RocketTheme Blog

It’s 2019 and we’re getting ever closer to the eventual release of Joomla 4. While Joomla has been largely unable to confirm a target release date, the RocketTheme team has been working behind the scenes to make sure that we enter into the next era of Joomla with a solid plan.

To start, Joomla 4 itself is a moving target right now. The best news we have on the matter is that it is almost a year away - and Joomla 3.10 is expected to receive two years of support after its release (12-18 months of complete support and 6-12 months of security updates).

As of December, Joomla has stated that the stable release of Joomla 4 is not expected before the end of 2019.

With this in mind, here are some of the things we are able to share regarding our preparations for Joomla 4.

Joomla 4 Compatibility

RocketTheme is dedicated to making sure its current and growing Gantry 5 library of templates will receive updates for Joomla 4. However, we do not currently advise any of our customers to start using Joomla 4’s alpha or beta releases in a production capacity.

Our templates are not yet updated for Joomla 4 and are not expected to be until Joomla 4 is as close to final as possible and we’ve had time to ensure that anything we release for the platform meets the same quality criteria we demand from any of our products.

We want to ensure that not only do our templates work well with the platform, but that the platform is stable and ready to be used in a production capacity.

Gantry 4 Templates Coming to Gantry 5

Joomla 4 is expected to break all backwards compatibility for existing Joomla 3x templates that don’t undergo a major overhaul prior to its release. Gantry 4 has run the course of a decade now, and would require an extensive rewrite to work with Joomla 4.

So, we’ve decided instead of adding even more coding bulk to an already-mature code base, we’re focusing our efforts on bringing our most popular Gantry 4 templates to Gantry 5. This not only gives them an array of new features, but a new life with a longevity that will carry on for years to come.

We’ve already completed the conversion of several templates, including: Myriad, Chimera, Anacron, and just recently Vermilion.

Joomla 3.x Support

We expect to continue to supporting all of our existing templates with Joomla 3 throughout Joomla 3’s official support window just as we continued to support Joomla 2.5 well beyond the initial launch of Joomla 3.

We know and appreciate our customers that prefer to stick with a more mature, stable version of the CMS and have no intentions of forcing anyone to upgrade if they don’t have to.

Joomla has announced that it plans to simultaneously release Joomla 3.10 and 4.0 and RocketTheme intends to support each of these Joomla versions with its products.

A Decade with Joomla

RocketTheme launched as Joomla’s first template club, giving users of the popular CMS the ability to save time and money creating their perfect website. Over the years, Joomla has undergone major changes and we’ve been proud to be the largest and longest-running single developer of premium Joomla templates. 

As we look forward to Joomla’s next major release, we continue to focus our efforts on doing what RocketTheme does best: Create the best Joomla templates around.

Join the Conversation