RocketTheme Blog

16
Jul 2010
|
Posted by Andy Miller

Joomla 1.5.19 and MooTools 1.2

As you may well be aware there was a 'minor' release of Joomla yesterday that came under the version tag 1.5.19. Usually a minor point release like this only contains security fixes. While 1.5.19 does indeed contain several security fixes it also contains one new and potentially site-breaking plugin. The MooTools 1.2.4 upgrade plugin is a completely optional plugin that when enabled switches the MooTools JavaScript library from the long-obsolete MooTools 1.1.2 version to the much more current MooTools 1.2.4 version. This in itself doesn't sound like a big deal but the problem is that they are not compatible with each other. We've been aware of this potentially problematic situation for some time now, so read on to find out what we're doing about it.

The release date for Joomla 1.5.19 has been known for some time. Because of this we ensured that the Gantry Framework as well as our most current Joomla template release, Panacea has support to automatically switch to MooTools 1.2+ compatible versions of JavaScript. What this means is that if you are running a site with the Panacea template, and you upgrade to Joomla 1.5.19, you can enable the MooTools upgrade plugin and it will just work. However, there is a big caveat, any other third-party modules, plugins, components you may be using are probably not supporting MooTools 1.2+ yet so they will probably not function properly with the newer version of MooTools. You will need to check with the authors of these plugins about whether or not they intend on adding MooTools 1.2+ support to their extensions. Until you can safely confirm that all your extensions will work fine with the upgraded MooTools library, we suggest you stick with the default MooTools 1.1.2.

Here at RocketTheme we do not want to be the resource that holds you back from a potential upgrade so we are working diligently to add support for MooTools 1.2, and we've already started by releasing many of our popular extensions to provide support. The current list of compatible extensions can be seen below:

We will be adding to this list as we release updated versions of our other extensions.

We have also released many of our templates over the past weeks, currently the following templates are updated and compatible with MooTools 1.2:

  • 2010 - all club templates, GPL templates coming soon
  • 2009 - all club templates, GPL templates coming soon
  • 2008 - Vertigo, Versatility4, Replicant2, Metamorph, Perihelion, Chromatophore, Hivemind, others coming soon
  • 2007 - Populus, others coming soon

We will be adding to this list as we release updated versions of our other templates.

A large part of the MooTools 1.2 is provided by the Gantry Framework, so that means that we will be releasing compatible versions of our Gantry-powered Joomla templates in the next few days. After that we intend on going back through our vast collection of previous templates and adding support on a template-by-template basis. Templates with more in-depth JavaScript functionality might take longer than others, but we are committed to make this happen. It will take some time, but please have patience, as it's a lot of work when you consider the size of the job we are undertaking.

There are several advantages for moving towards MooTools 1.2, so I'll outline a few of those. First, it's the de-facto version of MooTools, so the vast majority of scripts and code samples out there on the internet take advantage of 1.2, not the current Joomla-included 1.1.2. Second, it's generally faster and more reliable than its predecessor. Third, it's better written and in turn, a better library to write JavaScript with. Many folks have switched to JQuery or other libraries for their JavaScript needs because of these first three reasons, and now that Joomla supports 1.2+ it makes it more compelling to stick with MooTools as in reality it's as good as or better than these other libraries.

Another and most useful benefit of providing an optional MooTools upgrade now is that it gives us the developers and you the users time to prepare for Joomla 1.6. The JavaScript library that comes bundled with Joomla 1.6 is MooTools 1.2.4, the very same version available in this upgrade plugin for Joomla 1.5. By providing this upgrade plugin, the Joomla team is effectively providing a bridge to more easily migrate templates and extensions from Joomla 1.5 to 1.6. Granted there is much more involved in a template for 1.6 than just the JavaScript library, but it's certainly an important one to deal with. We are glad that we will be able to have all our JavaScript converted and be able to support both MooTools versions in our templates and extensions now, and be better prepared, and make the process easier of supporting Joomla 1.6 in the coming months.

NOTE: In an effort to ensure maximum compatibility we've created a new MooTools 1.2 Compatibility forum that's located in the RocketTheme members section to cover MooTools 1.2 specific questions and issues.

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