On 17th August, after five years in the making, Joomla 4 was released. On the same day, Joomla 3.10 was also published as the last intermediate version of the Joomla 3 branch.
If you are using Joomla since 17th August 2005, you're probably aware of all the joy and frustration of using Joomla and its extensions. To make your life easier and help you with a smooth transition process, we’re sharing the following recommendations for seamless migration planning.
Adoption timeline of Joomla 4
Before migrating to Joomla 4, there are several points you may need to check. For a smooth and interruption-free transition to Joomla 4, planning is the key to success.
Day 1 - Enjoy the day
17th August 2021 is a day to celebrate Joomla's 16th Birthday and to celebrate this occasion, Joomla is providing a new world of possibilities as a Birthday Present. Share your excitement with the community, check the official social posts and join the party.
Week 1 - What's In For Me
If you have time, download Joomla 3.10 or Joomla 4 and test the new versions on a testing site. Joomla 3.10 is the first step in the transition, and it’s the mandatory step before migrating to Joomla 4.
Month 1 - Hosting Requirements
According to Joomla Stats, even today, plenty of sites are running on unsupported PHP 7.2 or legacy lower versions. So, confirm that your sites are running on the latest PHP stable version available, PHP 7.4 or PHP 8.
Also, the database is a critical asset to the site's performance. MySQL 8.0 has important performance and security improvements; Joomla 4 supports Prepared Statements to take advantage of it. For seamless migration to Joomla 4, confirm if your site is running on the latest MySQL version or the latest version of a database you prefer.
Test that everything is ready to upgrade to Joomla 3.10. If you find issues on Joomla or in the extensions, report to the developers to speed up the transition.
2021 Fourth Quarter
1 - Upgrade to Joomla 3.10
Between September and December 2021, all sites will be running on Joomla 3.10. The support on this version will last until August 2023, leaving you with plenty of time to plan the Joomla 4 migration.
Keep an eye on the innovative technology that the market offers for Joomla 4.
2 - Improve the site search
Joomla is likely to discontinue the J3 search, and Joomla 4 will feature the Smart Search.
From our experience, there are brand-new cloud services that can be integrated creatively. For instance, our XT Search for Algolia revamps the naive search feature that comes by default with Joomla integrating the innovative search service offered by Algolia.
Check out how Algolia performs on Joomla or PrestaShop on our demo sites:
Before deciding on whether to use XT Search for Algolia, keep in mind the search experience for your users. If you have any questions, we are happy to answer them and guide you toward the exciting possibilities of XT Search for Algolia.
3 - Focus on the Pre-Update Check
Joomla 3.10 has a new core extension, the Pre-Update Check. This extension confirms if the website is ready for Joomla 4. It provides a report about whether all the extensions installed on a website are J4 compatible. That’s why it’s better to test on a development site instead of a live site.
2022 First Quarter / New Year Resolution: Projects on Joomla 4
One way to learn Joomla 4 is to start new projects. This revolutionary new version of Joomla is an opportunity to modernize your ecosystem and move to new technologies. With Joomla 4 you can unleash your creativity and develop projects that you will always be proud of.
1 - The State of the Extension Ecosystem
What extension does your business rely on? Are they available for Joomla 4? If not, when will they be? At this point, many extensions developers are sharing their plans for their extensions update. You can find some of them in the JCM article series, Getting extensions ready for Joomla 4.
Right now, there are around 1,000 extensions compatible with Joomla 4. However, take it with a grain of salt. Developers have been testing and preparing extensions since November 2017, when Joomla published Joomla 4 Alpha 1. Since then, Joomla has witnessed many drastic and major changes. So, it is better to wait for the release of Joomla 4 to test these extensions in a stable environment.
2 - Templates for Joomla
Are you going to create a new template for Joomla 4 using Bootstrap 5? Are you going to renew the design for a better mobile experience? Are you going to use a template from your favourite factory? Have they released templates or quick starters for Joomla 4?
Before planning and attempting to migrate to Joomla 4, you require answers to these questions. Getting an answer to these questions is important because your current template for Joomla 3 uses Bootstrap 2 or 3. So, use this golden opportunity to evaluate Bootstrap 5 and have a brand new responsive site.
3 - Reducing the Technical Debt
After sixteen years of development, Joomla 3 accumulated technical debt in many areas, and Joomla 4 arrival is likely to reduce the debt and lighten the load. Review your projects looking forward. What would you do if you were to build a website from scratch?
Web Vitals 2022
With the COVID-19 pandemic raging worldwide and disrupting the lives of billions of people and tens of thousands of businesses, this year has been full of ups and downs. There is a tectonic market shift affecting the web experience—Web Vitals.
Web Vitals is an initiative by Google to provide unified guidance for quality signals that are important for delivering a great user experience on the web. The topic is beyond the scope of this article, but give it due consideration when evaluating new technology. Luckily, Joomla 4 will support the key metrics.
Wrap Up
At Extly, we firmly believe that the ultimate objective is to modernize our websites. Joomla 4 means a great advancement in that direction.
Our product team improves the user experience and brings their rich experience from different fields. We plan to continue making it easier for anyone to enjoy the benefits of streamlining modern web development.
Following these guidelines, we are publishing a new batch of extensions versions to ease the adoption of Joomla 3.10 and migration to Joomla 4.
- Perfect Publisher 9.1.0
- XT Search for Algolia (Joomla and PrestaShop) 4.9.0
- XT Adaptive Images 6.6.0
- XT YouTube Optimizer 2.15.0
- XT GDPR Cookie Consent Banner 1.3.0
For more information about each release, please, check the documentation here.
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