August 8^nd, 2008. The Internet.

A week after our last beta release, JoomlaPack Developers announces the immediate availability of 1.2.1 Beta 2 release of our backup component for Joomla!-powered sites, JoomlaPack.

This is a pre-release version, intended for general public evaluation. It incorporates major security and performance related enhancements. For a detailed list, please read the rest of this announcement.

Downloads and related links

You can always download the latest version from our JoomlaCode.org project page. You can also access our public SVN repository. If you get stumped and need support, our community support forum welcomes your questions (please post to the 1.2.x Support board). You can always subscribe to the RSS news feed of this page in order to stay informed on new releases, or visit our official blog and find out what we're up to.

Important information regarding download packages

There are several JoomlaPack packages in our JoomlaCode.org project page. To help you get the most out of them, we'll describe what you get with each one of them:

• com_joomlapack-1.2.1.b2-j10.zip is the installation file for Joomla! 1.0.x sites. Use this with Joomla!'s component installer to install JoomlaPack
• com_joomlapack-1.2.1.b2-j15.zip is the installation file for Joomla! 1.5.x sites. Use this with Joomla!'s component installer to install JoomlaPack
• jpa_utils_1.2.1.b2.zip contains the command-line utilities UnJPA and UnZIP to extract backup archives created with JoomlaPack. Unzip it to your local hard disk, instructions are contained in the zip file.
• kickstart_1.2.1.b2.zip contains the Kickstart archive extraction and installation bootstrapper wizard. Unzip it to your local hard disk. Please read the manual before using these files.
• RECOMMENDED JoomlaPack_1.2.1.b2_Beginners_Bundle_for_Joomla_1.0.x.zip has to be unziped to your local hard disk before doing anything else! It contains the JoomlaPack component installation file for Joomla! 1.0.x sites, the documentation in PDF format and the Kickstart package. It is meant to get you going if you've never used JoomlaPack before.
• RECOMMENDED JoomlaPack_1.2.1.b2_Beginners_Bundle_for_Joomla_1.5.x.zip has to be unziped to your local hard disk before doing anything else! It contains the JoomlaPack component installation file for Joomla! 1.5.x sites, the documentation in PDF format and the Kickstart package. It is meant to get you going if you've never used JoomlaPack before.
• JoomlaPack_1.2.1.b2_ALL_IN_ONE.zip is the package which contains everything: JoomlaPack component installation files for Joomla! 1.0.x and Joomla! 1.5.x sites, documentation in PDF format, the Kickstart package and the jpa_utils package. It is meant for web professionals who administer a variety of Joomla! sites and want an all-inclusive turn-key solution for backing up, restoring and transferring Joomla! powered web sites. You have to unzip it first to your local hard drive.

About JoomlaPack

JoomlaPack is a very popular Open-Source backup component for the Joomla! CMS. It can be used to backup your Joomla!-powered site or to even easily transfer it to a new host. It is used by individuals, considerate webmasters and web professionals alike to safeguard their precious data, develop and deploy sites, switching hosts and much, much more!

JoomlaPack is developed by an international team of volunteers, spanning two continents and three countries. Our passion for high quality open-source software fuels our hearts and drives our efforts when writing code or supporting users alike.

Changes since last release

Last week we had been very busy. Without the distraction of our day jobs (it's vacation time for most of us and most of you, too) we managed to put a signifficant amount of effort towards fixing bugs and adding new functionality to our component.

New features:

• JoomlaPack Installer 3 (JPI3), based on Joomla! 1.5 default installer

• MultiDB and fucture inclusion filters are stored inside the #__jp_inclusion table

• Configuration import/export (including all filter settings) using custom XML files

• New db dump engine, using the command-line mysqldump utility and smart post processing with PHP code

• Ability to fix filters' absolute paths when migrating site to a different server or location

Bug fixes:

• Make changes in configuration effective immediately when clicking the "Save" button

• Fixed broken frontend backup from 1.2.1.b1

• Fixed broken JS paths in code from 1.2.1.b1

• Infinite loop bug in error propagation code caused PHP to dump core.

• Installation SQL prevented correct installation on MySQL4 hosts

• Multiple databases backup code on J! 1.0.x hosts couldn't reliably identify lack of connection to database

• Default dumper engine on J! 1.0.x hosts couldn't reliably identify lack of connection to database

• Kickstart: removed redundant echo's in recursive directory removal which wouldn't let the final mesage to appear.

Other changes:

• J! 1.0.x packages do not contain incompatible JPI3 and J! 1.5.x packages do not contain the outdated original JPI.

• Improved storage scheme for filter settings

• Distributed AJAX handling. Each page handles its own AJAX calls, increasing responsiveness