All the Joomla News for December 2022

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 04 January 2023 04 January 2023

Thanks for using Joomla and Joomlashack.

Every month we post a round-up of news from around the Joomla community.

We've posted all of these updates, plus a lot more in the Joomlashack Facebook group, so join if you want daily Joomla updates. We have over 1,000 members now!

Joomlashack's 2022 Review and Thank You

At the end of every year we write a review of what happened at Joomlashack. We always aim to avoid writing "everything was awesome" posts. We try and give you honesty and insight into Joomlashack's year. There are always plenty of ups and downs.

Read our review of 2022

Joomla Rising: Hard Work and a Good Attitude Can Make All the Difference

Philip Walton writes, "Joomla had not shown growth since 2016 - 2017 and that was just 0.1%. Over 60 months of the line going down or remaining level. So in early June when the w3tech graph showed a small uptick which wiggled back and forth between a tiny up and baseline flat there was some hope for change."

Read about Joomla's growth

New Joomla 4 Class from OSTraining

OSTraining have their new Joomla 4 video class available. This course will get you started in Joomla 4 from the ground up. Rod Martin will walk you through building an entire Joomla 4 site as you progress through this course.

See the new Joomla 4 class

How to Automatically Check In Items in Joomla 4

Tim Davis has a new video showing how you can automatically check in items in Joomla using the "TaskCheckin" plugin from Tobias Zulauf.

Watch Tim's video on checking in items

Google Analytics 4 Events in Joomla

Louise Hawkins says, "Last month we looked into the setup of GA4; this article will do a quick recap on the way GA4 collects data and a deep dive into GA4 events."

Read Louise's article on Google Analytics

Upgrading Your Joomla Site to PHP 8

Nicholas Dionysopoulos writes, "As many of you have heard, PHP 7 became End of Life last month, on November 28th. You probably also heard that this is terrible news for the security of your site and / or that upgrading your site to PHP 8 is a dreary task. While neither affirmation is the absolute truth, there are always a few kernels of truth in every plausible lie. Let's see what the end of PHP 7's service life means for your site and what you can do about it in pragmatic, practical terms."

Read about updating to PHP 8

JoomlaDay USA 2022 Sessions Are Now on YouTube

The sessions from last years's JoomlaDay USA have been edited and posted online in a single playlist. There are 17 sessions to watch, featuring many of the most talented people in the Joomla community.

Watch all the JoomlaDay USA sessions

Move to the Joomla 4 Smart Search Feature

From Olivier Buisard: "The 'Search' and 'Smart Search' components have coexisted since Joomla 2.5. Search would provide a straightforward search feature while Smart Search would offer indexing and more advanced search capabilities with filtering. Smart Search has been greatly improved in Joomla 4. More streamlined, more performant, more modern. Find out how you can transition from one to the other on your site."

See how to move to Smart Search

Video: Talking about Joomla 5 and More With Philip Walton

Catch up with Tim Davis and Philip Walton as they talk about Joomla 5 and many more topics, including documentation, automated testing, and the Google Summer of Code.

Watch the interview with Philip

How to Use APIs in Joomla?

This is a great presentation by Peter Martin. He explains how to use external data in your Joomla 4 website. He also shows how provide data from your Joomla 4 website to external applications.

Watch Peter's presentation

A New Book Called "Joomla! 4 Masterclass"

Luca Marzo has a new book out on Joomla 4. I've not read the book yet (it's released on January 13), but I do trust Luca's work. He has been involved with Joomla for many years and is the currently the Lead Editor for the Joomla Community Magazine.

See Luca's new Joomla 4 book

Case Study: a Different Domain for Each Language

Marc Dechevre says, "Dealing with multilanguage websites might result in difficulties, especially when you have a different domain name for each of the languages handled. Let's see how to use Joomla 4 in a successful multilanguage and multidomain implementation."

Read Marc's case study

If you have any questions about Joomlashack, or Joomla in general, you can just click reply, or email me via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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