Flexicontent 5 is out (joomla 6 compatibility)

Flexicontent 5 is out

what new

The good news is that this work has reached an important milestone.

FLEXIcontent 5 is now available.

Among the changes included in this development are:

Joomla 6 compatibility fixes
Joomla 5.x and Joomla 6.1 compatibility
PHP 8.1 to PHP 8.4 compatibility improvements
Fixes related to Joomla 6 namespaces
Updates to Joomla's jQuery handling
Fixes to category management
Improvements to the backend interface
Fixes to fields and field rendering
Improvements to batch operations and imports
Fixes to multilingual content handling
Improvements to media management
Updates to JavaScript libraries
Various PHP 8.x deprecation fixes

This is not simply a version number change. The changelog shows a substantial series of compatibility fixes and improvements made throughout the codebase.

What has changed under the hood?

One of the most important parts of this work is dealing with the evolution of Joomla's APIs.

For example, the beta includes fixes for Joomla 6 namespace issues and updates to the way jQuery is handled. It also contains specific changes for PHP 8.1–8.4, including fixes for deprecated behaviour that can generate warnings or errors on newer PHP versions.

Other changes concern the FLEXIcontent administration interface and its many components.

The beta includes improvements to:

Importants Features

Improvements to the geolocation system: removal of Algolia and integration of the open-source Nominatim geocoding service. There is no longer any need for a paid API in the backend.

Another major improvement is the ability to customize the information displayed in map popups using FLEXIcontent fields.

Templates: All templates have been updated to make them easier to manage and customize. The HTML5 versions have been discontinued, and the code has been modernized to make greater use of CSS Flexbox and CSS Grid, while reducing the dependency on Bootstrap.

We are also using new responsive approaches, such as CSS Grid with minmax(), to achieve better layouts with less code.

Filtering: A modern AJAX-based filtering system has been added, allowing content to be filtered without reloading the page while remaining SEO-friendly. This makes it possible to update results much faster and is fully compatible with the map module. A new filter badge system has also been added, displaying a summary of the currently selected filter values.

Pagination: A new infinite scrolling mode has been added, allowing content to be loaded continuously without numbered pagination.

Images: FLEXIcontent can now automatically generate WEBP images when uploading files. We have also updated the way responsive images are handled to provide better rendering across different screen sizes and devices.

Performance Optimization: We have updated the LESS compression library and added a new minification option to further reduce file sizes and improve overall performance.

Backend interface

The administration interface has received several updates, including toolbar icons, Font Awesome integration, tooltips, accordion icons, Bootstrap classes and various display improvements.

These changes may appear relatively minor to users, but they are important for keeping the administration interface consistent with modern Joomla versions.

Fields

FLEXIcontent's fields are at the heart of the CCK. They have therefore required particular attention.

Several field-related files have been updated, including fixes for PHP compatibility, value handling, radio fields, inline boxes and field display.

The beta also introduces improvements to the formatting of additional field values.

Categories and content management

Category handling has also been updated for Joomla 6.

Several fixes address category management, aliases, batch operations and the way content is handled when items belong to multiple categories.

These are particularly important because FLEXIcontent relies heavily on Joomla's content and category infrastructure.

Multilingual content

The new beta also contains work on multilingual content, including support for multi-item, multi-language translations.

This is an important area for FLEXIcontent websites that use Joomla's multilingual capabilities.

Import and batch operations

The batch import system has received several fixes and improvements.

For example, issues where an import could remain stuck at 0% have been addressed, along with several other problems discovered while testing and correcting the batch import tools.