Release Update: Joomla! 1.5.4 and Joomla! 1.5.5

Development Working Group Coordinators

During the past month, the project released Joomla! 1.5.4 on July 8th and then, nearly three weeks later, Joomla! 1.5.5 was released on July 28th. The purpose for the quick turn around release was to fix a problem with "Duplicate Article Titles" introduced in 1.5.4. We encourage you to upgrade to Joomla! 1.5.5, if you haven't already. There are a number of bug fixes, minor security fixes, and nice improvements in each of these releases. We will touch on some of the more important improvements in this article.

.htaccess Security Fix

In 1.5.4, a change was made to the htaccess.txt file to move the rewrite rules that block common exploits above the SEF URL rewrite section. This is considered a minor security improvement. If you are upgrading your Joomla! 1.5 Web site, you are encouraged to use the delivered htaccess.txt file as your .htaccess file and reapply any changes you might have added for your hosting environment.

JA_Purity Template

In Joomla! 1.5.4, the JA_Purity template began to be made available in core. This template was selected by popular vote, was updated to meet core standards, and has undergone rigorous testing. It is now one of three templates available in the core distribution for your use. Thanks to JoomlArt for this design.

To use this new template:

Logon to the Administrator.
Select the Extensions-Template Manager menu option.
Click the option button to the left of JA_Purity and press the Default button at the top of the Web page.

Help Screens

As of 1.5.4, the Joomla! 1.5 Help Screens have been completed and are accessible from the Administrator. Special thanks to Marieke van der Tuin who led this team effort. Please take time to read Marieke's announcement and to thank her and the rest of the team for their considerable contributions to the Joomla! community.

Page Title Consistency

As of 1.5.4 (with article fixes added in 1.5.5), there is now consistency for page titles across all core menu types, for each core template.

Here are the basic rules for page titles on all pages (except for Articles which are explained next):

The page title always displays in the browser title bar.
The page title can be displayed on the Joomla! Web page if the menu item Show Page Title parameter is set to Yes.
If the page title displays in both places, the same page title is used in both places.
The value used for page title is determined using these three rules:
- Rule 1: If a value is entered for the Page Title parameter, that value is used as the page title.
- Rule 2: Otherwise, the name of selected content is used as the page title when the menu item requires specific content.
- Rule 3: Otherwise, a specific word or phrase is used as the page title, depending on the menu type selected.

Page Titles will appear on Articles only if each of the following three conditions are true:

The Article is presented using the Article Layout Menu Type.
The Page Title parameter has a value.
The Show Page Title parameter option is "Yes."

To learn more, see the Release Notes Page Title Parameters.

Content Triggers - OnBeforeContentSave and OnAfterContentSave

In 1.5.4, two new content event triggers, the OnBeforeContentSave and OnAfterContentSave, were added. Joomla! extension developers are encouraged to take a look at these new functions in the Example Content Plugin. These extensions will make email notifications for new articles, ping, automatic posting of articles to social networks, news services, or group blog environments, archive development, and version management far easier to implement. We hope to see cool things emerge on JED soon.

Language Installation Improvements

Improvements have been added to the Language Installation process so that the Site and Administrator languages can be installed as one package. See this month's magazine article Developer: Creating a single package for Admin and Site Languages for more information on how to use this new capability.

SEF URL fixes for Content

In 1.5.5, a number of bugs with SEF Content URLs were fixed, including issues related to Section List links, Breadcrumbs, Article Archives, Page Titles, and Article links in various Modules. In addition to the bug fixes, an improvement to Category Blog SEF URLs is now available in Joomla! 1.5.5.

Prior to Joomla! 1.5.5, Category Blog Article SEF URLs followed this pattern: http://example.com/menu-item-alias/nn-category-alias/nn-article-alias.html

With Joomla! 1.5.5, the URL no longer includes the nn-category-alias node, as this pattern shows: http://example.com/menu-item-alias/nn-article-alias.html

Existing Joomla! 1.5 Web sites should experience no problem due to this SEF URL enhancement. Existing SEF URLs for Category Blog Articles continue to navigate to the correct page.

Component and Module Upgrade Fixes

In 1.5.5, a long term bug with Component Upgrades is fixed. Previously, when a Component Upgrade Package was installed, the Component ID was removed since that value is also a part of the Administrator Menu Items. Now the Component ID is stored during the Upgrade, along with Menu Item Parameters so that the values can be restored following the Upgrade process. This fix preserves Menu Item values during related Component Upgrade process. Additionally, a small bug with module upgrades was fixed which previously caused duplicate module entries.

Thanks to the 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 with Joomla!, please