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Request for Proposals

The Joomla Extensions Directory (JED) Team is seeking proposals to develop a new listing management extension for latest version of Joomla.

The requirements document for the JED 3.0 can be viewed at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wPV1rQYqbEpF4Z4n8ACvkJB98E5GysARv1OlkTlr6uE/edit?usp=sharing

This document is intended to outline what the processes for the Joomla Extensions Directory are and what would be needed of a new Joomla software component to support these processes in a better way. The main purpose of this requirements document is to serve as an agreement between the possible developers and JED team / the customers on what the application will do.

If you are interested in building this for the Joomla project, please send your proposal (and quote if necessary) to fulfill these requirements to before October 14, 2013.

The companies/developers with the best proposals will be contacted no later then October 28, 2013 to schedule an interview.

If you have any questions about the requirements document you can post them in the forum or send them to the above email address.

Any updates to the RFP will be listed below.

Change Log

28 Aug 2013 Initial release

Details: Written by Matthew Baylor; Published: 28 August 2013

Work is progressing on one of Joomla's 2013 overall project goals:

Create a Joomla "app store" that will allow users to search for and install extensions directly from the backend administrator interface.

If enough progress continues, there is the possibility this new feature could be included in Joomla 3.2, which is scheduled to be released in September.

The team of volunteers working on this new feature would appreciate your help in two different areas: coming up with an informal name that doesn't include "app store", and contributions from those who want to help with the coding and testing of this new feature.

Your ideas for an informal name for this new feature

This new feature has been referred to by a number of different names including "app store". But it's not really an app store, and besides that name has already been taken. So we would like to come up with a new informal name for this new feature.

At this point it looks like the formal name may be "Install From Web". That is the name of the new tab that users will click on in the Joomla Extension Manager to use this new feature.

The informal name can be something a little more descriptive that would be used in documentation, tutorials, press announcements and interviews, and in lots of other different ways.

Please share your ideas for an informal name for this new feature by filling out this Google form.

Volunteers needed for coding and testing

There is still some coding work to be completed before this new feature will be ready to be included in a future Joomla release. Once the coding work is completed, then more help will be needed to test the new feature. If enough volunteers are willing to help with these tasks, then hopefully this new feature will be considered to be included in Joomla 3.2.

If you would like to help with either coding or testing this new feature, please respond in this thread on the public Joomla CMS development email list. If you are not a member of this public email list, please join the list and then respond in that thread.

Details: Published: 20 August 2013

Joomlacode.org, which hosts the Joomla download files, issue trackers and other Joomla related projects, will be updated this weekend. The underlying GForge code will be updated from an old, out of date version to the current GForge release.

The update will put Joomlacode.org on a much more solid foundation. (Imagine how we would feel if someone was running an old Joomla version like 1.6.2!) There are many new features and bug fixes in the new GForge version. The update will also make it much easier for us to keep up with new GForge releases going forward.

To install the update, Joomlacode.org will be down for about two hours, starting Monday at 02:00 GMT (see this link for your time zone). This means that all projects hosted at Joomlacode.org will be unavailable during this time. This includes download files, auto-update files, issue trackers, code repositories, wikis, and any other Joomlacode.org resource.

After the update, the site will be available with all prior data but with the new GForge software version. A group of volunteers has tested the updated software and no major issues are expected. However, as with any software update, there is always the possibility that something won’t work as expected.

If you find any problem with Joomlacode.org after the update, please report it on the Joomla! Bug Squad list (email to or go to https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/joomlabugsquad).

Most of the site functions will be similar and recognizable after the update. There are a few changes specifically to the trackers used by the Bug Squad that we will document on the wiki here: https://docs.joomla.org/Issue_Tracker_Changes.

The Joomla project owes a huge “thank you” to Tony Bibbs and his team at GForge. They have graciously volunteered their time and resources to do this update.

Details: Published: 11 August 2013

The numbering of the CMS version 3 releases that are coming in the next day or so is going to be a bit surprising. Maybe not as strange as going from 1.7 to 2.5, but let’s take a closer look so everyone understands what is going on.

As previously posted, the plan was for a release of 3.1.2 early this week. However some people automatically updated prior to the release due to receiving premature notification of the release while final testing of the release packages by the Joomla! Bug Squad was beginning.

When they updated they found that, in fact, there was a problem with the packages. That problem caused their updates to fail, breaking their sites. After several intense days of investigation, it was determined that the failure was due to changes to a key file (restore.php) in the update component itself. This caused the updates to fail before completing.

Once the cause of the problem was identified, a solution was sought. Although it seems as though a limited number of sites were impacted by this change, it is important to provide them with a way to update successfully using the automatic updater, which the corrupted file would prevent.

After a lot of head scratching, experimentation and testing a workable plan was developed. That is where the strange release schedule and numbers come in.

3.1.2, the release that was never released, will not have a formal release.

3.1.3 will be a release that will only replace the corrupted file. Only users who installed 3.1.2 will install 3.1.3. Everyone else will skip 3.1.2 and 3.1.3 and go straight to 3.1.4.

Users currently on 3.1.1 will go directly to 3.1.4.
Users who accidentally went to 3.1.2 will go to 3.1.3 and then 3.1.4.

All of this will work seamlessly in the Joomla update component.

Thanks as always to the people who test the pre-release CMS packages and to those who accidentally updated and quickly reported problems. This participation means that no broken version of the CMS was released and is what makes Joomla! not just such a powerful application but also a great development and user community to be a part of.

Though 3.141592 has been suggested as the next release, most likely we’ll have a 3.1.5 in August just before the beta of 3.2.

Update: Added missing paragraph and missing dots in title.

Details: Published: 25 July 2013

On Sunday evening, the PLT began its pre-release procedure in preparation of the upcoming 2.5.12 and 3.1.2 releases, originally scheduled for release today.

During this procedure, pre-release packages are posted to Joomlacode and made available to the Joomla Bug Squad for final testing. Typically, these packages are not visible to everyone. However, since there are no security issues included in this release, these pre-release packages were not hidden. This caused third party update services such as Akeeba Admin Tools to erroneously report that these releases were available and as such several hundred sites were updated before the packages were hidden on Monday morning.