Learn how to find and download the latest version of Joomla,
where to get help, find free extensions and join the Joomla community.
If you are looking to download the latest version of Joomla, you are
one step away! This is a quick guide to making sure you have the
lastest version of this powerful open source content management system.
Let’s head over to the official website of the Joomla project www.joomla.org.
The main homepage of the Joomla Project is full of the current official news of the Joomla project. The links to download Joomla are over on the left-hand side, here circled in red.
Figure 1. The Joomla.org Homepage
The image shows two buttons, the blue button is to download the latest stable version of the 1.0.X version of Joomla (currently 1.0.12). The green button on the right is to download a “nightly” version of the beta of the new version of Joomla, 1.5.
Figure 2. The Joomla Download Buttons
Downloading Joomla 1.0.X
When you click on the button for 1.0.12, you are taken to Joomla’s Source Forge, http://forge.joomla.org. This is a repository for over 1,000 developer projects in the community, and of course, the Joomla codebase itself.
The button download link from the www.joomla.org homepage drills down directly to the package files for 1.0.12, as shown in figure 3.
Figure 3. The Joomla Source Forge
There are many different patches you can download.
If you are doing a fresh installation, you will need to grab the Full Package, for example, Joomla_1.0.12-Stable-Full_Package.zip (circled A)
If you are upgrading from a previous version, you will need to find the correct patch based on what you have currently installed (circled B). You can find out this by going to System in the administrative backend of Joomla. For example, if your current version was 1.0.10, you would need Joomla_1.0.10_to_1.0.12-Stable-Patch_Package.zip. Note that here there are several pages you can browse through (circled C) and three file types for each package: zip, gz and bz2.
Joomla News, Help, Extensions, Forum and Developers
While you are waiting for your download, you can explore some of the other areas of the Joomla Project Website.
Figure 3. The Main Joomla Homepage
As mentioned before, the main page lists the official news blog for the Joomal project. You can subscribe to his news via RSS via the link in the left hand column.
Figure 4. Community News
As well as official news is also a link for news that is submitted by the thousands of community memebers that are part of the Joomlaspahere. Whether General News & Events, examples of Joomla! Powered Sites, new Community Sites or news about Free Templates or Commercial Addons. You can find it all here! This page is also sydicated via RSS.
Figure 4. Joomla Help
Next is the help section of the Joomla site. Its full of guides, help screens and FAQ’s to help you get up and running with your Joomla site. Also can be found here is the official Joomla manual, currently for version 1.1.11.
Figure 4. The Joomla Forum
At currently over 86,000 members, the official Joomla Forum is one of the biggest forums on the Web. You can get help from our active Joomla community whether it’s for templates, translations, components or just a general help question. When you are asking for help, remember, the forum is all volunteer, so provide as much detail on your problem as you can and be respectful.
Figure 4. Joomla 3rd Party Extensions
The next link is for the Joomla extensions directory packed with over 1200 3rd party extensions. Split into components, modules and plugins, this is the place to come to extend the functionality of your Joomla website. It even includes useful reviews and rating tools so you can see what other people think of a particular extension.
Figure 4. Joomla Developer Site
The last link is for developers, this is where you can find documentation on the Joomla API, blogs for the various developers of the core team and various wiki’s and tutorials.
Join the Joomla Community and download your free copy now!
If you use Joomla to run a production site or even a personal hobby site please consider heading over to www.joomla.org and making a donation to help keep the project growing.