 27533 Untranslated strings in Smart Search module Languages 27537 Missing capitalisation in en-GB.com_users.ini Languages 27539 Finder / Smart Search language Languages 27556 * Smart Search ALL language displays as * Languages 27564 Capitalisation of extension names in language files Languages 27565 Move Smart Search content type-specific language strings into their respective plug-ins Languages 27570 Link in Plug-in Manager: System - Language Code Languages 27572 Give contact email label its own string Languages 27588 Email or e-mail inconsistency Languages 27589 id or ID inconsistency Languages 27590 br fixes Languages 27591 URL capitalisation Languages 27593 itemID consistency Languages 27594 UTF-8 consistency Languages 27720 Remove unused strings from en-GB.com_finder.sys.ini Languages 27723 Improve tool tip and label for manage permission Languages 27746 *Useless 'language' information in Sys info Languages 27756 Duplicated keys at language files. Languages 27767 Inconsistency of "Status" translation in plugin and user manager Languages 27541 trouble with broken Intro image Layouts 27786 Unescaped code in com_content Layouts 26100 com_media image button upload using file_path not image_path param for base path** Media Manager 24634 Menu items don't become active (i.e. highlight) if the Menu Item Type is "Menu Item Alias" Modules 26581 Link to users profiles on latest user and whos online Modules 26731 Broken module chrome when using 'New window without navigation' Modules 27184 Fatal error: Call to undefined method JDocumentFeed::getHeadData() in /home/content/53/8127853/html/ Modules 27190 When Global Cache enabled sub menus don't expand Modules 27200 modMenuHelper references non-existent parameter Modules 27325 Wrong module language file names in mod_articles_popular.xml Modules 27584 Search from smart search module is producing two item ids. ** Modules 27691 Active taxonomy nodes are ignored in Smart Search module Modules 23882 JForm::getGroup() not properly generating nested group names Platform 24796 Error removing styles in uninstall function Platform 24919 JHtml::_('grid.boolean' $i $value) should add void(0) if not given a task Platform 25288 Media form field is not allowed access to media manager in the front end Platform 25957 wrong behaviour of libraries/joomla/application/module/JModuleHelper:moduleCache() Platform 26095 Follow on to 25462 for plugin uninstall Platform 26275 Joomla automatic add meta robots=index follow Platform 26421 Add a context to JHtmlContent::prepare Platform 26493 Class 'JRequest' not found in session.php Platform 26508 Wrong default format in JParameter->bind() Platform 26612 Contacts Component sets Reply-To incorrectly in 1.7 Platform 26632 Inconsistent operation of user field type Platform 26636 Forgotten JRoute:_ in JControllerForm Platform 26877 Wrong parameter to validation error Platform 27046 Problems by usergroups with the same name. Platform 27102 Collection updater not working in Joomla! 1.7 Platform 27138 Strict standard error in JCache::_getStorage() Platform 27141 Adding the possibility to automatically load (un)compressed css and js file whether debug in on or o Platform 27191 Move garbagecron.txt to the cli folder. Platform 27197 Backport the autoloader from the platform Platform 27201 More syncing with platform 11.3 Platform 27212 Test CMS migration for platform 11.3 Platform 27280 Invalid foreach in com_content route* Platform 27284 Strict standards: News feeds do not display when error_reporting is set to E_STRICT Platform 27295 Start fading out the use of deprecated platform APIs Platform 27387 Catch up to the current platform Platform 27415 Missing platform change for update notification Platform 27449 Synch up with platform changes as of CMS beta 2.5 Platform 27497 Fatal error: Cannot access protected property JLibraryManifest::$libraryname Platform 27575 *Useless replacement for alias in filter output Platform 27587 Update Generator Tag Platform 27686 Backport some fixes from the platform Platform 27722 protected function dayToString($day $abbr = false) Why protected Platform 27745 Backport joomla platform pull requests #704 #718 #738 #739 #746 and #747. Platform 27778 JFormField uses get_called_class method that is not compatible with PHP 5.2.4 Platform 27783 *JLanguage: Avoid BOM error when debug as BOM is OK when using parse_ini Platform 25086 "Image" button in tinyMCE is missing when creating new content Plugins 26643 Profile Plugin is not allowing different settings for register and profile Plugins 26676 Fields with multi select in the profile won't work** Plugins 26778 Update TinyMCE to 3.4.7 Plugins 27011 Page Navigation rel next/prev back to front Plugins 27231 Authentication plugins use deprecated features of joomla platform Plugins 27241 *Some search plugins do not query for the created date Plugins 27286 plg_profile: Missing server side validation Plugins 27376 Fix: Debug plugin reloaded tm Plugins 27382 Add appropriatestyling to system debug plugin Plugins 27435 * Plugin redirect patch Plugins 27468 script.php needs to delete one more folder Plugins 27502 JS Error: #plg_quickicon_joomlaupdate does not exist Plugins 27579 Smart Search search term highlighting not working** Plugins 27665 Smart search content plug-in screen name Plugins 27667 Move the debug CSS to its own file Plugins 27729 reCaptcha is installing as default in Global Config causing errors on frontend Plugins 27768 reCaptcha always shows up in english Plugins 27508 mod_status is mirroring incorrect in RTL admin panel RTL 25997 Fix missing article itemid in com_contact Search Engine Friendly 26626 web.config malfunction - need IIS tester Search Engine Friendly 27341 Incorrect Article Order in Sample Data SQL Files 27351 Modify default permissions for Admin Group SQL Files 27372 Configuration.php-dist for multi-db SQL Files 27444 Sample Data for SQLServer and SQLAzure sync SQL Files 27471 *Updating 1.7.0 with 2.5 beta update package does not install Finder SQL Files 27535 Review and corrections to sample content SQL Files 27712 Errors in joomla.sql SQL Files 27782 There is an unneeded row in sample data SQL Files 27248 Default Beez templates hard coded paths Templates 27288 Pagination and page navigation in default templates can look broken in front end. Templates 27324 Joomla! Administration Login box has very SMALL margin at the bottom. Templates 27414 Implement a administrator/templates/hathor/html/com_users/notes/default.php layout in hathor plus ot Templates 27417 Options have replaced preferences Templates 27482 Changesearch/ finder template image references Templates 27493 Beez 5 has a Beez 2 language key Templates 27501 Bluestork template image error Templates 27601 Move the highlighter CSS to templates/system/css/system.css Templates 27742 The new links in article lack styling flexibility plus fix invalid html Templates 27804 *Syntax error in templates.php Templates 27808 float of full article image is not affected at all Templates 23644 When adding a new item from a category view that category should be selected** User Interface 26635 (patch) Enhancement to update listing to show infourl items User Interface 27483 Add back search/finder images User Interface 27510 *Smart Search does not show up in fliter User Interface 27540 Finder / Smart Search selectbox order User Interface 27571 Missing or incorrect help screen key references User Interface 27595 *regression: Multilanguage template styles do not display flags when homes set for a Content languag User Interface 27636 Option to disable Smart Search autocompleter missing from user interface User Interface 27771 Indicate unpublished categories in category edit drop down User Interface 26589 unexpected behaviour in RSS with feed email Web Services

 

Joomla! Bug Squad

Thanks to the Joomla Bug Squad for their dedicated efforts investigating reports, fixing problems, and applying patches to Joomla. If you find a bug in Joomla, please report it on the Joomla! CMS Issue Tracker.

Active members of the Joomla Bug Squad during this last release cycle include: A Firoozmandan, Akarawuth Tamrareang, Alain Rivest, Andrea Tarr, Andrew Eddie, Ashwin Date, Bill Richardson, Brian Teeman, Chris Davenport, Christophe Demko, Denise McLaurin, Dennis Hermacki, Elin Waring, Emerson Rocha Luiz, Francisco Marzoa, Ian MacLennan, Jacob Waisner, Jacques Rentzke, James Brice, Janich Rasmussen, Jean-Marie Simonet, Jennifer Marriott, Jeremy Wilken, Kevin Griffiths, Loyd Headrick, Mark Dexter, Matt Thomas, Michael Babker, Mutuga Kigumi, Neil McNulty, Nikolai Plath, Prasit Gebsaap, Rachmat Wakjaer, Rob Clayburn, Roland Dalmulder, Rune Sjøen, Samuel Moffatt, Shaun Maunder, Sudhi Seshachala, Tim Plummer, Tom Fuller, Troy Hall, Viet Hoang Vu.

Bug Squad Leadership: Mark Dexter Coordinator; Elin Waring and Marijke Stuivenberg, Team Leaders.

Joomla! Security Strike Team

A big thanks to the Joomla! Security Strike Team for their ongoing work to keep Joomla secure. Members include: Airton Torres, Alan Langford, Bill Richardson, Elin Waring, Jason Kendall, Marijke Stuivenberg, Mark Dexter, Omar Ramos, Rouven Weßling, Samuel Moffatt.

 

The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Joomla 1.7.4. This is a security release.

Note that most users should update their sites to version 2.5.0 instead, which is now released. Version 1.7.4 is only intended for those users who for some reason are unable to update to version 2.5.0. Version 1.7 will reach end of life on 24 February 2012.

The Production Leadership Team's goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla community. Learn more about Joomla! developement at the Developer Site.

If you are upgrading your existing 1.7 site, you should be aware that the method of upgrading has changed since Joomla 1.5 so we recommend you look at the instructions. Download Click here to download Joomla 1.7.4 (Full package) » Click here to download Joomla 1.7.4 (Upgrade packages) » Instructions

• New installation and technical requirements
• Upgrade from an existing Joomla 1.7 version
• Migration from Joomla! 1.5.x

Want to test drive Joomla? Try the online demo or the Joomla JumpBox. Documentation is available for beginners.

Please note that you should always backup your site before upgrading.

Release Notes

Check the Joomla 1.7.4 Post-Release FAQs to see if there are important items and helpful hints discovered after the release.

Statistics for the 1.7.4 release

• Joomla 1.7.4 contains:
  
  • 4 security issues fixed

Security

• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure. More information »
• Medium Priority - Core - XSS Vulnerability. More information »
• Low Priority - Core - Information Disclosure. More information »
• Medium Priority - Core - XSS Vulnerability. More information »

Joomla! Bug Squad

Thanks to the Joomla Bug Squad for their dedicated efforts investigating reports, fixing problems, and applying patches to Joomla. If you find a bug in Joomla, please report it on the CMS Issue Tracker.

Active members of the Joomla Bug Squad during this last release cycle include: A Firoozmandan, Akarawuth Tamrareang, Alain Rivest, Andrea Tarr, Andrew Eddie, Ashwin Date, Bill Richardson, Brian Teeman, Chris Davenport, Christophe Demko, Denise McLaurin, Dennis Hermacki, Elin Waring, Emerson Rocha Luiz, Francisco Marzoa, Ian MacLennan, Jacob Waisner, Jacques Rentzke, James Brice, Janich Rasmussen, Jean-Marie Simonet, Jennifer Marriott, Jeremy Wilken, Kevin Griffiths, Loyd Headrick, Mark Dexter, Matt Thomas, Michael Babker, Mutuga Kigumi, Neil McNulty, Nikolai Plath, Prasit Gebsaap, Rachmat Wakjaer, Rob Clayburn, Roland Dalmulder, Rune Sjøen, Samuel Moffatt, Shaun Maunder, Sudhi Seshachala, Tim Plummer, Tom Fuller, Troy Hall, Viet Hoang Vu.

Bug Squad Leadership: Mark Dexter Coordinator; Elin Waring and Marijke Stuivenberg, Team Leaders.

Joomla! Security Strike Team

A big thanks to the Joomla! Security Strike Team for their ongoing work to keep Joomla secure. Members include: Airton Torres, Alan Langford, Bill Richardson, Elin Waring, Jason Kendall, Marijke Stuivenberg, Mark Dexter, Omar Ramos, Rouven Weßling, Samuel Moffatt.

Introduction

Drupal.org has over 725,000 registered members in 228 countries. However, only a very small percentage of this members contribute back to the project. Why is this? How can we attract more contributors? What can we do to make it easier for people to contribute? Which areas of the Drupal project would people want to contribute?

To get answers to these questions, two surveys were conducted in 2011 by the community to understand the experience of contributing or considering to contribute to the Drupal project.

This is a combined report of 358 respondents’ responses to the surveys.

Methodology

The first survey focused on the Drupal contribution experience for the Prairie initiative and received 303 responses. It was written and conducted by Leisa Reichelt (leisareichelt) that ran from April 25, 2011 to September 20, 2011.

The second, the Getting Involved survey, [list of questions] received 55 responses. It was written and conducted by Heather James (heather), Dharmesh Mistry (dcmistry) and Lisa Rex (lisarex) from October 21, 2011 to November 9, 2011. This survey focused on the respondent’s Drupal profile; their expectations, roadblocks, motivations; and Drupal areas that need most contributors, among many other things.

Profile of the respondents Prairie Survey

Of the 303 respondents, 64% were non-coders and 31% were non-active contributors.
A big majority (71%) of the respondents from the survey identified themselves as “an established, active member of the community”. The majority of the respondents regularly contribute (41%) and a good amount stated that they contribute occasionally (36%). The majority of the non-active contributors (36%) have never contributed to the project.

Getting Involved Survey

The majority of the respondents identified themselves as Site Builder (68%), and/or Developer (59%). A significant portion of respondents identified themselves as Themer (34%) and/or Project Manager (29%). It is also worth noting that 73% of the respondents cited Drupal as their source of income.

Note: Each of the surveys focused on different aspects of Drupal contributions.

Executive Summary

The findings from both surveys are summarized below, but also see:

• Detailed analysis and findings from the Prairie 2011 survey
• Detailed analysis and findings from the Getting Involved 2011 survey

The contributing experience

From the Getting Involved survey, it was found that the big motivator for people to contribute was simply to improve Drupal and support its community (40%). The other motivator was to grow their knowledge and network (25%). However, when the Getting Involved survey asked about their opinion about the existing community structure, a majority of the respondents (48.9%) had a negative reaction. They thought it was fragmented, chaotic, not great and could use improvements.

The majority of respondents of the Prairie survey thought the experience of contributing was:

• “Very much” rewarding and collaborative: Majority of the respondents of the Prairie survey thought the experience of contributing to the Drupal project was “very much” collaborative (47%) and rewarding (46%). However, the non-coders and the non-active contributors either stayed with “somewhat” or swayed between “very much” and “somewhat” with no statistical significance.
• “Not really” to “somewhat” efficient: Majority thought the process of contribution was “not really” efficient (43%) or “somewhat” efficient (40%) with no significant statistical difference between the responses. Non coders shared the same feeling.
• “Somewhat” intimidating, confusing, unwieldy and supportive: The respondents of the second survey thought the experience of contributing to the Drupal project was “somewhat” intimidating (46%), confusing (49%), unwieldy (43%) and supportive (52%).
• Split between “Very much” and “Somewhat” inspiring, exciting and friendly: When asked about the experience of contributing in terms of inspiration, excitement and friendliness, the majority swayed between “very much” and “somewhat” responses with no significant statistical difference. It is worth noting that in all the four categories (Rewarding, Inspiring, Excitement and Friendly), the majority of non-coders and non-active contributors stuck to “somewhat”.

What do people want to contribute?

Respondents of the Getting Involved survey mostly want to contribute on Documentation/technical writing and PHP development/LAMP (54% each). The next area with the most interest is training (46%) and Mentoring/Support (32%).

What areas need the most contributions?

The respondents thought documentation (12 respondents), Drupal.org. (7 respondents) and Design/UX/Usability (6 respondents) needed the most attention from other contributors.

What areas of Drupal community do you think need the most contributions?

Although the respondents from the second survey thought the contributing experience was “very much” collaborative, majority (47%) thought “Redesign the issue page to make it easier to collaborative effectively” as a “very important” initiative. Besides that, the respondents (overall, non coders and non active contributors) agreed (47%) that “Redesigning parts of Drupal.org to help newbies find ways to start contributing” as “very important”. This number was higher for non active contributors (55%) than the others.

Other Findings

Across profiles (of the second survey), “Creating ‘team’ pages to aggregate activities and people interested in a topic” (48%) and “Designing better tools for planning large initiatives” (41%) were deemed as “quite important”.

For “Designing a reputation system to show what different people are expert in and how well they are known by the Drupal community” majority of respondents swayed between quite important (32%) to less important (39%). This was also true for non coders and non active contributors.

Roadblocks to contributing

The major roadblock from they getting involved was lack of information on how to get involved (and whom to contact) (42%). This issue of getting started (48%) was also found in the Prairie survey.

• Lack of information on how to contribute, what to work on or whom to contact (42%)
• Don’t have time (18%)
• “I don’t know enough technically” (16%)
• Intimidation factor (13%)
• Want to talk/need guidance from mentors (13%)
• Slow turn around time to get feedback/or to get committed (7%)

‘Get Involved’ pages and Drupal.org

Only 16% of the respondents of the Prairie survey visit the ‘Get Involved’ pages on Drupal.org. 46% of Prairie survey respondents took the opportunity to complain about Drupal.org. They wanted a better Drupal.org. (24%), better tools to collaborate (5%), and an efficient issue queue (5%). For Drupal.org., they particularly wanted to find information easily (4%).

How could we improve the experience?

To make the experience of contributing better, non-contributors wanted better information to get started. And the contributors reiterated this when asked what would have been helpful when they started contributing. Besides that, the second most important thing that mattered was the human aspect. The personal touch would have been helpful to the contributors while they were starting and the non contributors want to work with experienced contributors. It is worth noting here that a significant number of respondents are interested in helping with this (Training - 46%, Mentoring/Support - 32%). (Responses from the Getting Involved survey)

Other noteworthy things

• Designers and non-programmers who responded (11) to open-ended question in the Prairie survey complained that contributing to the project was heavily code focused, that designers did not get the credit they deserved, and that they did not know how the non-coders could contribute to the project. Like the respondents from the Getting Involved survey, the non-programmers also reiterated that they did not know where they were needed.
• A small but considerate amount of Prairie survey respondents were discouraged by other community members and slow turn around time (8% each)
• The Getting Involved survey also asked as to what do they expect from a community leader, and they wanted someone who could moderate discussions/issues, offer guidance, and carve a plan for the community.

What do you think about the existing community structure?

Conclusion

We hope the findings from the survey will be helpful to the Drupal Association and the community on the next big priorities for Drupal.org. It is evident from the findings that a significant effort is required to provide effective, easy-to-find information on how to get started with contributing to the Drupal community. However, help from other community members is needed to keep the momentum going.

Next steps

Some conversations/efforts have begun toward this goal of improving the contributor experience, such as redesigning the Community, Support and Getting started landing pages, redesigning the issue queue and more.

We need to identify areas that need leaders, and areas that need contributors. Contributors are in demand for documentation especially.

If you are interested to contribute to this effort to provide better documentation for getting started with contributing, great! There are several open issues on improving Getting Involved content, including the Getting Involved landing page and Getting Involved Guide. Please visit this link to read about other community initiatives that might be of interest to you. If you are unsure where you can best help, please contact Lisa Rex (lisarex), who can point you in the right direction.

If you have any questions about the survey/findings, please feel free to contact Dharmesh Mistry (dcmistry).

As we mentioned last week, you can like and reblog posts directly from your reader, which displays a stream of all the updates published on all the blogs you follow from your WordPress.com account.

We’ve also brought the reblog button back to the toolbar that appears at the top of the screen when you’re logged into WordPress.com. Note that you’ll only see the like and reblog options while you’re looking at individual posts.

For example, you’ll see this on the left side of your toolbar while viewing http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/read-blogs:

And your toolbar will look like this while you’re browsing the home page of en.blog.wordpress.com:

How does reblogging work?

Reblogging is a quick way to share posts published by other WordPress.com users on your own blog.

When a post is reblogged, it shows up with a link back to the blog it came from, the first image in the post, an excerpt of the post’s introduction (if it contains text), and thumbnails of any other images that the post contains. It also shows any comments left by the person who reblogged the post:

Reblogs published on blogs you follow will also appear in your reader:

What happens when my posts get reblogged?

An excerpt of your post will be published on the reblogger’s site (with a link back to your original post), and you’ll receive a reblog notification in the post comments (you might need to approve it first):

You’ll also receive an email notification of the reblog.

Can I stop my posts from being reblogged?

Only posts on private blogs cannot be reblogged. Keep in mind that all reblogs contain a link back to your original post, so the more people reblog your posts, the more likely it is that you’ll attract new visitors (and perhaps new followers, too!).

What happens if I reblog a reblog?

If, for example, Stephane reblogs a WordPress.com announcement on his site and Lori reblogs Stephane’s reblog, Lori only re-publishes any comments Stephane made about the announcement. If Lori wants to share the original announcement, she should reblog the post from en.blog.wordpress.com, not from Stephane’s reblog. But if Stephane leaves a really clever comment, Lori might want to share it by reblogging his reblog on her site.

Can I edit a post I’ve reblogged?

You can go back and edit the comments you left when you reblogged a post, but you cannot edit any parts of the original post excerpt (including the post title). If you like, you can add categories or tags to the post. Reblogs show up under Posts → All Posts in your dashboard, and they can be edited the same way you edit your own posts.

It’s been an extra big week in the news ’round these parts, so much so that the launch announcement of our latest premium theme seems like an extra extra good way to headline our Friday.

Newsy is a versatile business and news-friendly theme that offers up to ten different layouts, four footer columns, custom link and accent colors, and a custom site header. Brand and content-focused editorial teams will love publishing with this theme.

Newsy: Home Page

Designed by Themify, Newsy comes with an impressive set of Theme Options that afford you a great deal of flexibility with how you choose to display your website. Easily control your site’s sidebar positions, home page and archive page post layouts, and navigation bar search box visibility.

You also have the ability to change your site-wide link and accent colors. A few quick adjustments via the options panel will truly have the effect of individualizing your site and making it stand out from the crowd.

Newsy: Accent and Link Color Examples

Up to ten different layouts in Newsy can be achieved by simply altering your widgets and Theme Options. A wide sidebar, narrow sidebar, and two mini sidebars come rolled into Newsy, as well as additional post display and sidebar alignment options.

Newsy: Wide Sidebar Left, Narrow Sidebar Right Option

All of this is controlled either from within Appearance → Widgets or Appearance → Theme Options. The goal with Newsy is maximum flexibility without the headache of manually configuring a thousand theme options. In this case we really can say that less—well, fewer (options)—is more.

Newsy is a premium upgrade for your blog at $85 for a lifetime subscription. Read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.