Joomla 3.0 brand new features unleashed

The new version 3.0 will provide the new markup and UI, based on the Bootstrap HTML/CSS/JS framework from Twitter. These changes will create a great overall User Experience for Joomla site administrators, thereby giving site users the same. Also, beside Mootools, jQuery will be included to Joomla 3.0, give developers more strength to create friendlier back-end user interface. Many new features are implemented which provides a impressive improvement versus current 2.5 version. I will introduce some main new features as follow:

Joomla 3.0 – New installer

Using the words “Short and simple” to describe about Joomla 3.0 installation process is truly right, since there are only 3 steps to install a Joomla 3.0 package.

New installer interface

Twitter Bootstrap

Bootstrap is a free collection of tools for creating websites and applications. It contains simple and flexible HTML, JavaScript and CSS-based design templates for typography, forms, buttons, charts, navigation and other interface components.

Twitter Bootstrap – will be included in Joomla 3.0

Also, Bootstrap provides the basic common CSS for developers. They can use common user interface elements like buttons, layouts, alert messages, modal boxes, dropdown menus, tooltips, icons, tables, form elements and more from Bootstrap framework.

Great User Experience

The Joomla 3.0 is known as friendly User Experience (UX) since it is based on Bootstrap. That means the template and extension developers can build the products which base on the same set of markup standards or consistent markup. You know, controlling your website would be much easier when all extensions look and work in a unified fashion. So you don’t have to get to be familiar with new interface on each extension.

Mobile Responsive Design

You might know the “responsive” feature from some Joomla templates. Now, it is included in Joomla 3.0, too. With the responsive design, you can control your Joomla site with mobile devices with ease. A responsive site will resize to the screen it is presented on any browsers or devices. Moreover, since it is responsive, it presented beautifully on mobile not only front-end, but also the back-end. This helps users manage the administrator easily on the mobile. For example, all the lists are put in one page that makes it more simply to control.

Drag and Drop*

The drag and drop feature is applied to make the item management more easily. All the old arrows on the ordering column have been removed, now you can drag-and-drop item freely in its categories to change the ordering of item list.

To use Drag & Drop feature, you must click on the 1st combo box at top right of table list, choose Ordering for “Sort table by”. Now you can see the “drag” icon at top right column of each item, move over to drag item and drop on position that you want.

The drag and drop feature

Tooltip*

The tooltip in Joomla 3.0 is Boostrap based and provides a very easy way to use it in 3rd-extension.

The Tooltip display in Joomla 3.0

Context menu*

Lists in Joomla 3.0 will have the “context menu” for each item, which helps you to access quickly to basic functions such as Edit, Publish/ Unpublish, Delete, Set default etc.

The Context menu in Joomla 3.0

All the new features with (*) are contributed to Joomla core by Joomlashine team. We’ll happy to give our small effort to bring a more powerful and easy to use Joomla to all users.

There is a playground for you, check it out!

JSN Boot – a template based on Bootstrap framework and Joomla 3.0 core features

We’ve created a Joomla 3.0 demo site which called JSN Boot – a template based on Bootstrap framework and Joomla 3.0 core features. JSN Boot could be a joyful playground for you to discover more about Joomla 3.0 before its official release. After the first week launched, it is welcomed with a lot of nice feedback from Joomla users.

Up to now, there are about 3,500 users try the JSN Boot, so how about you? Go to JSN Boot administrator to try it out, and all comments for JSN Boot or any discussion about Joomla 3.0 are welcome.

Note:

• JSN Boot is the first FREE template for Joomla 3.0 and will be released very soon for you to download.
• It is no problem if you don't want to upgrade to Joomla 3.0. Joomla 2.5 will be supported until 2014.