All the Joomla News for March 2022

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 05 April 2022 05 April 2022

Hey everyone. Thanks for using Joomla and Joomlashack.

Every month we post a round-up of news from around the Joomla community.

We've posted all of these updates, plus a lot more in the Joomlashack Facebook group, so join if you want daily Joomla updates.

Shack Toolbox is Ready for Joomla 4

Shack Toolbox is now available for Joomla 4 users! You can download version 4.0 and the same package file will work on both Joomla 3 and Joomla 4. This is the 17th extension that we've updated for Joomla 4.

See more about Shack Toolbox and Joomla 4

The New Task Scheduler in Joomla 4.1

This is a really good overview of the new Task Scheduler that arrived in Joomla 4.1:

Find out more the Task Scheduler

More Secure Joomla Updates Are Coming

Over the weekend, there was a hackathon at Cloudfest in Germany. Elisa Foltyn shared photos and updates. The main goal was to improve Joomla's update security. At the moment, updates are not secured with cryptographic signatures. That may get fixed after this hackathon and will make Joomla updates safer.

More details on the new updates

A Joomla Site for Ukranian Refugees

The team at DJExtensions have helped launch this Joomla-based site that enables Ukrainian refugee families find somewhere to stay. They have a classifieds section with offers of accommodation in the UK and EU:

Visit the site that helps refugee families

Video: Joomla 4.1 Child Templates

New from Rod Martin: It's never a good idea to edit a template file directly. The best way to add your own changes to a template file is by creating a child template. With the release of Joomla 4.1, there's an easy new way to create and manage child templates:

Watch Rod's video on child templates

Phoca Gallery and Joomla 4

Phoca Gallery is now ready for Joomla 4. This is probably the best free photo gallery in Joomla and the Phoca team have a lot of extensions to upgrade. Congrats to Jan and the Phoca team:

Read about the new Phoca Gallery

What's Happening With Joomla 5(!)

Some news from the Joomla Release Team here. Basically Joomla 4 is going very smoothly. When Joomla 5 arrives, it will be another point release (perhaps similar to how WordPress does it). It will have no new features and extensions won't have to change:

Learn about new plans for Joomla over the next few years

Video: Custom Fields in Joomla 4

Another video from Rod Martin and OSTraining this week. Rod was skeptical about custom fields. But in this video he revisits them and find fields to be incredibly useful:

See Rod's video on custom fields

Tutorial: Accessibility in Joomla 4

I use Joomla every day, but still have much to learn. This is one of those great articles that reveals much that I didn't know. Viviana Menzel and Christiane Maier-Stadtherr introduce the accessibility features in Joomla 4.

Check out the guide to accessibility

Joomla 4.2 Cookie Manager

There's likely to be a new Cookie Manager in Joomla 4.2. This Github issue has videos and screenshots of how it will work:

Click here for information on the new Cookie Manager

Joomla 4.2 Alpha Version

It's good to see Joomla 4 proceeding at a steady pace, with regular releases and consistent improvements:

Click here for more on the new alpha version

Joomla 4.2 Filter Menu Items by Component

Another small change coming to Joomla 4.2: you will be able to filter menu links based on component. So you could find all OSMap menu links, or all OSCampus menu links:

Click here for more on the new menu filters

Question: What is the Best Image Optimization Tool for Joomla?

This was asked in our Facebook group and got a wide range of answers: "Is there a Joomla image optimizer plugin you use that is head and shoulders above the rest? Need to find a good solution for a client."

Click here to see the image optimization recommendations