The Joomla! Project is pleased to announce the availability of Joomla! CMS 3.6 Beta 2. Community members are asked to download and install the package in order to provide quality assurance for the forthcoming 3.6 release.

Joomla! 3 is the latest major release of the Joomla! CMS, with 3.6 the seventh standard-term support release in this series. Please note that going from 3.5 to 3.6 is a one-click upgrade and is NOT a migration. The same is true is for any subsequent versions in the 3 series of the CMS. That being said, please do not upgrade any of your production sites to the beta version as beta is ONLY intended for testing and there is no upgrade path from Beta.

What is this release for?

This is a BETA release, that should only be used on test sites. Beta releases cannot be upgraded.

Extension and template developers are encouraged to work with this release in order to prepare extensions for the stable release of Joomla! CMS 3.6, though there shouldn't be any backward compatibility issues. Users are encouraged to test the package for issues and to report issues in the Joomla! CMS Issue Tracker. Please do not upgrade any of your production sites to the beta version and do not start a new site on beta as beta is ONLY intended for testing and there is no upgrade path from Beta.

When is the stable release due?

The schedule is slightly modified from the initial PLT meeting minutes announcement:

• June 22nd, 2016 - 3.6 Release Candidate
• June 28th, 2016 - 3.6 Stable Release

Please note that dates may be subject to change depending on availability of volunteers and circumstances beyond our control.

Which bugs have been fixed in Joomla! 3.6?

A full list of issues resolved can be found on GitHub.

What’s new in Joomla 3.6

The big question is, what is new in Joomla 3.6?

Joomla Update! Improvements by Nicholas Dionysopoulos and Tobias Zulauf

https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/9612

Joomla!'s native install component now allows you to reinstall the current version of Joomla and upload file packages of Joomla.

New Subform Field by Fedir Zinchuk

https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/7829

This is a new JFormField type that will supersede the existing repeatable form field as well as providing extra new functionality like being able to nest XML forms inside each other.

How can you help Joomla! development?

There are a variety of ways in which you can get actively involved with Joomla! It doesn't matter if you are a coder, an integrator, or merely a user of Joomla!. You can contact anyone of our PLT members, to get more information, or if you are ready you can jump right into the Joomla! Bug Squad.

The Joomla! Bug Squad is one of the most active teams in the CMS development process and is always looking for people (not just developers) that can help with sorting bug reports, coding patches and testing solutions. A great way for increasing your working knowledge of the Joomla! code base, and also a great way to meet new people from all around the world.

If you are interested, please read about us on the Joomla! Wiki and, if you wish to join, email Roland Dalmulder, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., our Bug Squad coordinator.

You can also help Joomla! development by thanking those involved in the many areas of the process. In the past year, for example, over 1,000 bugs have been fixed by the Bug Squad.

The project also wants to thank all of the contributors who have taken the time to prepare and submit work to be included in the Joomla! CMS and Framework.

A Huge Thank You to Our Volunteers!

This beta release is the result of thousands of hours of work by dozens of volunteers.

A big thank you goes out to everyone that contributed to the 3.6 release! Right now we're nearly at 1600 commits since 3.5.1's release with 39 different people contributing to those commits (not including testers and other non-coding activities).