Posted by: Gabe Wahhab in Site Development on Feb 12, 2009
So i was surfing the Joomla Developer site today and came across Andrew Eddie's blog about Joomla 1.6 and some of the new functionality. The 2 main things coming in this major release is going to be the way extensions are stored in the database and access controls. He didn't go into the packages to much just said:
"this will ultimately make it easier for developers to make multi-installable packages. I'll let Sam blog about this more at another time.".
This is somethign really great that will save us all a lot of time if I am understanding him correctly. I interpret it to mean that we will be able to install a "Package" instead of having to install multiple componenets, modules, and plugins for certain extensions. Maybe Sam will be able to clear this up for us.
The second and more important of the 2 is going to be native access control levels. This is something Joomla has lacked and has been a major drawback especially compared to other CMS's such as Drupal. It however looks like they are implementing everything we need. Here is an excerpt from the blog that will explain more:
"As it stands at the moment, the Access Control System will include the ability to:
* lock groups of users down to access particular functions, like managing each extension, managing menus, installing a particular type of extension, etc;
* lock groups of users to be able to add, edit or remove content in particular categories (in other words, you will be able to define your own variants for existing groups like Author, Editor and Publisher);
* lock groups or users down to be able to view content in new access levels that you define (for example, you could create a Staff group and a Staff access level so that your Staff users can see content restricted to their group).
The "granularity" of what you can do is still up in the air a bit but that's the general direction we are heading. Suffice to say though, that in itself is a major improvement over 1.0 and 1.5."
Needless to say this all makes me very giddy and excited for Joomla 1.6
Here is a link to his blog post
Till next time:
Gabe