The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the availability of the second Joomla 4.1 Release Candidate for testing.
What is this release for?
There are two main goals for Release Candidates:
- Providing developers with the basis to test their extensions
- Reporting any issues well before the final release
For a complete list of known backward compatibility issues for version 4.1, please see Potential backward compatibility issues in Joomla 4 on the documentation site.
What is this release NOT for?
This RC version of Joomla 4.1 is not suitable for production sites. It is for testing only.
Where to get it?
To always use the latest build of Joomla 4, we invite you to use the nightly build packages (updated every night).
To make it easier for newcomers, you can launch a free Joomla 4 website for testing at launch.joomla.org.
When is the final release due?
Joomla! 4.1 (general availability) is due to be released on or about 15th February 2022. The planned milestones are:
Alpha
- 28th September 2021 - Done
- 26th October 2021 - Done
- 23rd November 2021 - Done
Beta (Feature Freeze)
- 7th December 2021 -Done
- 21st December 2021 - Done
- 4th January 2022 - Done
Release Candidate (Language Freeze)
- 18th January - Done
- 1st February - This release
- 8st February
Stable Release
- 15th February
Please note that dates may be subject to change depending on the availability of volunteers and circumstances beyond our control.
What’s new in Joomla 4.1?
We are firmly committed to making the next generation of Joomla the best. So far, these are the features that have been committed to version 4.1 so far. See the list below.
What are the plans for Joomla 4.1?
Currently, we are far along the road to Joomla! 4.1. Most of the projects for Joomla! 4.1 are done or nearly done and just need some final testing to be merged.:
- Accessibility improvement, language support within articles > See here
- Better support for code highlighting in TinyMCE editor > See here
- Enhancement of the Media Manager Web Service > See here
- Child templates > See here
- Task Scheduler (Web cron) for Joomla > See here
- Accessibility Checker for authors > See here
- And much more!
Now we’re in the last few weeks before 4.1.0 will be released. All planned features are included, we have already announced the language freeze. Unless urgent, we will not be merging any PR with language changes for 4.1.0. Language changes will then be possible again for either 4.1.1 or 4.2.0.
For the upcoming two weeks we purely want to focus on bug fixes. As announced in the last release notes, we’re feature ready. We will not include any new features in the 4.1 branch from now on. We have created a 4.2 branch where new features can be proposed and developed.
To learn more about our development strategy, please read this article.
How can you help Joomla 4.1 development?
To help ensure the 4.1 release and our major features are “production-ready”, we need your help testing releases and reporting any bugs you may find at issues.joomla.org.
Most of all, we encourage extension developers to roll up their sleeves, seek out bugs and test their extensions with Joomla 4.1 and communicate their experience.
We would like to remind our users that Joomla 3.10 intends to be the last release of the Joomla 3.x series and will primarily be a release containing backports of API changes from the Joomla 4.x development branch to help ease the transition to the next major release for the community.
We’re focusing on Joomla 4 to make it the best. Therefore, we do not plan to release any more 3.x minor versions - unless it proves to be really essential. All feature proposals should be directed toward the 4.2 release.
Where can I find documentation about Joomla 4?
We have started to provide some tutorials to help you with Joomla 4. We’ll be writing more tutorials to help you understand the significant changes of Joomla 4. You can find the existing ones, like creating a Plugin or a Module for Joomla 4, namespaces conventions, prepared statements, using the new web asset classes and many more here at Joomla4 docs.
We encourage developers to help write the documentation about Joomla 4 on docs.joomla.org to help and guide users and other extension developers.
A JDocs page will help developers to see the existing documentation, and the documentation still needed.
We invite you to check it regularly, update it and provide the missing content: https://docs.joomla.org/JDOC:Joomla_4_Tutorials_Project
Most of the feature documentation will be needed once we have reached Beta (feature freeze).
Should I plan to upgrade to Joomla 4.x?
Joomla 4.x is Joomla’s latest major version.
Joomla 3.10 is released alongside Joomla 4 as the last minor release of Joomla 3 (see this article).
Joomla 3.10 will continue to be supported for two years from its release giving you plenty of time to plan your migration to Joomla 4 and update your extensions (if required) to become Joomla 4 compatible versions. We will provide resources to help with the migration on the documentation site.
Related information
If you are an extension developer, please make sure you subscribe to the general developer mailing list, where you can discuss extension development. News that may affect custom development will also be posted there from time to time.
- Working with the Joomla Feature Tracker
- General developer mailing list
- Joomla developer network
- Joomla 4 compatibility layer
- Joomla and UI framework