Introduction
The Kunena Team has now released Kunena 1.6.4 as a native Joomla extension for J! 1.5.23 and J! 1.6.3. This is a maintenance release for Kunena 1.6 and all users are recommended to upgrade to Kunena 1.6.4 (backup and testing are strongly recommended!).
K 1.6.4 makes all previous releases of Kunena obsolete and all users of prior Kunena releases are urged to upgrade as soon as possible.
In order to achieve better interoperability with both J! 1.5 and J! 1.6, a lot of work has focused on revising the default Kunena template. Some users of third-party templates written for older versions of Kunena will find that their templates may not work with this latest release because changes were necessary in order to fit with the new J! 1.6 CMS.
We continue to put a big emphasis on usability and ease of installation. The installer has been further enhanced to allow for multiple installation and upgrade options. It performs incremental steps to avoid timeouts on slower hosts. It automatically performs actions such as taking the forum offline during the installation or upgrade and re-enables it after completing the install. While all care has been taken to make the upgrade process run smoothly there will be unavoidable issues that may arise because of the way that some people may have individually customised Kunena to their own unique needs.
There are still a few outstanding matters that have prevented K 1.6 meeting all our expectations to take full advantage of all the features of J! 1.6. As with other Joomla extensions, the Kunena project is not alone in this situation. During our extensive testing of K 1.6.4 the project team has discovered several issues with the Joomla 1.6 core and these have been reported to the Joomla development team. Rather than wait for Joomla 1.7 to be released (expected some time in July this year) we decided that it is better now to release a version of Kunena that handles most of what Joomla 1.6 is capable of providing. There is still further work needed to complete this task and we're continuing to work with Joomla developers to resolve those outstanding matters. If you are in any doubt about whether J! 1.6 is right for you, you should test K 1.6.4 on J! 1.6.3. to form your own opinion of whether J! 1.6 is best for your needs or whether you should use something else.
At the same time as this release of K 1.6.4 we also announce the availability of add-on extensions for Kunena. These updated add-ons (together with the updated K 1.6.4 component) are available on the Download page.
Highlights
- Improved support for Joomla 1.6, including ability to migrate from J! 1.5 to J! 1.6
- Avoids Javascript conflicts with jQuery and other frameworks thereby making K 1.6 more viable for users of K 1.5 to upgrade to the new version.
- Improved performance in certain cases (e.g. recent topics was too slow for visitors; "who is online" processing time)
- Improved debugging features (e.g. detection of common mootools issues and some "white page" problems)
- More reliable menu handling to reduce router looping/redirection problems
- New options for Blue Eagle (default) template to make it easier to customise the template to your site theme without having to modify CSS
- Improved moderator tools (e.g. permanent delete of topics without having to trash them beforehand)
- Smaller ZIP installation file (under 2 Mb)
- Support for threaded view of discussions - currently experimental at this stage; this needs to be enabled manually
- Changed configuration options (e.g. choose the way to count total users; cloak email addresses in BBcode, profiles, user list)
Find the full online README: Here
Find the full online CHANGELOG: Here
System Requirements
Joomla 1.5.23 or Joomla 1.6.3 Minimum Version Required (Mootools 1.2.5)
Kunena 1.6.x no longer uses jQuery and requires MooTools 1.2.4+. With the release of Joomla 1.5.23 and Joomla 1.6.3, the Mootools system library has been updated for Joomla compatibility with the latest web browsers Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9.
PHP 5.2.3
Kunena 1.6.x requires PHP 5.2.3 or higher. We have also tested it on PHP 5.3.x. In general we currently recommend PHP 5.2.x due to its maturity.
MySQL 5.0.0
Kunena in general and especially version 1.6.x relies on advanced SQL features introduced in MySQL 5.0.x. MySQL 4.x is no longer support even though Joomla 1.5 itself can be run on certain versions of MySQL 4.x. The main difference is the amount of database workload generated by a forum component compared to the basic CMS functionality.
Third party components requirements
If you want to run Kunena 1.6.4 with Jomsocial, Community Builder, UddeIm or Alpha User Points, you will need to have the following versions of these components to avoid any issues :
- Jomsocial 2.x.x
- Community Builer 1.4
- UddeIm 2.x
- Alpha User Points 1.5.12
Third party ACL components requirements
If you want use third party ACL components with Kunena 1.6.3 and Joomla! 1.5, you need to use at least the following versions :
- NoixACL 2.0.6 - not officially supported and will be removed from future versions of Kunena
- JXtended Control 1.0.7
- ArtofUser 1.0.5
Downloading Kunena
Find the latest package files here: View Packages
We use the power of JoomlaCode as our main repository for the public SVN. We encourage all users and open source developers to help develop fixes, features and enhancements to the existing code base. If you are interested in contributing, please provide a patch or enhanced branch and we will be happy to consider it for inclusion in the main code branch (quality and feature completeness permitting).
Find the SVN source code repository here: View SVN
The only official Kunena distributions are available from the links above or directly at www.kunena.org. There are currently no officially supported alternative download mirrors supported and users are encouraged to visit www.kunena.org for the latest version of all available Kunena packages.
Compatibility with Third-party Kunena Templates
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Templates designed for Kunena 1.5.x will not work with Kunena 1.6.4 due to major changes in the code and structure. Some third-party templates developed for older versions of K 1.6.x may also be incompatible and result in all functions of Kunena being available. If in doubt, please contact the author(s) responsible for building your Kunena template. |
All the logic has been removed from the template to make it much easier for template designers to create Kunena templates.
Check out the short guide on how to quickly customize a Kunena 1.6 template in just a few minutes: http://www.kunena.org/forum/159-common-questions/53519-the-5-minute-quick-and-dirty-kunena-16-template
More tutorials and instructions are available in the forums to make template for Kunena 1.6.x.
Compatibility with Third-party Kunena Modules
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Kunena 1.6.4 is not compatible with modules or plug-ins designed for previous versions and we recommend you uninstall all Kunena 1.5 extensions before installing or upgrading. |
Kunena 1.6.x now provides an updated API for easily creating modules or plug-ins. The Kunena team has created a few new plug-ins and modules which leverage the new API and can be used with Kunena 1.6.x. These extensions can be found in the Kunena Extension Directory: http://www.kunena.org/ked
Installing or Upgrading Kunena
Be sure your setup meets or exceeds the minimum Technical Requirements or the install/upgrade process will fail. If it fails, your data will be left untouched.
To install Kunena, make sure you read our Installation Instructions before beginning. To upgrade Kunena from previous versions (including FireBoard), make sure you read the Upgrade Instructions.
The Kunena installer now handles both installs and upgrades of existing installations without the need for user intervention, manual SQL execution, or migration procedures. It also keeps a detailed log of all Kunena versions installed on your site in order to perform incremental upgrades as necessary. This means that a site administrator doesn't have to worry about complicated installation or upgrade procedures.
We would like to underscore the importance of backups before and after any upgrade process. Never perform an install or upgrade without a full backup.
Credits
An open source project like Kunena requires the dedication and investment of personal time from various contributors. This version of Kunena Forum has been made possible by the following contributors:
- fxstein Kunena developer and admin of http://www.starVmax.com/forum/
- Matias Kunena developer
- severdia - Kunena developer, Joomla Leadership Team Member, and admin of PlayShakespeare.com
- xillibit Kunena developer
- @quila Kunena contributor
- 810 Kunena contributor
- alakentu Kunena moderator
- LDA Kunena contributor
- Rich Kunena moderator
- sozzled Kunena moderator
Special thanks go to Beat and the CB Testing team, LittleJohn, GoremanX, madLyfe, Mortti, Cerberus, DTP2 and JoniJnm for their significant contributions to Kunena. In addition many members of http://www.Kunena.org have contributed and helped make this a more stable and bugfree version. Our thanks go out to all contributors of Kunena!
Language credits
English translation was made by Kunena Team with many suggestions and corrections from our community. We also like to give special thanks to all our translators, who have worked hard to localise Kunena to their own languages.
