A short introduction on the new Joomla! Extensions Directory

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JED 3

In 2013 the JED Team started brainstorming on the upgrade for the extensions directory. Now the brand new JED is launched, and it’s looking good. Let’s have an overview and end up with a walkthrough video on the new JED.

From the front end view there are a lot of changes. A new and improved search functionality, still supporting keyword searches of course but expanded with tags, scores etc…
It’s become an easy tool to find your extension in a rapid way.

The browse categories also changed, you now have an overview of the main categories and you can select directly towards subcategories. Which give you a better overview than the former listing.

Once you are in the listing itself, the display of each extension has some great features. You see each extension with the title, whether it’s paid or free, the (sub)category it’s in, the compatibility, the score it’s been given by the reviewers, and when you hover the image you’ll get a short description and get the type of extension (module, component, plugin, extension specific).

If you enter the detailed view of an extension you’ll get a nice overview… The screenshots or extension image is added on top of the descriptions in a slider. On the left side you have the full description, reviews, and other extensions from the same developer. On the right you have the details :

  • Version
  • Developer
  • Last updated and date added
  • License en whether it’s a free or paid download
  • Does it use the joomla updater ?
  • The type of extension and it’s compatibility
  • some shortlinks towards the download, demo, support and documentation.
  • And last but not least , the scores and how they are weighted.

The download buttons and share button are a nice add on and pretty easy to get the correct link at once.

The JED Team also added a knowledge base with the most frequent issues you as a user or developer might have a question about.

When you login to the JED even more functionalities are shown. You can add reviews and give scores to the extensions you bought or downloaded, while you’re in the extension detailed page. If you have some kind of problem, whether you are an end user or developer , you can find a ticket system at your profile page (this is not for getting support on that extension however!!). Also an overview of your submitted reviews, your submitted extension (as a developer) and your favourites. (you can add favourites while you’re browsing the extensions and are logged in).

As developer , you can add your extensions by you profile page as well, the submission process is changed a bit. It now scans new submission automatically for common errors. You now have a 2 level categorisation, while in the former JED version you only had hundreds of nested and 1 level categories, and you can add up to 5 tags to your extension.

Because the JED is brand new at this stage, some issues may occur, if you find a bug or an issue, please report it to the team on :https://joomlaextensionsdirectory.atlassian.net

Video

Mike Veeckmans