As with previous releases, Joomla! provides a unified and easy-to-use framework for delivering content for Web sites of all kinds. To support the changing nature of the Internet and emerging Web technologies, Joomla! required substantial restructuring of its core functionality and we also used this effort to simplify many challenges within the current user interface. Joomla! 1.5 has many new features.

In Joomla! 1.5, you'll notice:

• Substantially improved usability, manageability, and scalability far beyond the original Mambo foundations

• Expanded accessibility to support internationalisation, double-byte characters and right-to-left support for Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew languages among others

• Extended integration of external applications through Web services and remote authentication such as the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)

• Enhanced content delivery, template and presentation capabilities to support accessibility standards and content delivery to any destination

• A more sustainable and flexible framework for Component and Extension developers

• Backward compatibility with previous releases of Components, Templates, Modules, and other Extensions

Out of the box, Joomla! does a great job of managing the content needed to make your Web site sing. But for many people, the true power of Joomla! lies in the application framework that makes it possible for developers all around the world to create powerful add-ons that are called Extensions. An Extension is used to add capabilities to Joomla! that do not exist in the base core code. Here are just some examples of the hundreds of available Extensions:

• Dynamic form builders
• Business or organisational directories
• Document management
• Image and multimedia galleries
• E-commerce and shopping cart engines
• Forums and chat software
• Calendars
• E-mail newsletters
• Data collection and reporting tools
• Banner advertising systems
• Paid subscription services
• and many, many, more

You can find more examples over at our ever growing Joomla! Extensions Directory. Prepare to be amazed at the amount of exciting work produced by our active developer community!

A useful guide to the Extension site can be found at:
http://extensions.joomla.org/content/view/15/63/

Read more: Extensions

Joomla! features:

• Completely database driven site engines
• News, products, or services sections fully editable and manageable
• Topics sections can be added to by contributing Authors
• Fully customisable layouts including left, center, and right Menu boxes
• Browser upload of images to your own library for use anywhere in the site
• Dynamic Forum/Poll/Voting booth for on-the-spot results
• Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, MacOSX server, Solaris, and AIX

Read more: Joomla! Features

Joomla! provides plenty of flexibility when displaying your Web content. Whether you are using Joomla! for a blog site, news or a Web site for a company, you'll find one or more content styles to showcase your information. You can also change the style of content dynamically depending on your preferences. Joomla! calls how a page is laid out a layout. Use the guide below to understand which layouts are available and how you might use them.

Content

Joomla! makes it extremely easy to add and display content. All content is placed where your mainbody tag in your template is located. There are three main types of layouts available in Joomla! and all of them can be customised via parameters. The display and parameters are set in the Menu Item used to display the content your working on. You create these layouts by creating a Menu Item and choosing how you want the content to display.

Read more: Content Layouts