Blog

K2 v2.5.5 coming out next week - now supported by 52 language translation teams!

contact@getk2.org (Fotis Evangelou) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:01:28 +0000

I'll keep this short... Although we kept the version numbering inside the 2.5.x series, 2.5.5 brings some new uber-cool features:

Smart Search integration for Joomla! 2.5
integration with anti-spam service StopForumSpam.com to stop real, human spam - available upon user sign up and for flagging spammers in comments
native support for jUpgrade (both versions) makes upgrading a Joomla! 1.5 site to 2.5 a piece of cake
integration with the Joomla! updater (v1.7+). Using the built-in extension updater in Joomla! you can check if there's a new K2 release and instantly apply the update
Community Builder integration for user profiles/pages
the K2 Media Manager has been upgraded and now supports image resizing as well! Just drag and drop images from your desktop inside the K2 Media Manager to upload them on your server, then resize and use them anywhere in your Joomla! site. The K2 Media Manager, already a full Joomla! media manager replacement, just got better!

I'm also very proud to announce the the translation teams working on K2 language packs are now 52! Congratulations to all contributors and very big thank you from the K2 team! If you want to track the progress of translations or create a new transation team or join an existing one, check out the K2 project page on Transifex.

K2 version 2.5.5 will be released next week.

K2Joom and Jiliko.net Partnership

contact@getk2.org (Simon Wells) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:21:26 +0000

K2Joom is very pleased to announce that we have extended our existing partnership with Jiliko.net to allow us to distribute and support a further 6 of their Joomla! extensions for K2, in addition to the hugely popular K2 MultiNotify.

This partnerships sees the sales and support of the following extension move from Jiliko to K2Joom, which allows Jiliko more time to concentrate on further development of these extensions and custom work for K2 and Joomla clients.

From immediate effect, we now promote the following Jiliko extensions:

K2 MultiNotify, subscription based.
K2 Template Manger, subscription based.
Sherpa, subscription based.
CSS4K2, FREE
K2Joom Fish, FREE
K2 Link Item, FREE
K2 USer View, FREE

All of these extensions and more can be found in the updated Extensions section of the K2Joom site.
Any subscription based extension is provided with unlimited updates and acccess to our support tickets for the duration of the subscription.

We look forward to many more years working together in providing quality solutions for K2 users.

K2 v2.5.4 (maintenance release) now available

contact@getk2.org (Fotis Evangelou) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:46:47 +0000

We have just issued v2.5.4 of K2, a maintenance release fixing/adding the following...

Fixed JavaScript bug which prevented inline comment editing in the backend
Fixed PHP notices/warnings
Comments from users with administrative permissions are now auto-published in the frontend, even if comment moderation is enabled.
Fixed issue preventing managers from changing author in item edit form (under Joomla! 1.5)
Fixed sh404SEF issue with K2 feeds
Added new ordering option "most recent first (by date published)". This option is especially useful for websites where scheduling items to be published in the future is very important (e.g. in major publications). Items will appear sorted by publishing date (descending).

If you already have 2.5.3 installed on your site, there are no template changes to v2.5.4, so you can safely update to this latest version ASAP. If you have a prior version installed on your site (2.5.0-2.5.2), you can also safely upgrade, but have a look first at the changes implemented so far (you may wanna update your templates) http://getk2.org/blog/itemlist/tag/release

As always, BACKUP your site before updating to this latest release, by using the free Akeeba Backup extension.

K2 v2.5.3 (maintenance release) now available

contact@getk2.org (Fotis Evangelou) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:14:34 +0000

We have just released v2.5.3 of K2, fixing primarily minor glitches in 2.5.1 and a small (but significant) JS error that appeared in the short-lived 2.5.2 release (which we issued past Friday). If you are using K2 v2.5.1 you can safely upgrade to v2.5.3 by installing the 2.5.3 zip file on top of 2.5.1. As always, it's good to grab a backup just in case (you can use the free Akeeba Backup for that).

What has changed in 2.5.3? Here's a list of the most important ones:

First and foremost, we have fixed any PHP notices, warning or errors as reported by users or the K2 team up until now. We're basically talking minor stuff here...
Added language strings missing in the frontend.
Comments (backend): if a commenter is a user in your Joomla! site, a link will now appear in their name in the comments moderation list.
In Joomla! 1.7, unicode aliases are off by default. In that case use K2 replacements unless unicode aliases (or other related plugins) are enabled.
Fixed "reset" button in the tags list in the backend.
Fixed: Both admin modules install on "None" pages in a fresh 1.7.x install.
Renamed all backend "views" to lowercase names for consistency.
Added the ability to override the placeholder images for categories and users. Just make sure you replace the related placeholder K2 images from /components/com_k2/images/ inside /templates/yourtemplate/images/.
All buttons in K2 Quickicons module now display the related K2 items list with proper filters. Updated external links. Added a clearing div to fix issue reported where all joomla button above the K2 Quickicons module were not clickable.
3 new icons for getk2.org links: community, extend, docs
Added option in K2 parameters to select which online image editor to use (in K2 Quickicons) among 5 popular choices (e.g. Aviary, Picnik etc.)
Updated the look of K2 module parameters to be more user-friendly in Joomla! 1.7 (a la J!1.5).
Updated jQuery 1.6 to latest release, added options for jQuery 1.7 as well. For new installations, jQuery 1.7.x is used by default.
Fixed a CSS typo.
Changed 2 user.php author block p tags to div tags, added checks for empty user descriptions output even if WYSIWYG editors place empty <p></p> tags. Updated K2 CSS to reflect these p to div changes.
Added integration with AceACL in K2 item/category forms.
Updated the K2 plugin API to render K2 plugin params from <param> blocks only in both Joomla! 1.5 and 1.7.
Getting the current view via JS does not conflict anymore with 3PD admin templates (e.g. AdminPraise templates).

That's it for now. Upgrade ASAP folks ;)

Holiday Discounts 20% Off

contact@getk2.org (Simon Wells) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 10:04:12 +0000

Thanks Giving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale at k2joom.com.
20% Discount on ALL #K2 Templates and Extensions on http://k2joom.com
Simply use coupon code HOLIDAYSALE during sign up to receive the discount.

Offer ends 29th November.

Happy Days

Simon Says Get K2 Important News

contact@getk2.org (Simon Wells) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:27:00 +0000

Hi Everyone,

If you are reading this, then you may have noticed that Joomlaworks has recently launched a new Joomla based K2 website in a move away from the previous Ning based site.

To help in streamlining support and documentation, we are consolidating websites and data, so that the K2 documents that appeared on Simon Says Get K2 www.simon.getk2.org will appear on the main k2 site.

As a result Simon Says site will be closed from the 1st December 2011, as it will become redundant but a redirect will be put in place to an archive of this data on K2Joom.com.
The new K2 website follows on with the user contribution, allowing you to write documents and submit them for approval on their site. So get on board and submit something, even if its just a little tip or tick you have learnt from using K2.

New K2 V2.5 documents are being written and will become available too, as well as several new video tutorials that I have made, more news to follow on that.

I will still be providing some support on the K2 forums http://getk2.org/community and www.k2joom.com will continue to provide K2 templates and K2 extensions.

With these changes, I have stopped new user registration and content submission on this site, so please, if you want to get involved, then visit the main K2 site.

So a big THANK YOU to all of you for visiting, commenting and adding content to Simon Says and look forward with chatting or meeting you soon.

Site closes 1st December 2011

Simon Wells
Simon Says Get K2

K2 v2.5.1 (maintenance release) now available

contact@getk2.org (Fotis Evangelou) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:19:40 +0000

We have just released v2.5.1 of K2, a maintenance release, fixing some minor issues as reported by the K2 Community.

This release maybe "maintenance", but we have gone through some "bigger" changes regarding content setup workflow and frontend editing.

In v2.5.1 we have improved the "friendliness" of frontend editing. E.g. when you edit an item via the frontend and close the editing window, the page will refresh, revealing the applied (or not) changes. Frontend users who don't have "publishing" rights will see a notice displaying at the top of the editing window and they will not see the published/featured controls. Additionally, only users with "editorial" rights (but not necessarily publishing rights), aka users with the permission "can edit any item" in their K2 group, are the ones who can now see and change an item's author. Previously anyone with some editing rights could do that. So all in all, frontend editing is a bit more tied up and informative to your frontend users.

What has changed in the "content setup workflow" is that some additional options are now more consistent across K2 backend content setup and K2 menu items. More specifically...

Distinct options for the tag layout, completely separated from the search & date listings options. We have also added global tag ordering as well as ordering in K2 tag menu items. This means you can now create e.g. a knowledge base or directory with items of a certain tag and display them e.g. in alphabetical order.
Ordering has also been added to the K2 user menu item. So you can override default ordering behaviour for specific (important) K2 users. Using the new "featured first" ordering option you can for example make some items appear as "sticky".
In the K2 Parameters, we now have a more consistent control of feed options (for the feed head link - the link appended to the page's <head> tag - and the feed icon). There are now global options for feed link and icon separately for the user, tag and the search/date layouts. Moreover, K2 menus to categories, tags and users also now have distinct options for the feed link and icon, which of course override the options in the K2 Parameters (if set). Let me note at this point that K2 can output all of its content in RSS/Atom feeds, including search results. And we're soon updating the (JoomlaWorks) JSON Feeds plugin (free) so you can extend these RSS/Atom feeds output by K2 into JSON feeds as well. Outputting your content into JSON allows you to use your site as the content source e.g. for mobile apps. It's how we built the J and Beyond 2011 site, whose JSON feeds Appcelerator then used to create the J and Beyond mobile app for iOS/Android...
One more important change that has been introduced is the option to override single category ordering within the menu item. This is extremely helpful when you want to create e.g. 2 links to the same category but with a different ordering for items. It's like what we do here for the K2 Showcase for example. You see a small menu above the main showcase grid with 2 options to see the showcase by date added or by popularity.

It's important to understand that these changes will not affect existing K2 sites visually. We have already mentioned which changes we advise you to implement in our previous blog post on the K2 v2.5.0 release. If you haven't read that blog post yet, please do so ;)

Other than that, we have fixed some minor issues like a couple of missing translated language strings, avatar conflict with T3 framework on mod_k2_user module and a bug in the "edit item" button appearing to users even on categories in which they didn't have editing permissions (they would click on that edit item button, but could not save in that current category, blocked by the K2 ACL).

We are still working on a (seemingly) Joomla! bug for fresh installations of K2 in Joomla! 1.7.x, where the backend modules cannot be published into their positions, upon installation. The quick workaround is to just go to the Module Manager, filter the "administrator" modules and simply open the 2 K2 modules (Stats and Quickicons) and just "save" them. Doing that will properly display these 2 backend modules in your Joomla! dashboard.

That's all for now folks.

If you just upgraded to K2 v2.5.0, just apply v2.5.1 on top and all new functionality will be integrated.

Don't forget to download your K2 localized language packs in about a week from now, so the translators have time to finish the few additions/fixes to the 2.5.1 language files.

Big thanks to the K2 Community for reporting issues and suggesting improvements.

Enjoy!

K2 v2.5 for Joomla! 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7 now available!

contact@getk2.org (Fotis Evangelou) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:00:48 +0000

I'm glad that after more than a year of constant development and improvements (and a rock solid v2.4.1), K2 version 2.5.0 is now available to download.

The major upgrade to 2.5.0 is that K2 is now a native Joomla! 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7 extension. But upgrades don't stop there. We have significantly improved performance, measuring up to 500% in complex sites with complex structures and pages with lots of items on them (portals, magazines etc.).

Version 2.5.0 also marks the switch to the jQuery library, as it's one (better) JavaScript library to maintain the code for, without needing to resort to hacks in Mootools in order to support all Joomla! versions.

Let's take a closer look at all the changes that version 2.5.0 brings. Sit back, relax and start reading (will take time). :)

1. Backend / component & modules

Gone is the dashboard. When you click on K2 you now go straight to the K2 items list. The dashboard was nice, but we prefer practicality. And this is something some hundred professional journalists will agree on (yes, we prefer live guinea pigs!). Plus it was more practical to use the K2 Quickicons module in your Joomla! control panel (aka the one dashboard you should see in your site). Since we killed the dashboard, the statistics table is now moved into a new backend module, K2 Stats. This module displays handy information like latest posted/most popular/most commented items, latest comments and general statistics like how many items, categories etc. you have in K2. This information is all displayed in tabs and you can show/hide them as you see fit. Plus you can copy the module as many times as you want in the backend and have different information displayed into a different position.

The K2 menu entry in the backend will now reveal a sub-menu to inner K2 pages like categories, comments, tags etc. Makes browsing faster.

An important upgrade in the backend is the introduction of the K2 Media Manager, powered by the amazing open source media manager, elFinder. By incorporating this ajax based media manager into the K2 backend, not only did we improve K2's workflow, but we basically rendered the Joomla! media manager obsolete. With the K2 Media Manager you can upload, rename, delete any allowed file type, you can create compressed archives in zip format, uncompress archives and the list goes on (image resizing is coming in v2.0 stable of elFinder which we will incorporate into K2 when the time comes). And we've also integrated this media manager into all "server file browsing" needs in K2 (item image/media/attachment tabs and category image).

Other improvements include the slight redesign of the item and category edit forms. For example, the "title" box is now longer and uses bigger fonts so you don't scroll left/right with the mouse cursor.

We also added the option to directly use a file on your server as a K2 item attachment (yes, the file is moved into K2's folder structure). The image gallery tab now supports the newest Simple Image Gallery Pro versions and you can even attach remote Flickr photosets in your K2 items. The "video" tab is now the "media" tab as we have enabled the rendering of video AND audio files there (by using both AllVideos features for the frontend playback). Rating and hits can also be reset at the top-right block when editing an existing item.

Assigning an item to another user is no longer restricted to backend users only. This means you can edit any item in the backend and assign its ownership even to frontend users only. This comes handy when you want to moderate content contributed by users in the frontend. Before K2 v2.5.0, you would not be able to edit such an item and restore its original author, as you simply could not select that (frontend) author.

The category edit form is upgraded to include "metatag information" parameters, a much requested feature in the K2 Community. We have also extended the parameters for "related items by tag" (in the "Item view options" slider), adding switches to show/hide the title/author/category/introtext/fulltext/image (any size)/media/image gallery of the related items. Think "visual" related items in your frontend. The parameters for the social icons and the "tweet this" link in the frontend have been replaced by native social buttons from the 3 current major social networks: Twitter, Facebook and Google+1. You can still keep the old icons in your frontend overrides but there are no options to control these anymore. You'll also see 2 new blocks for the width and height of the audio player, in case you upload audio files in your K2 items.

An important change in the category edit form is item ordering in the "Category item layout" slider (the first one in the right). We have added a new option called "Featured first". If you set this ordering option, your featured items will break away from the ordering of items in a category. Think of this option as "pinned" or "sticky" items.

In the categories list you will also notice that there is now a new column, indicating the category from which some category inherits parameters from. This just makes troubleshooting parameter inheritance faster when you're switching tabs in your browser between frontend and backend.

There is now a "copy" function in the categories list to quickly multiple existing categories.

In Joomla! 1.6/1.7, the items and category lists have the language switch.

The user manager further improves Joomla! user management as you can now perform talks like batch user moving to new Joomla! and/or K2 user groups, and batch user enable/disable. Yes, these are actions missing from the Joomla! user manager (both in Joomla! 1.5, only the first in Joomla! 1.7).

There are no changes in the User Groups.

In "Extra Fields", we have added 3 new "extra field types":
- CSV (uploading) to display tabular data in the frontend
- Searchable Labels: these are basically "tags" for extra fields. If you add such labels in items, you will see that they are "linked" in the frontend, meaning you can click on them and K2 will display all items matching this label. This extra field type is very handy for creating rich catalogs and directories.
- Date: This extra field type will allow your users to add formatted date fields into extra field data, so you can process it as you see fit in the frontend.

There are no changes in the Extra Field Groups.

The Information page has been slightly enriched.

2. Backend / K2 Parameters

The K2 Parameters (launched from the button top right in all backend lists) have had a major facelift, with new options being added to improve on existing functionality.

The first major change you'll notice is the use of tabs, to make editing these parameters easier. And this is constant across all Joomla! versions. The tabs organize options in "major logical groups", like Layout & Views, Content, Images and so on. Since K2 now uses jQuery, you will see options to enable/disable it in the Layout & Views tab. In the "Content" tab we have added an option to secure your users email addresses in RSS feeds. You see, there is a somewhat wrong approach used in Joomla! regarding the use of email addresses in RSS fields. The feed specs for RSS or Atom "require" the use of the author's email address. But this exposes users' email addresses in public and especially in bots collecting email addresses to send you spam email later on. To bypass that "somehow", Joomla! allows you to just use your site's email address, as entered in the Global Configuration options. You don't wanna use a bogus email address there as various extensions may use it (e.g. newsletter components). So we added the option "Use bogus email address to prevent spam bots from collecting author email addresses from feeds" which pretty much does what is says… If you don't enter anything there, K2 feeds will simply inherit whatever value you have setup in your Joomla! Global Configuration options. Good luck with the latter…

In the "Images" tab you'll notice an "advanced image settings" section. The first option allows you to use K2 with CDNs trouble-free, the second one allows you (if supported) to increase the memory limit of your server, as we've noticed large images (e.g. bigger than 8MP) may need more than 32MBs of memory for PHP.

In the "Social" tab there's a new option for "Facebook image size". This sets the image size all your K2 items will "transmit" to Facebook when "liked".

In the "Comments" tab, we've added options for comment reporting (to any email address you choose), plus an option to allow "inline comment moderation" in the frontend (approve/remove comment). The default "comment form notes" have moved into language files, but you can override them with your own message.

In the "Advanced" tab you'll notice that we've moved there the reCaptcha options under the "Anti-spam Settings" section. reCaptcha is now also integrated with the user registration form, under popular K2 users request.

Continuing in the "Advanced" tab, a new setting allows you to filter items in the K2 Items page (in the backend) by tag. This makes managing your tag-centric content a lot more useful. Don't wanna show the "import" buttons to fellow super admins? There is now an option to hide them completely in the backend. The "Cookie domain" option allows you to set a cookie containing a logged in user's ID. This comes handy especially in high traffic sites with CDNs, that require an additional method for checking a user is logged in. Something which we consider should be standard in Joomla!, to be honest. Finally we have extended the integration with sh404SEF by adding new options used by the popular SEO/SEF extension.

You'll also notice that we now have 2 distinct options for hiding the item form sidebar, one for the frontend and one for the backend. So you can use them separately...

3. Backend / K2 Menu Options

In v2.5.0 we're introducing a new menu type for K2: "Item edit form". This menu type allows you to create a menu for your registered/logged in users pointing to the creation of new items, with the category preselected. See how we use it here on the new getk2.org (you need to be a registered user).

Please note that this menu type was created to primarily be used with the "K2 User" module (mod_k2_user - which will soon replace mod_k2_login). You see, mod_k2_user allows you to render any Joomla! menu inside it, along with the default options to add a K2 item, moderate own comments etc. This means you can use this module to essentially create a "user toolbar", like we do here on getk2.org. All links in that rendered menu pointing to the "Item edit form" will open in modal boxes. If you render the same menu through the Joomla! menu module, you'll notice that the item edit forms open up in a new tab/window.

(Paragraph edited October 25th) The last 2 important changes in the K2 menus relate to the "tag" and "user page/blog" menu types and the new flexibility you can have by selecting a specific sub-template to use for different menu links. This means 2 things for tags: a) We have split the tag layout from the generic.php template and now it's inside the "default" template folder in K2. b) You can now have completely different layouts between tag listings, a much requested feature, especially on more complex K2 site creations. For "user pages/blogs" it means you can now apply different layouts. The user.php template is not chnaged, but it's moved into the "default" sub-template folder.

Also check out the new "K2 featured items first" ordering option in the K2 category/categories menu type.

4. Frontend / Editing

Coupled with the new menu type for "Item edit form", frontend editing in K2 has become slightly better. We have also improved the form designs to make them more neutral (item edit form and comment moderation) and consistent across all Joomla! versions. Part of the frontend editing process is inline comment moderation, the parameters of which were mentioned as part of the K2 parameters a few paragraphs above. Permissions are tighter regarding the use of the new K2 Media Manager, e.g. a user cannot delete existing files on your server's primary image folder (e.g. in /images or /images/stories). Just make sure you also block similar activity in your preferred Joomla! editor as well (e.g. JCE allows you to restrict uploading files in the frontend, so should other editors).

The "add item" and "edit item" links are now presented as buttons. The latter is right-aligned to the item title by default, as previously it was easy to confuse for which K2 item the edit link was, e.g. in an item listing case (category).

The frontend item edit form layout has been moved into the "Default" sub-template folder. This means you can have different item edit form overrides per site section, user group and so on. Imagine different submission forms for "blogs" and "documentation" posts!

5. Frontend / Component Layouts (Templates)

As already mentioned in the backend component forms and parameters, we've extend the content options for related items. By default, all these options (except the title option) are disabled so they don't break any layouts. Check out the default K2 templates for a hint in the code at item.php (and the K2 CSS), on how to create a horizontal scroller for related items with title, image and much more, all beautifully integrated to existing designs and Joomla! templates.

There are the new social buttons (all native) from Twitter, Facebook and Google+1, all configurable on a per category basis. We have moved the "hits" counter on the left of the "modified date". The "tweet this" link and small social icons are gone.

(Paragraph edited October 31st, 2011) If you enable comment reporting, public or registered users can report bad comments to some moderator. reCaptcha makes sure the report form is not abused. All HTML in comments is now filtered, except for valid URLs which are processed as links.

The video block is now the media block, as you can use both video and audio with the help of AllVideos (as usual).

Attachments also got an interesting and useful update. We no longer use a generic "attachment id" in the download link. Previously, this made it easy to guess and therefore download other attachments from your site. So it was practically impossible to use the attachments feature in a site that required membership to allow file downloading via K2 attachments. In this new version of K2, attachment download links (URLs) contain scrambled characters so it's impossible to guess nearby attachments, "opening the door" to K2 extensions making use of attachments e.g. for allowing/selling digital downloads (K2 Store?).

The tag layout has been separated from the generic layout and is now inside the "Default" sub-template as tag.php. We highly recommend you migrate your tag styling from the old layout to the new one. If you haven't styled the tag layout, you don't need to do that. The tag layout now uses its own set of CSS rules.

(Paragraph added October 25th) The user.php layout has also been moved into the "default" folder (see K2 Menu notes above), but the layout is not changed and there's backward compatibility for those who still have user.php one directory above the "default" folder in their overrides. In other words, if you have already created an override for user.php, it will still work.

User registration can be additionally secured with the inclusion of the (free) Google reCaptcha anti-spam system.

As you can understand, the frontend layouts have changed very little, with the exception of the tag layout and the inline comment moderation controls, so existing websites (and Joomla! templates) will not look different after the upgrade. You may not see all the new functionality if you have custom overrides, but the process to migrate the changes is a matter of a few hours tops (not days!).

6. Frontend / Modules

All modules now have a common "user image/avatar" control. No need to resort to CSS hacks anymore just because you want to show user avatars different in 2 different module instances of the same page.

The K2 Comments module is now able to display a commenter's real name or username. In the "latest comments" option, commenters who are not members of your site will still get a link in their name to the URL they declared. Don't worry, there's a rel="nofollow" under the hood to avoid whetting the apetite of spammers.

The K2 Login module has now be cloned to the K2 User module. Technically speaking, "K2 User" is better that just "K2 Login", especially when if you consider this module primary "talks" to com_user and that it offers a logout option… I know, terminology FTW! In any case, you don't need to update anything right now, just bear in mind that v2.6 (coming in months from now) will only have "K2 User" in. You just need to swap any module instance you have with "K2 Login" to "K2 User". The code in both modules is identical. An improvement to these modules is that you can now render any Joomla! menu inside them. So you can easily use the "K2 User" module to create a user toolbar with predefined "actions" coming though some Joomla! menu. Any menu links pointing to K2 item forms open up in modal boxes. Add to that the ability to now override the item edit form and you can start connecting the dots on how to build a cool community with diverse user generated content, all in K2...

The K2 Tools has had a significant improvement in its "search" option. You can now use this module as a search box and restrict all search queries to certain, preselected K2 categories. This is ideal when you have distinct sections in your site, e.g. one for public user and one for registered users (intranet?). You don't want either group to search and see results from all K2 categories but only from the ones they are allowed. Clean and simple. The search box can also function as a live search box, e.g. you see search results/suggestions as you type your search query. Finally, we have added a new functionality: a simple text box to insert any custom HTML/JS/CSS or even PHP code you want. The text box even supports plugin processing (parsing), so if you wanna display e.g. a video in a side column, you can use AllVideos plugin tags to do just that, the easy way. It's just a complimentary feature to mod_custom in Joomla!.

K2 Users remains the same.

In K2 Content which simply extended the option of adding a link at the bottom of the module. Instead of a hard-coded link, you can now select to link directly to some menu item. And if you add a "custom link title", it will override the menu item's title. So now you can now, e.g. fetch a list of items from your latest news category in K2 and also attach a link to that category at the bottom of the module that says something like "more in this category". Linking to a menu item instead of a hard-coded link just makes it easier when you migrate a K2 site from one folder/server/domain to another.

7. Under the hood

PERFORMANCE
- Improvements of up to 500%, more noticeable in complex site structures (e.g. sites like OnSports.gr).
- We now use better K2 component caching in the frontend when users are logged in. This is actually one of the major bottlenecks in Joomla! component design regarding performance. You see, Joomla! will turn off caching by default on all components and modules, when a user is logged in. This is actually bad practice from a "performance" aspect, if you think about it. Users may log into your site because you require user registration to allow e.g. comments. In that case, there is no reason NOT to cache the component's parts that, well, don't need caching. All the content except the comments do not need to be freshly generated from the database. We call this "K2 exteme caching". However we turn off part of this extreme caching option if a user has editing rights in K2, as in that case, you do want your user to see cached content where they have editing rights! We still maintain separate item caching if a specific user does not have the rights to edit it.

If you don't have any editing rights in the frontend, we cache the shit out of everything where we can, cause every database query counts. And that's why K2 can serve content to millions of users in big deloyments that cost a lot less compared to similar implementations with Joomla! core article system and of course way better compared to Drupal or Wordpress. You need a cluster to run a site like OnSports.gr in Drupal with dozens of millions of visitors per month. With K2 it just needs 2 VPSs that cost as much as 1 physical server… Beat that D!

- Removed all script blocks inside the <body> tag, in both the frontend and the backend of K2.

IMPORTING JOOMLA! ARTICLES
- When you import your Joomla! articles (com_content), we make sure to convert any meta keywords (as entered in "meta information") into K2 tags. If you are migrating a site with dozens of thousands of Joomla! articles, we highly recommend you increase PHP's memory and execution time limits.
- "Uncategorized" articles in Joomla! 1.5 are properly migrated into a K2 "Uncategorized" category.

SEO
- Added rel="nofollow" to print and e-mail links in item.php to avoid indexing of duplicate content.
- Added rel="nofollow" to external commenter URLs in latest comments lists.
- Added rel="author" wherever in K2 we have a link to a K2 user page.

BUGS
- Fixed template/layout bugs relating to non-existent or half-complete checks (if/else statements)
- Fixed all reported frontend and administration bugs, up to (late) Sept 2011.

TRANSLATIONS
- K2 has reached a significant milestone here. We are happy to have more than 40 translation teams in the K2 project on Transifex. A big thank you to our translators!

Enjoy K2 v2.5!

Making K2 your preferred admin menus

contact@getk2.org (Alan Sparkes) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 20:22:40 +0000

Ever wanted to log in to your J1.5 admin and not see com_content in the menu? This little admin hack shows you how.

To lose the admin menu 'Content' or add K2 alongside it, open up /administrator/modules/mod_menu/helper.php
and find the following [line 110 in J1.5.23]:

/*
* Content SubMenu
*/

Replace the block of menu code with :

/*
* K2 Content SubMenu
*/
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('K2')), true);
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('Dashboard'), 'index.php?option=com_k2', 'class:menu'));
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('Article Items'), 'index.php?option=com_k2&view=items', 'class:article'));
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('Article Categories'), 'index.php?option=com_k2&view=categories&filter_trash=0', 'class:category'));
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('Article Tags'), 'index.php?option=com_k2&view=tags', 'class:tags'));
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('Article Comments'), 'index.php?option=com_k2&view=comments', 'class:comments'));
$menu->addSeparator();
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('Users'), 'index.php?option=com_k2&view=users', 'class:user'));
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('User Groups'), 'index.php?option=com_k2&view=userGroups', 'class:user'));
$menu->addSeparator();
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('Extra Fields'), 'index.php?option=com_k2&view=extraFields', 'class:cpanel'));
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('Extra Field Groups'), 'index.php?option=com_k2&view=extraFieldsGroups', 'class:cpanel'));

$menu->addSeparator();
$menu->addChild(new JMenuNode(JText::_('Trash'), 'index.php?option=com_k2&view=items&filter_trash=1', 'class:trash'));
$menu->getParent();

You'll now see the top bar main drop down menu with K2 specific items.

Welcome to the new getk2.org!

contact@getk2.org (Fotis Evangelou) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:27:47 +0000

What an exciting week for K2! We're rolling out the much anticipated, much improved K2 v2.5 with full Joomla! 1.5 up to 1.7 compatibility, as well as the new home for K2 that you currently see, the new getk2.org!

Although detailed info on the new K2 version will be published soon, with the official release of K2 v2.5 (stable), I'm happy to share with everyone that the new release will continue the legacy of v2.4 as a rock solid content management extension for Joomla!. It took a little over a year of development to get to 2.5 but it was worth it. Improved performance, enhanced features, enhanced workflow, an all-in-all better way to manage your content in Joomla!. Of course, in-between the ever evolving Joomla! v1.6 (and up to today's 1.7) we had to change things and adapt, but now that 1.7 seems to be on track for a successful and stable release for Joomla!, it was time we got the new K2 out as well. Software is an ever evolving process and releases are essentially snapshots of this process. And now is the right time for v2.5 of K2, now that the current release of Joomla! has reached a stable and mature cycle.

The good news is that since the current Joomla! code base will be part of more future releases (at least the way I see it), we'll be able to roll out smaller updates more frequently. Our next big goal is K2 v3, which will feature a full code rewrite (and much more compact), further improving on performance and adding features like multi-categorization, better frontend editing, desktop-like interfaces, easy internal ACL among others.

We want people to be able to get out more from Joomla! using K2 and be able to have a powerful content management solution which we consider enterprise-class, yet easy to use even for a small blog.

New getk2.org

The big change is we're going "full-on Joomla!". That means the community is getting an update and now everything will be integrated into one site only. And all in one Joomla! based website (sorry Ning). The current platform based on Ning was good when we launched the project, as it allowed us to setup the community fast. But now that K2 is the no.1 content management extension/CCK in the Joomla! community with over 300 supporting extensions in the JED alone, the project's needs are different.

The new site will feature a revamped community forum, with integrated localized communities for french and spanish speaking users. It will also feature a showcase section for the best K2 websites, a directory for K2 extensions, languages and templates, and finally a new documentation section with both written and video content, which users can contribute to.

All under one roof, all based on K2, with the exception of the community, which is run on the excellent Kunena forum extension - don't get us wrong, we also love Ninjaboard, but we're keeping that for the JW "home" ;-)