Joomla 4.3 Alpha 1 - Your first chance to test

Details: Published: 29 November 2022

What is this release for?

There are two main goals for Alpha releases:

Providing developers with the basis to test their extensions and reporting any issues well before the final release
Allowing users to discover the new features introduced to Joomla 4.3

For a complete list of known backward compatibility issues for version 4.3, please see Potential backward compatibility issues in Joomla 4 on the documentation site.

What is this release NOT for?

This alpha version of Joomla 4.3 is not suitable for production sites. It is for testing only.

Where to get it?

Download Joomla 4.3.0 Alpha 1

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! 4.3 (general availability) is due to be released on or about 18th April 2023. The planned milestones are:

Alpha releases

Where new features are added and many changes are made.

Alpha 1: 29th November 2022 - This release
Alpha 2: 27th December 2022
Alpha 3: 24th January 2022

Beta releases

In the Beta stage, we are making a freeze on what features can be added, but minor changes to what is already in can be made.

Beta 1: 7th February 2023
Beta 2: 21st February 2023
Beta 3: 5th March 2023

Release candidates

When in the release candidate phase no more can be added or changed, we are testing and bug fixing making the product stable for launch day.

Release candidate 1: 21st March 2023
Final release: 18th April 2023

This whole process relies on people coming forward to help make it happen.

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 4.3?

Tags can now have a same alias if they have different parents > See here
=> Merged and available
Admin menu can be filtered by parent like the site menus can > See here
=> Merged and available
Quickicons: missing icons > See here
=> Merged and available
Url type menu item can now be selected as base item in mod\_menu > See here
=> Merged and available
RTL improvements > See here
=> Merged and available
Char counter for input field > See here
=> Merged and available
Template diff view improvements > See here
=> Merged and available
Pattern attribute for 'tel' > See here
=> Merged and available
Cli installation (mostly for administrators) > See here
=> Merged and available
Message after a login / logout frontend > See here
=> Merged and available
Support for avif, webp, heic and webp2 in the image list field > See here
=> Merged and available
Captcha moved to end of form AFTER custom fields > See here
=> Merged and available
Creating names with .min.css for instance > See here
=> Merged and available
New com\_tags router will need to make sure all fixes are covered and did not bring new issues (needs testing on international sites) > See here
=> Merged and available
Don't allow to select non-existing tags in com\_tags menu items > See here
=> Merged and available
Installation: Add hint for handling of existing tables with same prefix > See here
=> Merged and available

And many more!

We are firmly committed to making the next generation of Joomla the best. So far, these are the first features that have been committed to version 4.3. We expect to commit other features for the coming alpha releases.

What are the plans for Joomla 4.3?

Currently, we’re at the start of the journey of Joomla! 4.3. There are several projects which, with your help, could become part of Joomla! 4.3, if they are release-ready by Joomla 4.3 Beta:

Cookie Manager: out-of-the-box cookie management to comply with privacy regulations
SEO for Joomla 4: a set of tools to help improve SEO
Guided Tours: a way to help new users get to know Joomla
Accessibility: improved assistive technology tools
Media Manager increased performance with image thumbnails,
Tag fixes with a fully redesigned router,
Smart Search additional filter,
Many small improvements throughout.

To learn more about our development strategy, please read this article.

How can you help Joomla 4.3 to develop?

To help ensure the 4.3 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 4.3 and communicate their experience.

Where can I find documentation about Joomla 4?

There are some tutorials to help you with 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 in https://docs.joomla.org/Category:Joomla!_4.x

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 was released alongside Joomla 4 as the last minor release of Joomla 3 (see this article).

Joomla 3.10 will continue to be supported until August 2023 although as its now over 15 months since the release of Joomla 3.10 and 4.0 Joomla 3 will only get security releases.

You should be planning or in the process of migrating to the latest version of Joomla.

We 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.

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