ZOO 2.5 BETA released

Widgetkit fully integrated and support for Warp6 templates!

Aug

Today we present you the eagerly awaited ZOO 2.5 BETA release. With this release the ZOO got refurbished quite a bit. It revamps elements and jazzes them up with the Widgetkit goodness. That also means that we are saying “good bye” to the ZOOtools, they will be replaced by their Widgetkit equivalents. Furthermore we are discarding the remaining MooTools scripts. Read all about the changes in the following sections.

Widgetkit

Quite a few elements make use of the Widgetkit features now. The Image element features a fancy spotlight and a new lightbox. The Video element got replaced by the new Media element, that lets you present videos and audio with the power of HTML5. The Gallery element was completely revamped to work similar to the Widgetkit Gallery. Last but not least there is a new Widgetkit element, that lets you choose any Widget to be displayed in your items content.

Warp 6

The blog app now features a new template called "Warp6". It fully integrates with any of our Warp6 themes and matches perfectly their overall style. This makes the ZOO look especially neat and styled!

Item Ordering

A feature that has always been missing was the ability to order items by elements. Well, without further ado, now you can! You want to present your customers with ordered events? You want to order your products by their color or their size? You want to order your movies by their rating? The new release enables you to do lots of cool new stuff.

Social Buttons

In favor of the new and shiny Social Buttons element, we've kicked the Socialbookmarks element and the Facebook Like element. Now there are three buttons you can choose from. The Tweet button, the Google +1 button and the Facebook Like or Recommend button. Let everyone share your ZOO content!

Replacing XML with JSON

This one is a bit more techie. We have replaced quite a bit of XML with JSON. The elements e.g. are now stored in JSON. This makes it much easier for others to develop custom elements. It also makes for some speed improvements. In general handling JSON is much easier, than handling XML. Because of this change we've dumped the XML im-/export and replaced it with a JSON im-/export. This made the new comments im-/export rather easy to develop.

Important Upgrade Information

Please make sure to backup prior to the upgrade. Keep in mind: There is no smooth upgrade path for custom elements. All custom elements will need to be updated or removed prior or after upgrade! As stated above, the ZOOtools will be removed by this update. Please also make sure to install the latest Widgetkit version. Where applicable the Video element will be converted to the new Media element by this update. Because of the changes to the Gallery element, you'll loose your data associated to the Gallery element.

What's next?

The ZOO 2.5 BETA is exclusively available for members only who purchased the ZOO app bundle. As soon as ZOO 2.5 goes STABLE, it will be released for the public. Members can go straight to the download section in the member area and take ZOO 2.5 BETA for a spin! Be aware that it is a BETA version. It is not intended to be used on a production web site just yet.

Please give us your feedback and tell us what you think!

By Jan | 19 August, 2011 | Posted in ZOO

Comments (51)

ivo.haarmann

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Sounds great, But it is hard to digest that there is no upgrade path from 2.4 - Since import / export changes as well - will you give us some information how to "save" our data from Zoo 2.4 and import it to Zoo 2.5. Would be quite useful. I fear to see myself shifting data from A to B for weeks...( I know it will be worth it though)

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- Zach
  
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  You can upgrade from 2.4 to 2.5 without loosing your items, there are just some item elements (like gallery for example) that you'll need to re-do. A little bit of a hassle, but a much better end result. Thanks!
  
  reply
mirko.herrmann

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I cant find it at the download section, although I have a ZOO app bundle subskription :-(

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- Arjan Parie
  
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  You can find the download Zoo 2.5 BETA here
  
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- zoccolocd
  
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  Same here. But good developments nonetheless. Really hoping for versioning in 2.5 or 2.6 as well...
  
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- Ben
  
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  I can't see it either?
  Direct link please?
  
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TQs

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So nice, very good..
We appreciate your superior clean out of the box job so much.
New App: Want to ask, When will you make new App. for ZOO? (App for e-commerce).
Search: What about a detailed search module for ZOO that used for real-estate and/Or Auto website designed by ZOO?

Keep the good work.
Thank you again...

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- Vincent
  
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  About the search-thing.. Have a look at the Zoofilter plugin from Zoolanders :)
  
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  - TQs
    
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    Thanks "Vincent ", I prefer Core Zoo, not 3rd party.
    
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- Adrian
  
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  If interested by an e-commerce app, I am planning to strart developing one and Zoo is one of my possible choices for framework
  
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Randal

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GREAT NEWS! Almost every news from YOOtheme are amazing stuff. More than keynote from Apple when their products have more PR and less goodness under hood. You have less buzz and perfect products.

Any chance for tabs vertical and horizontal in Widgetkit? There are any plans for improve integration with Joomla 1.7 ACL in ZOO 2.6+?

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- mark.reynolds
  
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  Another vote for Widgetkit tabs - horizontal specifically please!
  
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  - jessica.charbonnier.10
    
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    yes horizontal tabs!!
    
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maverpix

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Very nice,been waiting for this to land,looking forward to working with it. Keep up the good work yootheme,some incredible releases this year and going from strength to strength ;)

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Gina

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Great News. Is there a demo available and when will the Zoo and Tool pages get updated on the YooTheme site?

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- Max
  
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  Same question from me too...
  
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serge

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Will the media elements now be repeatable or will it now be easier to accomplish that?

And as above, indeed great stuff time and time again:P

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pascal.netenvie

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What about Joomla ACL support ? Most important for lot of people ....

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Ondrejvymetalik

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E-commerce solution gonna from ZOO one of the most powerful thing in Joomla! ever!

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jamil

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yes, please... zoo commerce!

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Geeks on the Beach

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Always pushing the boundaries. I love that about Yootheme.

+1 vote on the ecommerce piece - That one missing feature would be a god-send. Keep up the great work.

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timewarpfr

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"order items by elements". That f****ing rocks !

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brianehanna

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Joomla 1.7 compatibility?

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- Zach
  
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  Yes
  
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Mustafa

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What about JomSocial integration? It would be nice... Thus, you may sell more this great CCK's bundles...

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christopher.powers

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Weird... I saw the download link when I was on my iPad earlier this morning but when I got to the computer--I no longer see it...

Hmph... Looking forward to kicking the tires and taking it for a spin..

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dotfact

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Ordering items by elements is very beneficial!

QUESTION: is 2.5 still compatible with Joomla 1.5???

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- greenparrot
  
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  Hi
  
  i presume so as its in the 1.5 zoo bundle download area ;)
  
  Roy
  
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Uzzy

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when will it be free for non-members?

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- casper.nohr.hansen
  
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  When it is stable...
  
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- SoftForge
  
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  When its stable, they always make the basic free to the rest when its stable.
  
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- Zach
  
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  When it's stable...
  
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fuzz

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Also, what happens to the rest of the Social Buttons ie Technorati, Delicious, Yahoo, MySpace, etc? Are they being thrown off board or did I misunderstand?

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william.sweeney

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I don't see the download.

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romello

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I would like to know if there is a shopping cart coming soon...or is there any way now via apps or other extensions to change
theses excellent ZOO product presentations in e-commerce business opportunities.

Please advise,

Romello

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McFrojd

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When will ZOO images have the "auto-size" class so the mobile expreience will be complete?

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Chris Hanson

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Does anyone know if the Zoo Blogger portion of ZOO is compatible with any other commenting system like Disqus or Facebook Comment Plugin??

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- rickwhogan
  
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  Answer is yes. Disqus is incorporated in Zoo and that module can be added to the zoo blog, or item or whatever.
  
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Mike

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When will it became available for the public? It's been a month since the BETA was released.

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David

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It would be interested that Zoo layout (positions) had an easy management as Yoothemes' layouts (modules positions) with warp, managing positions (sidebar a/b l/r, inner bottom/top, top, bottom, styles (box, color, line, and more), badges, icons, proportions (equal, stack...),

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- tqddn_hmzh
  
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  I really want this feature
  
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Uzzy

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Is there still not a date when its for public? Maybe an indication like a month or something?

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Mustafa

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what about jomsocial integration? With jomsocial integration you may hit the stars... You should definitly consider Jomsocial.

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kennst

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is there comming an integrated update function in ZOO? So you can update zoo in the administration panel.

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- sascha
  
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  Just install the latest ZOO version through the Joomla administration. ZOO will automatically update your current version.
  
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Mark Head

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Is there a likely public release date for Zoo 2.5? I am currently developing a Zoo search component (which I would be happy to share), I would be wasting my time to continue developing this for 2.4 if 2.5 is just around the corner. It's been a while since the announcement of the 2.5 beta.

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- Mark Head
  
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  Thanks for the reply, that is excellent news. We currently use a plugin by Rockettheme to perform searches but feel it is not quite complete and is restrictive. We are building a fairly straight forward component that will let you query any element and provide classes/functions per element that will define how each element is searched and can be ordered. The plan is for these classes to extend the current zoo element classes so it is extendable.
  
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Reydon

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eagerly waiting for the zoo 2.5 final version, when can we expect the final version's release?

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christopher.ciemian

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I have been on the fence on buying and wanted to wait until the new version was released.
Unless there is some upgrade path. Any additional update/info would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance

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Richard

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I want this! :)

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daniele.danesi

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someone can help me? i find ecommerce integration for zoo
thank you

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