HowToJoomla! Blog: Joomla!

We are pleased to announce the beta launch of our new Joomla! template framework, /motif. Actually, it's not that new. We built /motif back in October of 2009 for our own purposes.

/motif is a template development framework for Joomla! built to simplify the development of fully-custom Joomla! templates and empower web designers to become Joomla! template developers. We are Joomla! template designers and developers, and we built /motif in October 2009 to "scratch our own itch." We needed a simple, robust, and flexible template framework with a non-restrictive license so we could use it on all of the custom templates we build for our clients. Unfortunately, none of the frameworks available at the time quite fit what we needed, so we built our own.

This framework will be the basis of a new Joomla! template club called Themeables, which we will be officially launching at CMS Expo in May. Head over to the Themeables website and grab a copy of /motif for yourself. The framework is free (as in freedom and as in beer). If you want to learn more about /motif, check out the /motif documentation.

In recent months, there have been a few issues in the Joomla community and with Joomla's leadership that have caused some people to get upset with how decisions are made and with the lack of communication between the leadership team and the community over certain decisions. Steve Burge has formed a team to address these issues and come up with a solution for better communication with the community. You can read about this new initiative on Joomla.org. If you have a moment, please take some time to read through Steve's post and fill out the form at the end of the post to share your ideas. {jomcomment lock}

Dear Open Source Matters,

I've noticed a lot of controversy brewing over your recent announcement that you've hired a PR firm to drive awareness of the Joomla project. This is a tough issue with excellent points on both sides. There is clearly a need for better PR for Joomla. This situation, ironically, is a perfect example of that need. There is also clearly a need for more community involvement and input in decisions like this. Jen Kramer makes some excellent points about this in her recent blog post "VOXUS's first PR problem for Joomla".

But the PR situation isn't really why I am writing this. There have been other situations like this in recent months that have caused similar outrage and upheaval in the community, and I'm afraid something gets lost in all of this. Most of us truly appreciate you and the work that you are doing to advance Joomla as a project and as a community. We may disagree with some of your decisions and actions, but we appreciate the countless hours you spend free of charge working to help make Joomla the best it can be. It is a thankless job that most of us can't or won't do for one reason or another, so thank you for taking the time to do it.

Whether we agree or disagree on matters of policy or decisions that you have made, at the end of the day we are still a community. My sincere hope is that none of us lose sight of that.

Respectfully,
Cory Webb

The Joomla! Project announced the release of Joomla! 1.5.15 today. This release contains a couple of security fixes, so be sure and upgrade as soon as possible.

Click here to see the official announcement.

On August 27 and August 31, I will be leading Joomla Training in Austin and Joomla Training in Dallas. HowToJoomla readers can get a special discount to these training classes by entering the discount code "htjaustin" for the Austin class and "htjdallas" for the Dallas class.

These training classes are for those who are new to Joomla, and we will cover an introduction to Joomla 1.0 and 1.5, sitewide settings and user management, setting up and organizing menus and navigation, managing content articles, working with Joomla components, using Joomla modules and plugins, choosing and configuring Joomla templates, and how to manage Joomla websites professionally and securely.

I look foward to seeing you there!

Joomla Training in Austin (discount code: htjaustin)

Joomla Training in Dallas (discount code: htjdallas)