When is Joomla! 4 ready?

If you are a Joomla-ers or a fan of Joomla, you must be looking forward to the day of Joomla 4 official release. A good news for you is the Beta 3 version has been released some weeks ago and you can try it here. This version has all of the new features for Joomla 4, the stable version is not going to add any new features. 

You guys might be wondering when the Joomla 4 stable version will be released. Well, the answer is so simple. Joomla 4 stable version will be launched when it’s been fully tested and bug fixed.

Though, in this article I will tell you a little secret that others in production will not tell you. Let's jump into this now.

The day of Joomla 4 official release is in your hand. 

According to the roadmap of Joomla team, the Beta 3 version was released on 29 July 2020, though the release day of RC and Stable version are not determined yet. The official release day will be based on the progress of test and bug fixes. If this progress is smooth and fast, you can experience the Joomla 4 stable version really soon. You might think that's a cop-out, but it’s just as much in your hand as Joomla Developer Team. Thus, the Joomla Developer Team is now calling for help from all Joomla users to test and report bugs. 

You might think that this is a jargon-filled world of geeks and not for average Joomla users, but hold on…. This is often the assumption but never the truth. Read on the next parts to check out how you can help. 

If you are just a normal Joomla user  

You are not a developer, you cannot write code and you think testers need to be able to write or read code. The fact that they don't, it has some tests that are more suited with developers, in this case let's them deal with those tests. Joomla Developer Team now needs users who can simply work around the administrator side, add the articles of a Joomla site in their way and then report to the developers if Joomla is not behaving correctly. To support and encourage the new users in testing, Joomla team has set up some on-going newbie friendly sessions. In terms of experienced users, you can join at your pace and level. 

What you can actually do to help Joomla 4 release sooner

Joomla team is running weekly Bugs and Fun @Home in every Saturday with a plugged-in PC/Laptop required only.  

In these sessions, there are three labels describing different task levels. They are as follows:

• Explorer: Writing, reviewing, updating and improving current documents. As well as translating documents into different languages.
• Adventurer: Testing patches
• Conqueror: Creating pull requests. 

By taking part in these sessions, you can learn so much from the kindness of experienced and talented Joomla experts in the chat room. You will meet many users who are working away to help Joomla 4 out of door. One more thing, you will have more confidence in the effort to get Joomla 4 delivered sooner.

If your barrier is language since your English is not good, don’t worry. Joomla team will help you to set up a breakout room, which includes all the users speak the same language with you, so you can help each other in your own mother-tongue. 

You can join these sessions via Zoom, Meeting or whatever Joomla team happen to be using at the time. For more detailed information, you can refer here .

Otherwise, you can become a Test Release Candidate who can help the Release Team to test the release against larger Joomla sites to see that it plays well with the templates and extensions that are in the Joomla sphere. You can check it out the Pre-Release Testing document for all the easy as pie details in.

So… why not dip a toe in this process now?

Keep in touch and stay in touch

Your participation and inclusion in the Bugs and Fun @Home will keep you up to date on the goings on of both Joomla 4 testing and Pre-Release Testing on Joomla 3 Release Candidates (RCs). Come to Glip/RingCentral often and stay in touch with your community!

On the other hand, you can also subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated with the newest information about Joomla 4 as well as JoomlaShine.

If you wonder about the future after Joomla 4 and the future of JoomlaShine, take a few minute jump to this article to find out.  

A short conclusion

So turn back to the question "When Joomla 4 is officially released?". With your help, the official version of Joomla 4 will be released sooner than it would have without you, helping to test, squash bugs, and make it a reality.