Thanks for using Joomla and Joomlashack.
Every month we post a round-up of news from around the Joomla community. This was a big month for news: Joomla 4 arrived on August 17th!
Not surprisingly, this month's news is dominated by Joomla 4. We've posted all of these updates, plus a lot more in the Joomlashack Facebook group, so join if you want daily Joomla updates.
Click here to join the Joomlashack group on Facebook
Joomla 4 is Here!
August 17 was a good day! The Joomla team announced the release of version 4.0. They chose this date because it was also Joomla's 16th birthday. Congrats to so many Joomla team members who have worked hard to reach this milestone. They deserve to enjoy their accomplishment, and our thanks.
Read about the Joomla 4 release
The Joomlashack Approach to Joomla 4
In this blog post, I'll explain Joomlashack's roadmap for dealing with Joomla 4 updates. We think Joomla 4 is a great product, but do not recommend moving to Joomla 4 immediately. Our advice is to wait a couple of months before migrating to Joomla 4.
Read about Joomlashack's roadmap for Joomla 4
Around 1,500 extensions Are Ready for Joomla 4
Joomla 4 is off to a good start. The Joomla Extensions Directory has over 80 pages of extensions that are ready for Joomla 4. That's around 1,500 extensions that you can use on Joomla 4 today!
See the Joomla 4-ready extensions
Cron Jobs Will Become Easier in Joomla 4
This is a great outcome from this year's Google Summer of Code. There is currently no standard way to schedule tasks in the Joomla core. There is also no way to integrate native cron with Joomla if the server offers access to this functionality. A new pull request introduces a Cronjobs infrastructure into Joomla.
See the proposed cron jobs feature in Joomla 4
The Joomla 4 Dashboard
The most visible change in Joomla 4 is the admin area. Viviana Menzel has an excellent introduction to the new dashboard:
Check out the changes in the Joomla 4 admin
When Should You Plan on Using Joomla 4?
Joomla 4 is available now. Does that mean you should plan on using it for new sites or upgrading your Joomla 3 sites right away? (Spoiler: probably not). In this video, Rod Martin points out the biggest hurdle you'll face when making that decision.
Watch Rod's video on using Joomla 4
64 Free Tools for Joomla Designers and Developers
Vic Drover from Watchful published our curated list of (mostly) free web design tools that will make building a Joomla site faster and less tedious. He organized the tools in four categories: design, performance, development, and more.