As many of you may be aware, upgrading Joomla in the past involved either the help of an extension (see our past blog about that here) or a manual upgrade. All of this is now a thing of the past!
This is the new "standard" in Joomla. It's going to make things a whole lot easier for Joomla Core updates, as well as future extension updates. A few things to note:
This method is only present in Joomla 1.6.5 and beyond
Joomla 1.7 is a security release, if you are using Joomla 1.6.x you should upgrade asap.
This new way of updating Joomla means that you now have no excuse not to keep your Joomla sites updated and secure. It also provides a new incentive for developing new sites in Joomla 1.6.x and beyond.
Joomla 1.6 brings a number of new features to Joomla, but still retains the same easy to use interface, as well as continuing to be fully extendable via the many thousands of Joomla extensions available. We hope our tutorials prove useful to all, but especially to those starting out with Joomla.
Unless you live under a rock, you'll already have heard about the release of Joomla 1.6. You can read the full Joomla 1.6 Release Announcement here. It seems the hottest topic as a result of this is: "How do I upgrade to Joomla 1.6?" Let's just provide a bit of background information to you before we get you started on the answer to that question and provide you with some more Joomla Tutorials.
First of all:
Why do you want to upgrade to Joomla 1.6?
You should consider using Joomla 1.6 for your new Joomla sites in the near future, however, with regard to your existing Joomla 1.5 sites, why do you need to upgrade? Joomla 1.5 is a long term support release. This means it will be supported with security and bug fixes for far longer than Joomla 1.6 may be. Note too, Joomla 1.6 is NOT an upgrade from Joomla 1.5, it's a MIGRATION.
So, how do you migrate to Joomla 1.6 from Joomla 1.5?
There is work being done on a migrator component that will assist you to do this. Probably the easiest way to show you the steps involved is to point you to the following short video:
We hope the following information helps you out for the time being, and remember.. Joomla 1.5 to 1.6 is not an upgrade, it's a migration. That being said, it's not something all users will need or even be interested in. The future is Joomla 1.6 and beyond, but for existing sites that already work well, stick to Joomla 1.5.
If you are a Joomla developer, you'll want to take the time to watch the following video. This video details the many changes in Joomla 1.6 that developers will need to be aware of.
One of the main benefits of Joomla 1.6 is the ACL (Access Control List) that has been introduced. This video provides you a visual guide as to what this involves for site administrators. It's a must see for all Joomla users. Enjoy, and thanks to both Andrew's for producing this.
