The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the availability of Joomla 5.2 Alpha 3 for testing.

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 5.2.

For a complete list of known backward compatibility issues for version 5.2, please see Potential backward compatibility issues in Joomla 5.2 on the documentation site.

What is this release NOT for?

This alpha version of Joomla 5.2 is not suitable for production sites. It is for testing only.

Where to get it?

Download Joomla 5.2 Alpha 3

To always use the latest build of Joomla 5, we invite you to use the nightly build packages (updated every night).

When is the final release due?

Joomla! 5.2 (general availability) will be released on or about 15th October 2024. The planned milestones are:

Alpha

• 28th May 2024 - Done
• 25th June 2024 - Done
• 23rd July 2024 - This one

Beta (Feature Freeze)

• 20th August 2024
• 3rd September 2024
• 17th September 2024

Release Candidate (Language Freeze) 

• 1st October 2024 - Use this to help with testing

Stable Release

• 15th October 2024

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 5.2 Alpha 3?

We are firmly committed to making the next generation of Joomla the best. So far, these features have been committed to version 5.2. We expect to commit other features for the next alpha2 and alpha3 releases.

• All changes from 5.2 Alpha 2
• Code cleanup: PHP/JS improvements, removing deprecated code
• Bugfixes

What are the plans for Joomla 5.2?

Our goal for 5.2 is to include something for everybody.
One of the main features will be a new module for articles, which will combine most existing article modules into one.
Another feature we are aiming for is conditionally required fields in forms.
Right now you can already conditionally show fields, but you can’t influence if they are required or not.
Besides that, we are trying to improve the Joomla update process and have several changes for URL behaviour for SEO in the pipeline.
Those hopefully will be the features for the frontend users.

For the developers we are continuing to clean up the code of Joomla. We try to remove all deprecated code usage in the Joomla core and while we wont be able to get all of this done in 5.2, we will make a significant step forward in that area, hopefully finishing it with Joomla 6.0. Part of the refactoring will be to use the new SubscriberInterface for all core plugins.

If you have any ideas for new functionality, feel free to discuss them on GitHub.

Be aware that these features are not release-ready yet, and it depends a lot on testers and feedback if they make the cut.

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

How can you help with Joomla 5.2 development?

To help ensure the 5.2 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 5.2 and communicate their experience.

Where can I find documentation about Joomla 5?

There are some tutorials to help you with Joomla 5. You can find the existing ones, like creating a Plugin or a Module for Joomla 5, namespaces conventions, prepared statements, using the new web asset classes and many more in https://docs.joomla.org/Category:Joomla!_5.x

We encourage developers to help write the documentation about Joomla 5 on docs.joomla.org and manual.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.

Related information

If you are an extension developer, please make sure you subscribe to the extension developer channel https://joomlacommunity.cloud.mattermost.com/main/channels/extension-development-room

Where you can join the community of extension developers.

• Working with the Joomla Feature Tracker
• General developer mailing list
• Joomla developer network
• Joomla and UI framework

A Huge Thank You to Our Volunteers!

A big thank you goes out to everyone who contributed to the release!