Greyhead.net

My work with ChronoForms takes me into all kinds of gloomy nooks and crannies of Joomla!'s code trying to work out how our users can get the results they want.

In the last month or two we have had three major upheavals in quick succession: the MooTools Upgrade plug-in; the release of ChronoForms version 4; and the release of Joomla! 1.6. In effect this means that I am now supporting four different ChronoForms versions. And, of coures, the new releases have brought an influx of new users wanting help. Suddenly all my much valued time for learning about the new Joomla! 1.6 has been taken up.

Joomla! is complex and multi-featured and the new release is surprisingly poorly documented. There are overviews around but little that gets into the nitty-gritty of what is new and how it works.

Eric has taken a first significant step to close those gaps; his excellent 'First Look' is a guided tour to the changes that you can expect when you start to work with the new Joomla! version. In 200 pages he manages to show us what is new; what had been left (more or less) the same and, most importantly, where we need to pay more attention and discover exactly how a new feature functions.

Eric Tiggeler "Joomla! 1.6 First Look"

The eight Chapters are:

1. Stepping up to Joomla! 1.6: this covers upgrading (difficult) and an oversight of what's new;
2. Exploring your Enhanced Workspace: new features in the back-end;
3. Organising and Managing Content: meet nested categories and the new article editor;
4. Managing Menus and Menu Modules: new admin methods and improved layout;
5. Managing Site Access with Access Control: by far the biggest change is the intoruduction of flexible user groups and access controls;
   
6. New Flexibility in Using Templates: Farewell to tables and hello multiple templates;
   
7. Unleashing the New Power of Extensions: New features and controls, and some familiar features removed;
   
8. SEO Improvements: new features and a new - and much needed - URL/Redirect manager.

Eric writes smoothly and the book is an easy read - sometimes perhaps too easy: I found that I was hunting for the few words among the many illustrations. Yet it does the job and does it well. You can read this from cover to cover in a few hours; then keep it by your desk to remind yourself when you need a refresher on some topic or other.

Be warned though; this is a driver's manual not a mechanics handbook; you will find very little at all about what is happenning under the hood. There are still plenty of nooks and crannies in the code that have to be explored piece by piece. 

Bob