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Review From David Bodner about:
My mock-up design turned out better than expected. Cant beat the price for such quality work. Great job Skilled Graphics!
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Dennis always exceeds our expectations with his creative ideas, always meeting our very demanding time-lines, with his knowledge of what we are trying to create and does all of this at a very reasonable cost and always on time deliveries.
Review From Robert Soja about:
I was really thrilled with my new logo, Dennis did great. My shirts looked fantastic, i,ve had alot of compliments...Thank you. Rob Shea's Total Floor Care
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Joomla 1.6 Quick Review
Our favorite CMS is about to launch the next edition to the Joomla series. Joomla 1.6 is scheduled to be released on January 11th. Skilled Graphics has setup a test site to see exactly what this new generation of Joomla has to offer. The release that we are using, is not quite the final version, but an RC1 version which is not for production, but testing only. Additional security fixes will likely be applied to the final release.
According to Joomla, The basic goals of the new release are....
Introducing...Joomla 1.6... A Quick Review
As you can see above, the new control panel is similar, but with some obvious changes.
The extension manager, template manager, and module manager are now accessible from the control panel. This adds the ability to quickly go to the areas without fumbling through the menu system.
Front Page manager has been removed from the control panel, and it seems to have been replaced with the "featured articles", which is accessible through the content menu.
Also added to the control panel is the Edit Profile shortcut. This gives you the ability to go directly to your user profile to make changes.
As you can see above, again, some similarities, and some differences. The new site menu has the "my profile", "Site Maintenance", and "System Information" short cuts added. The user manager menu, has been removed and given its own sont on the menu bar.
Joomla 1.6 has added a lot of new features to the user system, which we will cover at a later time. This added functionality, requires the user system to have its own set of menu items.
Not a lot of changes here, other than the removal of the "menu trash" shortcut. Also with most of these new menus, you have the ability to "add new menu", or add new menu item" directly from the menu itself, which is much faster than going into the menu manager and then adding the new menu.
The new Content Menu, as do most, also gives the ability to add new items directly through the menu. For example if you hover over "article manager", the "add new article" shortcut will appear, and link you directly to the new article page. It appears that the :section manager" has been removed from this edition of Joomla. The "featured articles" is a new term which is basically replacing the previous "Front Page Manger".
The Components menu is relatively the same, one seemingly new addition is the redirect function. This seems to give you the ability to easily add a redirect of a url to a new page. We have not tested this and are only assuming at this point.
The messaging system was previously found on the "tools" menu which has been removed and the items under the tools menu have been distributed appropriately among the other menus.
Not a lot different in the extension menu, other than the inclusion of an actual extension manager, which basically just replaces the install menu.
The new article structure is similar, but still quite different in the same. The confusing "apply", "save" buttons have been changed to "Save", and "Save and Close". Also "Save and New" has been added to let you save the article and go straight to a new article.
There are new permission setting that can be applied as well.
Overall I think the new Joomla release is going to be a dream. Navigation has been improved greatly, New functionality will be interesting to play around with, New design is clean.
one of the big questions I have, and havn't seen much of an answer for, is How hard will it be to migrate from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6? Will there be a migration script, such as the one introduced to migrate Joomla 1.0 to 1.5? Will it require a complete fresh install? I guess we will soon find out.
Though we personally have not yet done extensive testing we believe the new Joomla release will be a great addition to the Joomla generation.
According to Joomla, The basic goals of the new release are....
- implement an expanded access control system
- implement a nested categories solution
- standardize the way extensions are built using the MVC framework
Introducing...Joomla 1.6... A Quick Review
As you can see above, the new control panel is similar, but with some obvious changes.
The extension manager, template manager, and module manager are now accessible from the control panel. This adds the ability to quickly go to the areas without fumbling through the menu system.
Front Page manager has been removed from the control panel, and it seems to have been replaced with the "featured articles", which is accessible through the content menu.
Also added to the control panel is the Edit Profile shortcut. This gives you the ability to go directly to your user profile to make changes.
Menu Structure
Site Menu
 |  |
| Old Menu | New Menu |
As you can see above, again, some similarities, and some differences. The new site menu has the "my profile", "Site Maintenance", and "System Information" short cuts added. The user manager menu, has been removed and given its own sont on the menu bar.
User Menu
Joomla 1.6 has added a lot of new features to the user system, which we will cover at a later time. This added functionality, requires the user system to have its own set of menu items.
Menus Menu
Not a lot of changes here, other than the removal of the "menu trash" shortcut. Also with most of these new menus, you have the ability to "add new menu", or add new menu item" directly from the menu itself, which is much faster than going into the menu manager and then adding the new menu.
Content Menu
 |  |
| Old Menu | New Menu |
The new Content Menu, as do most, also gives the ability to add new items directly through the menu. For example if you hover over "article manager", the "add new article" shortcut will appear, and link you directly to the new article page. It appears that the :section manager" has been removed from this edition of Joomla. The "featured articles" is a new term which is basically replacing the previous "Front Page Manger".
Components Menu
The Components menu is relatively the same, one seemingly new addition is the redirect function. This seems to give you the ability to easily add a redirect of a url to a new page. We have not tested this and are only assuming at this point.
The messaging system was previously found on the "tools" menu which has been removed and the items under the tools menu have been distributed appropriately among the other menus.
Extensions Menu
 |  |
| Old Menu | New Menu |
Not a lot different in the extension menu, other than the inclusion of an actual extension manager, which basically just replaces the install menu.
Help Menu
The help menus is pretty much the same with the inclusion of a couple new support links.New Article Structure
The new article structure is similar, but still quite different in the same. The confusing "apply", "save" buttons have been changed to "Save", and "Save and Close". Also "Save and New" has been added to let you save the article and go straight to a new article.
There are new permission setting that can be applied as well.
Summary
Overall I think the new Joomla release is going to be a dream. Navigation has been improved greatly, New functionality will be interesting to play around with, New design is clean.
one of the big questions I have, and havn't seen much of an answer for, is How hard will it be to migrate from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6? Will there be a migration script, such as the one introduced to migrate Joomla 1.0 to 1.5? Will it require a complete fresh install? I guess we will soon find out.
Though we personally have not yet done extensive testing we believe the new Joomla release will be a great addition to the Joomla generation.
