Year 2011 is the year of Joomla! 1.6. Only 10 days into the new year, Joomla! Team gave everyone in the Joomla! community a rather wonderful New Year gift - the release of Joomla! 1.6 Stable. You can now head for http://www.joomla.org/16/ to download or experience the newest version of Joomla!
Here are the new and improved features to end-users and site administrators listed in the official Joomla! 1.6 announcement:
- Finer access controls for viewing and editing content with configurable user groups and viewing levels
- A user-defined category structure, from simple one-level to complex multi-level categories
- Installation improvements allowing for multiple extension installations in one package, updatable with a single click
- Expanded language support for easy production of multi-lingual sites
- Start and end publishing times for modules with more control over where they display,
- Fresh new templates and semantic markup to please the eye as well as the search engines
- More creative control through template styles
- Hundreds of additional features, streamlining workflow and productivity
Style improvements allow designers better control and greater flexibility to show off intended effect and user experiences. The improved API's let developers achieve closer integration and realize new possibilities.
So far there are about 280 Joomla! 1.6 Native extensions available on JED for you to expand the functionalities beyond the core system. That number could increase quickly once extension developers start to upgrade their products.