Today marks a defining moment in the Joomlasphere, which sees the launch of our gForge. Yes, the new 'V8 hot rod' has arrived — and we believe it will provide the best development environment for a number of reasons but primarily to future-proof and cope with huge load.

The Paint Dried Today

When we announced the move last week, we still had plenty left to do to 'Pimp our Ride' but the team has done an amazing job. Today we've sent out emails to project administrators to inform them they will get best benefit by: 1. registering on the new Forge ASAP, 2. reconciling their download links on their Extensions Directory projects.

"We've had to throw a lot of time at the Forge," said Louis Landry. "This has been extremely resource hungry in terms of development team hours but we're happy with the end result — and we believe Joomla's army of third party developers (3PDs) will be too. This was a challenge that had to be taken on full-frontal — the outcome should be self-evident in the biggest Open Source development environment on the planet."

The Process for 3PD Projects

Louis said 3PDs of larger projects can make individual requests for migration from the old Forge. "We've managed to migrate Joomla! including our subversion repository ... but this has been very taxing time wise," he said. "We recommend developers start afresh where they can. Owners of larger projects which merit migration should contact the Forge team and make a request to that end," he said.

Driving Lessons for Project Admins

The new Forge has detailed instructions which can be read here. It's worth noting that the Forge is primarily a place for code and development. Note: If you're a non-developer looking for Joomla! extensions, the Extensions Directory is the place to search.

FeedbackLoop

As the Forge in itself is a work in progress, we would appreciate any feedback with issues you discover which may need attention. Enjoy the ride.