The Joomla Project is pleased to announce the availability of the Joomla 5.2 Beta 1 for testing.

What is this release for?

There are two main goals for Beta 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 beta version of Joomla 5.2 is not suitable for production sites. It is for testing only.

Where to get it?

Download Joomla 5.2 Beta 1

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 - Done

Beta (Feature Freeze)

• 20th August 2024 - This one
• 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 Beta 1?

We are firmly committed to making the next generation of Joomla the best. So far, these are the  features that have been committed to version 5.2. The following is a non-exhaustive list of features which have already been added:

• All changes from 5.1
• Layouts for the mail templates
• Multi-language sites: Remove unnecessary limitation for menu structures
• Additional options and bugfixes for the routing with the goal to improve SEO scores
• If feeds are disabled, don’t allow access to the feed output
• Bugfixes

What are the plans for Joomla 5.2?

Currently, we are far along the road to Joomla! 5.2. Most of the projects for Joomla! 5.2 are done or nearly done and just need some final testing to be merged:

• Guided Tours: Full implementation of the autostart tour => see here
  => in final review phase
• SEO: Additional bugfix to routing => see here
  => needs additional debugging
• Articles Module: Replacement for all current Articles modules => see here
  => in phase of final modifications
• Multi-language sites: Remove unnecessary limitation for menu structures => see here
  => was merged shortly after beta1

Leaving the Alpha phase now we’re feature ready (beside the 4 features mentioned above). Now we can concentrate on stabilizing Joomla! 5.2 over the coming weeks. We will not include any new features (beside the 4 features mentioned above) in the 5.2 branch from now on. But you’re welcome to propose enhancements and fixes for existing features (like Scheduler and Child templates).

There will be two more beta releases for testing and stabilizing and then we’re going into release candidate mode (RC) if everything works out as planned.

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!