With over 700 improvements, including fantastic new features like custom fields, a multilingual association manager and an improved workflow, Joomla! 3.7 is clearly something to celebrate and it is easy to see why it has the Joomla! Community very excited.
Here’s a quick look at the major new features* included in Joomla! 3.7
- Custom Fields - use extra fields, including text fields, selects and 13 other field types, in your articles, users and contacts
- Multilingual Associations Component - translate your content easily from a single, unified interface
- Improved Workflow - create a category, article, and menu item all in one step from within the menu manager
- Backend Menu Manager - manage the administrator menu just like the frontend, create a different configuration for each of your backend user groups
- Do more with TinyMCE - including new buttons to easily add menu links and contacts and many other improvements
- Easier Extension Maintenance - prevent administrators from accidentally uninstalling needed extension package elements
- User Experience - the little changes that make all the difference: your User Experience is improved thanks to the display of your global settings, a flatter backend template, the possibility to share sessions between apps...
- Want to know more? View the whole list of improvements here.
- New Router - We are currently facing some issues with the new router if enabled on some production sites. We are working to fix them in order to provide the quality expected by our users. As such, we are unable to guarantee the inclusion of this feature in the 3.7 release at this time. Please rest assured that we are working hard to ensure it will be available as soon as possible.
*All features are subject to change depending on the availability of volunteers and circumstances beyond our control.
How can I prepare my site for 3.7?
Joomla! 3.7 will be a normal update just like previous 3.x versions. If your site is not already running 3.6.5, we strongly urge you to update immediately. Joomla! 3.6.5 was a security release and your site is at risk if you are running a previous version.
As always, before upgrading it is important to update all of your third party extensions and also to take and test a full backup of your site.
This is also a great time to connect with your hosting company and check your PHP and database versions. We recommend upgrading to PHP 7 or 7.1 as it will bring a considerable speed boost to your site. Further system requirements can be found here.
When can I expect 3.7 to be released?
Our current roadmap plans for release by the beginning of April, but this is dependent on testing (see below for details on how you can help).
How can I help?
Help us test!
If you are an experienced user and would like to help with testing to ensure we meet our release date, please download the latest pre-release of Joomla! 3.7 and install it on a development site for testing, you can download it here. Testing should never be done on a production site.
Help us Translate!
Speak another language? You can help to translate Joomla! 3.7 landing page at Crowdin here.
Share the news!
We have a wide range of teaser imagery available for sharing, which can be found here, as well as a teaser video here. We would love you to spread the Joomla! love and get the word out to your network.
Are you an extension developer?
If you haven’t already started, now is the time to start testing so that your components, modules and plugins are all ready in time for the stable release!
Are you a journalist, blogger or evangelist?
Please feel free to get in touch with the