Overview and Features Of Joomla 1.5.9 – Built in SEF URLs, Revamped menus and settings

   Joomla 1.5.x series has been completely revamped and rewritten. The menus are look extremely slick. Support for most old extensions can be enabled through legacy mode, but it is not recommended to do so unless absolutely essential. Built in SEF URLs support is one of the new features of the current version 1.5.9.
   Unlike in the previous version you can tweak the way the title can be displayed and you do not have to have the site name as part of it. This can be achieved from the Global Configuration > SEO settings.

Joomla 1.5.9 Control Panel

   As seen in the screenshot below the icons have changed and some options namely the static content manager as well as the Trash manager has been removed.

The Article Manager

   The article manager is where you manage all your articles. For creating a static content in Joomla 1.5.9 we have to create an article and then classify it as an uncategorised article. The default settings for the articles are now moved here. They can be accessed via Content > Article Manager > Parameters. The option to specify link to one or more menus from the side of the article while editing or creating an article has been removed. Instead we have create a link to an article from the respective menu itself.

SEF Features

   Joomla has built in Search Engine Friendly features in version 1.5.9 . For example a page will have the following URLs with NO SEF, SEF without mod rewrite and SEF with apache mod rewrite enabled.
NO SEF: http://localhost/joomla159/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47 &Itemid=56
Mod rewrite OFF: http://localhost/joomla159/index.php/goa-sightseeing-tours.html
Mod rewrite ON:
http://localhost/joomla159/goa-sightseeing-tours.html

Linking Articles To Menus

   We have to go to Menus and then select the menu to which we want to add a link. The menu item manager for the menu selected will be displayed. Click on NEW button and then select Articles > Article Layout Under parameters basic select article click on select and choose the article to be added to the menu. The reordering method of the menu items in this version is the same as in the 1.0.x series.

Extensions For Joomla 1.5.9

   A large number of extensions have not yet been natively ported to Joomla 1.5.x. series. Hence if any of those extensions are required it is better to stick to Joomla 1.0.15, otherwise this latest version of Joomla should be the version of choice.