The Joomla! Community Portal ™

Joomla.org is growing!

With so many recent changes to the Joomla.org family, as well as the anticipation of Joomla! 1.6, a restructuring of the websites is due.

Joomla.org is one of the largest websites in the world (something to be very proud of). As with all large sites that are run by multiple teams, one of the biggest challenges is keeping everything consistent. We see this with corporations like Microsoft, Apple and even Dell.com, to name a few, and Joomla! is no exception.

Over the past 4 years, Joomla!'s number of sub sites has grown from a handful to nearly 20, with each site pumping out a major amount of data to the users. The current structure and layout of Joomla! is not ideal for this type of rapid growth, and it has become a bit difficult to find things. To solve this, Joomla.org will be undergoing a few changes.

Let's take a look at what changes are in the works, and why.

• Problem 1: Joomla! has approx. 20 sites. Fitting all of them into the top menu bar is virtually impossible.
• Solution 1: An attractive, easy to follow drop down navigation system will make all the sites accessible. Users will be able to navigate to various portions of the site without digging around for the links. There is a snap shot of the new drop down design in the images below.

• Problem 2: Clutter, plain and simple. Due to the rapid growth, information is scattered in places.
• Solution 2: The restructured site is clean, organized, and polished. (See image below.)

• Problem 3: Consistency. This is often hard to control on an everyday site, let alone one with rapid growth.
• Solution 3: Each individual site will be rolled with the new template, providing consistency throughout. (Someday I will figure out that Wiki... ;-)  )

• Problem 4: Content Management.
• Solution 4: While we are upgrading the templates for the site, we will make enhancements to the current content structure, making it easier for you to navigate and find things without using Google.

We have set out to keep the new template just as clean as the old one, while allowing for additional growth. The new design is streamlined, simple and easy to navigate.

We'd like your help as we move forward with the new design.

Your input is valuable. What we do impacts you, the people who visit and contribute to the Joomla! sites every day. If you have suggestions based on the images above, we are open to hearing about them. Please use the following form to submit suggestions: https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/community.joomla.org/viewform?formkey=dEhmNWFscnl0T2Vkd1laSXhYTk53N0E6MQ.

We will iron out all the kinks over the next few weeks, then we will roll out the updates. Joomla.org will be updated first, then we will move on to the sub sites. We honestly can't wait to launch the site! As much as we'd like to do it today, there are still some important things to consider...mainly, your input.

Keep your eyes peeled for these major updates to Joomla.org.