On Tuesday, January 24, 2012, the Joomla development team released Joomla 2.5.0. This was the release we were waiting for...or so we thought. It has a much more flexible category structure, better out-of-the-box search engine optimization, definable user groups and permissions, easier software upgrades, better administrator interface, and a lot more. We have converted our own 3by400.com site to Joomla 2.5.

Joomla 2.5 was the first step in the Joomla team's strategy of a well-planned development roadmap. Joomla 2.5 was a Long Term Support (LTS) release, which will be maintained and supported until the end of 2013. In mid-2013 the next LTS release, Joomla 3.5 was scheduled to be available, but that schedule has slipped so Joomla 2.5 is still currently supported.

On September 27, 2012, the Joomla Foundation announced the release of Joomla 3.0, which, in turn, meant the end of support for Joomla 1.5. What did Joomla 3.0 bring to the table? 3.0 brought the implementation of bootstrap, which is a collection of standard instructions, or applets, that make design and development in Joomla! a simpler process. This includes support for a responsive environment, meaning that with the right template, a Joomla site can automatically adapt well to devices of any size, such as a smart phone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) and tablets, like the iPad.

April 24, 2013, was the release date for Joomla 3.1. This was a minor release that added some items like tags and imprvoed smart search. This is the platform upon which 3by400 is releasing new sites.

Joomla 3.2, was released on November 6, 2013. We're awaiting some security patches before moving on to this one, but we expect those to be available soon.

So what does this mean for you, our 1.5 customers? It means it's time to upgrade. Joomla 1.5 was no longer supported after September 2012. Since then, there have been no more enhancements or security patches. See this infographic for more of the story.

We've already had discussions with some of you about upgrading. If we haven't yet, we'll be in touch soon. Or you can always contact us to get the ball rolling. We've excited about the new tools and design possibilities that Joomla 2.5 opens up to help you grow your business.