Joomla 4's now available, but if you're thinking about upgrading from Joomla 3.9, here's some important things to keep in mind before you click the Update button.

In conjunction with the release of Joomla 4 Stable today, Joomla 3.9 users will also be able to upgrade their sites to Joomla 3.10 Stable, also released today. This update for Joomla 3 series sees a number of new features introduced mainly to assist users with their transition to Joomla 4.

There's no need to rush upgrading to Joomla 4

Joomla 4.0 Stable was released shortly before this issue of Joomla Community Magazine was published, so for many readers who have used Joomla for some time, I imagine you're like most of my Joomla user group colleagues in Australia.

You'll have been watching and looking at Joomla 4's development for a while now. Over recent months you will have been enthusiastically anticipating using it for new websites (my first Joomla 4 site is already seeing a steady stream of enquiries arriving for my client).

With the release of Joomla 4.0, Joomlers - Joomla's hard-working volunteers - are as important as ever. Whether you're completing an occasional task to support the project, a regular contributor to a team's activities, a member of a team or working group, right through to the various levels of leadership in the organisation, I thank you on behalf of Joomla and look forward to many years of contributions to come.

Over 16 years, tens of thousands of hours have been contributed to the project by hundreds of volunteers worldwide. Many of those volunteers have been working away in the background, sometimes anonymously, sometimes known to just a few in the organisation.

I'd like to see that change a little. 

As the Volunteer Engagement Team (VET) team leader, I'd like the VET to be able to recognise more of the contributions volunteers are making, both in the past and going forward. As an organisation, we're looking at improving our communication with volunteers, including communicating more often with volunteers to present them with opportunities to get engaged with the project. We'd like to encourage readers to reach out to their networks to see if others may be interested in finding out more about volunteering with the project.

Newsletters are essential these days. Not only to advertise your business but also as a valuable way to connect to your audience. Some new companies allow you to create your newsletter and even to put it after a paywall. In Joomla, we have been able to do this for years. Let’s see how!

If someone did tell your 2010 self that your followers will pay to get a newsletter, you would have said he is nuts... But this is 2021, and everything is possible, isn’t it?

With this vision, some companies try to facilitate paid newsletters as a service, allowing everyone to outsource this vital part of their business. And let's be honest, batch email sending is always a challenge: First, you need to find a system capable enough to send all the emails as quickly as possible. Then you need to use trusted servers to send these emails and finally get your fingers crossed to reach your audience and not be blacklisted.

Outsourcing your newsletter might look like a good solution if you are not using a flexible CMS or using a “no-code” solution.

When you hover around in the Joomla Sphere long enough, you’ll see that, like every community, it comes with its own personality types. In this article, you’ll meet a few of them. And if you recognise yourself in one (or more) of these Joomlers, we also advise you on what role you could play in the Joomniverse. Have fun finding your personality type!

Friendly Neighborhood Joomler

Everyone should have one around: the Joomler always ready to help us out when we’re stuck. We can find you at a JUG meeting, Googling away before the Doctor Joomla-question is even asked, or answering questions in forums or on social media. If you are the friendly neighborhood Joomler, you can be someone who knows everything, but more likely you like to search for the right answer to help out in the best possible way.

Your ideal role: you are the gem everybody wants in their team. Since a brand new major release is on the way, you might be best in place in one of the marketing teams, because these are the teams that could use a little help right now.

Joomfluencer

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, a personal blog: you know how to spread the Joomla love, and you’re pretty good at it too. You love Joomla and you’re a trustworthy source of information for your growing number of fans, who retweet, share and like everything you do. You don’t just send: you like to interact and communicate with your followers because you love to share your passion for Joomla with them, and they like to share it with you.

Your ideal role: you probably guessed it already since it’s a no-brainer. If you haven’t joined one of our marketing teams yet, you should do so now. They’d love to hear from you!

The JCM Team is proud to present you the May Issue of the Joomla! Community Magazine. 

This month’s edition features:

• Interviews to extension developers about their path towards Joomla 4 compliance: Sander Potjer from PWT Extensions, Rüdiger Schultz from JDB Export and Tomasz Kowalski from DJ Extensions. 
• An article of the “Explore the Core” series about Custom Fields by Marc Dechèvre
• Anja de Crom interviewed Abhishek Das to let him share his “How I learned Joomla” story.
• Philip Walton wrote a piece to announce the students who will take part to the Google Summer of Code 2021.
• This month we’ll get to know Laura Gordon as part of the “Meet a Joomler” series.
• Himanshu published an article about Visual Studio Code as developer tool.
• Mike Carson wrote a SEO Checklist with 28 tips to increase the ranking of a Joomla website in the SERP.
• SD Williams published the monthly open roles throughout the Community.

Acknowledgements

This release wouldn't have been possible without the work of the Community Magazine Team, all the authors and all the people who allowed us to interview them.

Thanks to all those who participated.

The Call for Authors for the Community Magazine is always open. If you want to write for the Magazine, regularly or just once, drop us a line at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Joomla basics for newbies

In our Explore the Core series, experienced Joomla users help you find your way through Joomla's powerful core features. In this month's issue, Marc Dechèvre shows us what you can do with Joomla's built-in custom fields (spoiler alert: a lot). Dive in and explore!

Custom Fields shipped with Joomla 3.7 back in 2017. This was an initiative of Allon Moritz, a well-known Joomler from Switzerland.

And like many Joomlers, I am very grateful to him because Custom Fields are definitely a game-changer! No matter whether you are a basic user, an advanced user or a developer.

Since then almost all the websites I have built make (extensive) use of Custom Fields.