Never before has there been more of a reason for Joomla! to become so exclamatory (viva la Joomla!). The developers, designers, and planners of the world have finally wiped the sweat from their brow and produced Joomla! 1.5- or also referred to as Khepri.

So what's a Khepri? An Egyptian god associated with the dung beetle. How pleasantly quaint! Are the developers trying to tell us that the release is as popular as the dung beetle? (Okay, okay; Khepri was associated with rebirth too- and the developers claim they reworked all of the code, so we'll leave the interpretation up to you.)

Joomla! Easy gets Easier- Fast gets Faster

The most immediately notable difference will be the improved user interface and installation process. We all know that certain person who doesn't quite have any luck with even the easiest of operations. We won't point any fingers, but we're glad to point out that Joomla! is now a single-installation process for extensions.



But what really shines in the redesign is the core article system. It has been sleekly redesigned to be more simple, functional, and easier to navigate. Most notable is the omission of the dual editor system, which has now been replaced with a single editor. Writers can now also upload images and data on the fly- even while the article is being written.



Also notice that the “more” line can now separate the introduction from the article in a single editor. Joomla developers state this “supports a more natural writing process.” We agree whole-heartedly, this (along with other improvements) will be very well received by the Joomla! community.

Joomla! and Search Engine Optimization: A Match Made in Heaven?

With the release of Joomla! 1.5, we now have control over titles, tags, and easy access to Meta data. We are quite pleased with these additions, but one feature in particular caught our eye: SEF URLs.

The concept of a SEF URL is easy: make URLs search engine friendly so that a website gets more search engine traffic. With this we can take out those numbers and characters that are so counter-productive to our search engine optimization efforts: and replace them with killer keywords!



What's more is the SEO tab in the administration panel really couldn't be simpler to use. Our hats go off to the developers at Joomla. We predict that Joomla! 1.5 will certainly overtake some blog applications (such as Wordpress) with this type of functionality and control.

Joomla! Gives in to MVC Architecture

Model-view-controller, or simply MVC, is not new by any means. What is new is the fact that only recently has languages, scripts, and programs taken advantage of all there is to offer in MVC architecture. The fundamental goal of MVC architecture is to separate a system into three distinct layers: the model, the view, and the controller.



As you can tell from the diagram, MVC separates common actions into different layers. For database access, we use the Model. To handle requests to the View or Model, we use the Controller. Lastly, we use the View to display the information to the client.

MVC- Why is it Important to Joomla?

MVC can be seen as a catalyst for developers. It enables developers to work on separate parts of the task at hand, allowing for group projects to be much more organized. If a problem arises, it can be tracked down much easier with this sort of method. It also allows for scalability- something that not many applications provide for.

You can see MVC in many other applications and languages. Ruby on Rails, for existence, was founded on the MVC principle. Go ahead and ask and RoR developer what they think of the MVC architecture!

(Note: We are not responsible for any dreadfully long, arduous conversations as a result)

Joomla! 1.5 gets Object-Oriented Support

Another feature that has everyone talking like schoolgirls is the support of object-oriented design. Object-oriented designs were created to make code organized, more concise, and readable. It allows developers to declare classes, modules, and use inheritance (among other things.)

In the example below, we can some of the functionality object-oriented design supports.



Instead of writing confusing code over and over again, developers will now enjoy creating their own classes, functions, and parameters that can be passed to objects as seen above.

Object-Oriented Design- Why is it Important to Joomla?

Much like the MVC architecture, object oriented design will catalyze group efforts. As Joomla! is an open source application, this is a very hot issue. Unintentionally obsfucated code spanning multiple lines can now be replaced with one-line alternatives. What's not to love?

The Conclusion of Khepri: Dung or Rebirth?

We couldn't be more pleased with this release of Joomla. No single point of interest was focused on its development- both the end user and developers saw a large range up upgrades and fixes. What is even more exciting is to see what can be developed with the coming months- what with the MVC and object-oriented design upgrades.

Keep on trucking, Joomla, we're rooting for you. Remember that Maiahost provides the best Joomla Hosting and can accommodate all your CMS needs