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Discuss Joomla! 3.0.3 Released here

Please see announcement for details: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=789356

Note: To report bugs, please use the official Bug Tracker.

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Impressive number of fixes, but only 2 (rather minor) new features.

Any plans for more substantial new features in the 3.1 release in March?

Thanks for fixing the Ordering of Featured Articles:
29923 *Ordering in Featured Articles doesn't work with isis administrator template

This had been frustrating me on a current project.

The other layout change of modules putting all extra tabs into one expanding one, I can understand for consistency, but it would be often nice to have more as tabs or choose some in plugin settings for faster entry.

It has been widely communicated that Joomla 3.0.x is not ready for production sites since the code changes daily and improvements are added as we communicate here as a matter of speaking

Leo

Leo

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I'm not sure how wide that communication is now. I've not seen any of that verbage on these pages:

http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_3.0_FAQ
http://www.joomla.org/3/en
http://www.joomla.org/download.html

In fact, Joomla is now telling folks this:
I seem to remember seeing the "not ready for production sites" on most of the Joomla pages. That no longer seems to be the case. Has something changed?

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Al Warren
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It was and for good reason. However, due to many factors (including the greater availability of 3rd party extensions) the situation has obviously changed

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Apparently it changed after Leo made his statement on the 16th. I'm not buying it though. But that's just me.

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Al Warren
This ain't my first rodeo. Red Foreman says it best. Please don't abuse the report feature.
I won't ignore your forum posts even If you send PMs for personal support.

http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=710&t=757723

viewtopic.php?f=710&t=757723 Completely agree and realize that this is a locked (!) topic written by a highly respected Moderator (!)

Simply not ready for production. See bug tracker as example: over 680 open items...Enough evidence not ready? The community (and the community = Joomla) is used as Test lab which is just as it should be. We (GWS) also test Joomla 3.0.x etc but that does not means that we are in any form installing this on live sites?

Code changes daily so we strongly advise NOT to use it on lives sites as well. The Stable version is scheduled for 7 month from now (scheduled!)
Leo

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I'd use it for new sites if

• The extensions I need are available in J3
• I have a working (Bootstrap-) template for J3

There are some very nice new features in J3 which I just don't want to miss on a new site.

Joomla 3.0 is a stable release like Joomla 2.5 is. The only difference is that Joomla 3.0 gets new features and Joomla 2.5 doesn't.

I regret to inform you that this is incorrect. The Joomla 3.5 Stable version of the Joomla 3.x branch is scheduled for February 2014. Nicely outlined here which is based on the presentations on the last November Joomla World Conference (San Jose) presentations by PLT. (Production Leadership Team) 3.5 will be the first "stable"release and a LTS just as 2.5 is.

Leo

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Actually, Joomla 3.0 being STS doesn't mean it's not stable. It just means it's only supported till shortly after the next version will be released. However that isn't really an issue since the update to the next release (Joomla 3.1 in this case) will just be a one-click update without backward compatibility breaks.

If Joomla 3.0 were not stable, it would have been called Joomla 3.5 Beta1 or so.

It's true that it's not recommended to update a current Joomla 2.5 site to Joomla 3.0, except if you really need one of the new features. But more because it doesn't make sense to change a running and still supported system.
However for a newly created site it is a viable option, if the needed extensions and templates are ready.

Btw: The doc about STS and LTS is here: http://docs.joomla.org/Release_and_support_cycle and it says:

Yes, and the biggest new feature will likely be Tags

Yes, download page was changed and any misinformation was corrected last week. Some members of the marketing team mixed up their messages a bit and that was the reason the information was incorrect initially. It took quite a bit of work for us to all get on the same page and to be of one-mind, but we got there eventually and corrected the information appropriately.

If that was communicated, it was incorrect. Also, as to the code, only bug fixes and new features are introduced. Code doesn't break daily and backward compatibility is maintained throughout the whole Joomla 3 series.

If I remember correctly, when he wrote that, he hadn't even used Joomla 3 I tried talking to him about it, but he didn't want to hear anything that I had to say and responded rather rudely, unfortunately.

Actually, that tracker contains items for both Joomla 3 and Joomla 2.5. Furthermore, a status of Open doesn't mean that they are indeed bugs. A status of confirmed or of pending, however, means that they are bugs. Even if there are 680 bugs or more, that doesn't mean it's not ready for production, as it depends on the severity of the bugs. Furthermore, Joomla has over a million lines of code, so we can except there to always be bugs in it and we'll continually be finding new ones. That's just the way software is.

See above concerning changes.

Also, who is "we"? For most new sites, the PLT recommends using Joomla 3.

The stable version was scheduled about 5 months ago and that was Joomla 3.0.0. Before that was a beta version. x.0.0 signals that it's a stable version, by definition.

I'm happy to inform you that he is correct and the article that you linked to doesn't say that 3.5 will be first stable release. It simply says it will be very stable and doesn't mention anything about Joomla 3.0's stability.

For what it's worth, my wife created her first ever website with Joomla 3, soon after it was released, and experienced no issues with it.

@All,
For the record, moving from Joomla 3.0 to 3.1 to 3.2 to 3.2 is NOT a migration. It is a one-click upgrade with backward compatibility support. It's similar to upgrading from 2.5.8 to 2.5.9 or from 3.0.2 to 3.0.3. So if you've ever heard that it was a migration, please forget that as it's very incorrect.

Hope this information helps you all to make an informed decision about your sites!

Kind regards,
Nick

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Nic with all respect. This was communicated widely on the original release announcement, on the Forum, On the main Joomla sites as it was on the Bug Squad. So I am sorry that as you refer further down "this was not a marketing issue": but is was a very hefty discussion on PLT and Bug Squad if I remember correct..So with all respect please do not cover all with 'love' ?

I am aware of that rudeness of the particular moderator through some Skye communications.....

However...Let us be frankly...If that message as you state is an absolute wrong message than allow me to ask since only global mods can remove messages why this message is still "Sticky (Global Mods!) ? Messages by 'normal' individuals as you (are you? ;-) ) and me (well sort of ;-) ) are being removed without hesitation? But that is not the point for discussion here....

What is the point is that we need a clear statement to the community as I reacted today on BS to Kevin and Michael (you must have seen that) where we are and what we can do and that in that case conflicting messages as posted as 'holy documents' on the Forum and on wiki have to be immediately removed.

the link i gave not (!) I gave 680 open items in the Joomla 3.x tracker Agreed and no discussion but they need to be verified as we both know very well. Agree...doing this when you were still in pampers so cannot concur more All respect Nick...Where is that commmunicated? This is the first time I see that from a Member of PLT? I do appreciate ths and would even more appreciate it when it is formally postedn in Magazine and clarified! It will benefit all!That is one piece of lazyness...why leaving it to your wife? I did that when it was still in the "nightly builds when MY wife was sleeping ......
Never stated that this is a migration...I have difficulties defining 2.5 to 3.x as an upgrade but that is no discussion at present

and Nick? I did reply on Skype...... ;-)

Leo

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Version 3.0.0 was stable? I'd say the PLT missed the mark on that classification. Oh, and one user installing with no problems hardly constitutes success. How about all those who installed clean on known stable server platforms who weren't so fortunate? I for one was one of them. Fortunately it was only for testing.

If the "PLT" and the "PR" folks are going to start with "don't use this on a production site" and then magically one day change all the verbiage to "recommended for new sites" then there needs to be a public announcement to that end. Simply changing a web page or two is hardly adequate notice that something has changed.

Finally, when the "PLT" allows something that breaks the installer to slip through (javascript error in a recent release), then someone needs to take note.

Epilog. A friend of mine was in Bill Gates' engineering fraternity. Back in the day, after massive problems with one of the first windows pre-releases, he asked Bill over lunch if he was going to fix the bugs in Windows before releasing it. Bill's response, "Hell no. It costs money to fix bugs." And it hit the market. Show stoppers and all. And people wonder. The famous quote "given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow" has created a lot of really lazy developers. It ain't personal. But it is quite obvious.

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Al Warren
This ain't my first rodeo. Red Foreman says it best. Please don't abuse the report feature.
I won't ignore your forum posts even If you send PMs for personal support.

The bug tracker for 3.0 was originally for 2.5 then renamed. So it contains a lot of Trackers for 2.5 as well as the new trackers for 3.0.

I must agree with Leo that when 3.0 first came out that it was not suitable for most beginners for new sites. IMHO there were not many 3rd party extensions available(a lot of extension devs fail to test their extensions on a nightly build of Joomla and wait for the next Joomla to be released before they test their extensions.

I do have two question that have not yet been covered ...
If a new site is created with 2.5 and a new site created with 3.0 ... which will upgrade/migrate to 4.5 the easiest ?
and
If the LTS releases are considered stable then ... why does the Update component in a 3.0 install default to the LTS setting to prevent accidental upgrading 3.0 to 4.0 ... ? In other words ... if someone installs a STS version and STS versions are considered stable then why the need to prevent accidental update/upgrade to the next STS ?

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I am going to sit back and watch this as I did in in the Bug Squad where this was also not answered since that seems a rather difficult call to make? (so far ahead.....)

Curious indeed!

Leo

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Do you mean 3.5? or really 4.5?
From 2.5 to 3.5 will be a (small) migration, as there will be backward compatibility breaks.
From 3.0 to 3.5 will be a one-click update, there will (or at least should) be no backward compatibility breaks.
As to 4.5, nobody knows yet :-) However I'd assume the migration from 3.0 will be easier than from 2.5. The easiest would be going from 3.5 to 4.5 as this is a supported path, but it probably will again contain backward compatibility breaks and thus be a migration, not a simple update

As to why there is a need to prevent accidental updates from 3.x to 4.0: Going to 4.0 will contain backward compatible breaks, like going from 2.5 to 3.0 has. So if someone accidentally clicks the button, he could (probably will) break his site.
This only happens between major versions (2.x to 3.x to 4.x) but not inside major versions (like 3.0.2 to 3.0.3 or 3.0.3 to 3.1.0).

I'm going to stick my neck out here (and expect a slap on the wrist).

Answer: whatever the corporate machine says.

A little history. The other day, I tweeted the following, "Sad to see an open source project become such a massive corporate machine. Sadder, that's why the project forked to begin with."

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Al Warren
This ain't my first rodeo. Red Foreman says it best. Please don't abuse the report feature.
I won't ignore your forum posts even If you send PMs for personal support.

Sorry but I only see one issue as you state...all are minor migrations and they will break....Simplicity but long story shortcut.....

However we have gone through that scenario a thousand times already a lot and we had 1.0 > 1.5 > 1.7>2.5>3.x and than to 4.x?

Problem our clients are facing is simple " when Joomla brings out a new release it will cost me thousands of Dollars" so why not staying with Billy 'Golden Boy' Gates (I do respect him for sure for what he has achieved!) since than I at least know what I have to pay over the years to come....."

Not meant funny but deadly true on experience (!)

Oh and Al.... Joomla is, since the establishment of 'Open Source Matters' and all these working Teams with the back of the scenes 'dealings' (see Nick Savovs messages re. getting all noses same direction), a typical 20th century "conglomerate" and definitely not a 'modern managed company'?

Leo

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To my knowledge an update from 1.7 to 2.5 didn't break anything. The break was between 1.5 and 1.6.
The numbering was crap back then, because 1.5 to 1.6 was the major step, and 1.6 > 1.7 > 2.5 were minor ones.
Starting with 3.0 the numbering makes more sense. The major step (and breaking things) is between 2.5 and 3.0. 3.0 > 3.1 > 3.2 > 3.3 > 3.5 should be minor steps with no breaks. The next break is expected to be between 3.5 and 4.0.

It sure needs some trust in the people doing it, as it was a desaster in the past. But the idea with the STS and LTS releases and where backward compatibility breaks are allowed to happen and where not is good imho.

Then you remember incorrectly By the way, where did you see a hefty discussion on PLT?

For what it's worth, he's a not a global mod; he's a mod for that particular area. I don't have control of that forum, so I can't change the sticky. You'd have to ask him to do that. Good luck

The download page is accurate and has been reviewed and approved by the PLT. It was also written by one of the PLT members. Hope this helps!

That tracker is mislabeled and it contains 2.5 and 3.0 items (it even contains some items all the way back to 1.6). You can double check yourself by skimming through some of the items. I'll let Mark know to change the name. Thanks for bringing my attention to it, Leo!

To be honest, it's been communicated quite often within the mailinglists, but I guess people didn't want to listen then. I can send out a leadership blog post sometime soon so that it clears up any misunderstandings. Thanks for the suggestion!

What? Are you saying my wife is not allowed to build a site with Joomla 3? She's more than welcome to build whatever site she likes, with whatever software she likes, whenever she likes. I'd ask you to keep your opinions yourself. Thanks in advance!

=-=-=
Sounds like that might have been the permissions bug that you encountered. That actually wasn't an issue with the code in Joomla 3, but rather when the packages were created, the software that was used to create the packages messed up the permissions (or something like that). I don't remember all the details anymore. In any case, the same exact thing could have happened for 2.5, and it was independent of the code, so it doesn't speak to Joomla 3's stability per se. Hope this clarifies things!

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Permissions? If you're talking about the issue with assets, the problem wasn't the permissions. The problem was the code didn't properly handle bad permissions. If it wasn't actually "an issue with the code", then why did your team rewrite the offending code to fix the issue? A packaging error? What, did they package the wrong source file? I don't get it.

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Al Warren
This ain't my first rodeo. Red Foreman says it best. Please don't abuse the report feature.
I won't ignore your forum posts even If you send PMs for personal support.

Folder and file permissions. Here's the tracker item for it:
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla ... m_id=29385

Hope this helps!

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As much as Leo and myself disagree I must speak up for him on this occasion. I remember the 'hefty discussion' on bugsquad. What was communicated widely was that Joomla 3.0 was for "experienced users". That was in plain view on the official joomla download page ... moderators on the forum ... and(after a discussion in bugsquad) the wording on the official release announcement was changed to match that of the download page.



Sorry was as typo yes meant 3.5


If 3.0 > 3.1 > 3.2 > 3.3 > 3.5 are minor steps and 3.0 is suitable(and stable) for live sites ... then what is the point of having it as a STS ? Why not just call it 3.0.x LTS ? After all it is claimed "The 3.x series will have over 4 years of support as well" http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_3.0_FAQ

To call it Short Term Support then state the series has over 4 years support is an oxymoron.

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Out of curiosity, what makes 3.0 a release only for experienced users, and what's going to change between now and 3.5 that makes it suitable for all users? Fundamentally, 3.0 and 3.5 will behave the same. The difference will be in the features available (only added features, code won't come out until 4.0), bug fixes made along the way, and maybe some tweaks to the core output to improve things as we go. Also, it's safe to assume that at some point, we'll update our external libraries (Bootstrap, jQuery, PHPMailer, etc.) to offer users the latest and greatest.

It's not fair to us to chase away potential users of 3.0 because we say it's for experienced users. The STS series just means more updates in all honesty, and you'll be using code that isn't as well tested as what's in the LTS release at the end of a series that's been tested for a while. But, we have standards in place that prevent us from introducing unstable code into the codebase, and we're working to improve our systems to better detect issues in an automated manner. The PLT is responsible enough to not release a version of the CMS as stable when its codebase is of beta quality; we'd be alienating our user base by doing that.

When we say 3.0 is stable and is recommended for all users for new sites, it's meant. But, as I said on the JBS thread, users should do their homework first and make sure their needs are met by 3.0. If they need code that's available on 2.5 and not 3.0, they should use 2.5.

Now, if we're talking about upgrading from 2.5 to 3.0, then yes, that should be something that only experienced users should do and it should be a deliberate decision, not one we force on them. Unfortunately, there isn't an automated tool out there (that I know of) that can scan a site to determine whether it'll run as is 3.0 when migrating from 2.5 (basically, checking code to make sure deprecated code that's removed in 3.0 isn't in use on the 2.5 site, making sure the environment is right, things like that).

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So why was download page saying it was for experienced users ? Why were moderators of the forum saying the same ?

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I'm still curious where the "hefty discussion on PLT" was

As to JBS, could you by chance provide a link to the JBS discussion where it was mentioned that Joomla 3.0 was for experienced users? Also, did that discussion occur before, on, or after Joomla 3's release? Thanks in advance!

STS means it's around for about 6 months then it's gone. For example, 3.0 is around for about 6 months, then 3.1 arrives and 3.0 is EOL.

Yes, the Joomla 3 series is supported for over 4 years. It arrived on September 27th, 2012 and will be EOL at the end of 2016.

There's a difference between Joomla 3.0 and the Joomla 3 series. The Joomla 3 series is 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, and 3.5. Thus, it is not an oxymoron.

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Yes I understand that 3.0 is part of the series and in itself is not LTS but the Joomla 3 series can be seen as 3.x.x. Therefore as 3.x.x is four year support then to refer to part of the series eg 3.0 as STS sounds as ridiculous as ... referring to 2.5.0 and 2.5.1 a STS because they are part of the the 2.5 series.

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I don't find the current options confusing nor have I found beginners to get tripped up over them (though I have found beginners being confused by more experienced users trying to explain them). If they are confusing, I'd prefer just to completely hide the option until 4.0 is released or use one option as you suggest. Either would work for me.

Hope this helps!

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Lack of communication and understanding? Assumptions based on the 1.6 release? I had no say in how the 3.0 release was advertised (I prefer to let the code speak for itself), so I can't answer for anyone else. And as you can tell by my activity, I don't make it into the forum often anymore.


Yes, it can be confusing. But, if explained properly, I hope that we can make sense of the situation. The facts are this:

- A release series will have a total of 4 years of support from the X.0.0 release until the EOL
- Each release series consists of (at present) three STS releases culminating in a LTS release
- Each STS release has active support for six months as the primary release plus one month after the next minor version's release to allow users to update
- Once at the LTS release, the user has the option to remain on it for up to two years (date of x.5.0 release until EOL, shortly after the release of x+1.5.0) with project support, or at any time of their choosing, update to the next major release


Yes, it can be confusing as well. I do believe that's why there's a patch to try and change the wording in the interface and better explain each option in the interface. We should communicate this clearly to the user.


I've tried to explain how I consider that the user has long term support, but I don't remember at the moment if I was called insane for saying someone using short term support releases has long term support or something crazy like that. But, yes, once a user is on the newest major release, in this case the 3.y series, the user has long term support (depending on the time of install, up to four years). Yes, each individual minor release is considered a short term support release by the project because we won't continue supporting 3.0 after we've released 3.1 (that doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?). The updates at this point, however, are to the point where 3.0.z to 3.1.0 will be as easy as 2.5.6 to 2.5.7.



We do have a code name in the code base. Sadly, we got out of the habit of updating this somewhere during the exceptionally elongated 1.6 beta period. I'm sure ideas are welcome for code names though.

As for only showing the user's installed release series (or code name), I disagree with that. We've made it a point to make the updates as easy to the user as possible, which includes being able to update the code between major releases using the integrated update component (with proper testing, backups, and all the other pertinent advice that a lot of folks will probably ignore no matter how many times we explain it to them). Removing that option at this point is a step backwards IMO. Nicholas includes the buttons to update to the latest LTS and STS releases in his Admin Tools updater, and he's the first one to voice his opinion about development practices about the project. The difference is that his interface currently has a nice block of text explaining to the user what they're doing if they hit the STS button, whereas the core doesn't, and this should be fixed.

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