If you’re using Joomla! or are interested in doing so in the future, you’ll probably be glad to hear that the work on Joomla 1.6 has resulted into an early alpha version of Joomla 1.6, which can be downloaded and used. As the developers say, however, I strongly advise you NOT TO USE IT FOR ANY LIVE SITE. Sorry if that sounded like screaming, but seriously: don’t. This release is far from ready to be used in the “real world”.
Of course, that doesn’t stop me from testing this version. And it shouldn’t stop you, either. If you want to get started to do some testing of your own, you can find the package here. The installation instructions are still the same; unpack it to a server / machine capable of hosting it, and browse to the location where you just unpacked it.
Just a heads up: In my “Testing Joomla 1.6” serie, I’m not going to give you an in-depth analysis of how to install Joomla 1.6, or how to configure it. The reason is simple: If you’re not already familiar with Joomla, you shouldn’t be using this Alpha release. Instead I’ll just focus on what’s new / different / better / worse.
let’s get started!
The topic for today is short, yet essential: I’ve taken a look at the installation of Joomla 1.6. At first you’ll have the impression that you’re just looking at the installer screen of 1.5 (With the difference that you can only choose one language for the setup); and I’ve found out that not much has changed.
One thing that did change, however, is at the point of where the database was created. With Joomla 1.6, it’s now possible to create the database itself from within the installer, whereas in the past you had to create an empty database first. Definitely a step in the good direction. Or – anything is possible these days – something I completely overlooked in previous versions?
Secondly, and related: a fresh Joomla database now has 43 tables versus 36 in Joomla 1.5.
Third: the option to install sample data has been moved from the “Configuration” step to the “database” step.
That’s all for now, but you can expect more analysis in the near future!