Product life cycle

Introduce support life cycle for Joomla templates

Product support overview of our Joomla templates (since 2010)

JoomlArt support life cycle for Joomla templates

JoomlArt support life cycle for Joomla templates

Support policy   Support life cycle

With an aim to outline our commitment for providing support to released Joomla templates over the years, we have comeup with a simple timeline illustrating our approach for future updates and support for the templates released over the past 4 years. Now, since Joomla! release strategy keeps on changing, for our timeline we are using tentative dates for future versions and our plan.

Please note, the information below depends a lot on the Joomla! CMS road map, therefore the information here is subject to change.

  • J 2.5 support - Joomla! 2.5 is due to be retired by Dec 2014 and we plan to provide customer support (technical support) for extended 2 months while asking everyone to upgrade to Joomla 3.x versions. All of our Joomla 2.5 templates are already available for Joomla 3.x and would be updated for Joomla 3.5.
  • J 3.x support - This highlights the current Joomla 3.x (short term releases) support and eventually will cover the lifespan of proposed Joomla 3.5 (long term release).
  • J 4.x support - We would be upgrading all our T3 framework templates to Joomla 4.x as and when it is released. However, as the features and release dates are not clear as of now, so this information may be subjected to change over the period of time.

Joomla! release strategy changes - outlined by Andrew Eddie on 16th April 2014

Joomla release strategy changes

Joomla release strategy plan - screenshot from the JUG Brisbane presentation by Andrew Eddie

Watch Andrew Eddie, co-founder Joomla! speak frankly about the new release strategy - Video changes of Joomla! and how it may affect you.

Code Freeze - We plan to put some of our older templates to Code freeze starting Jan 2017. Let me explain what it would really mean and if you should be worried or not :

  • All of Joomla 2.5 templates will be updated and maintained over the lifespan of Joomla 3.x series.
  • Once in code freeze phase, no new feature or version upgrade would be released with exception of security fixes. No Joomla version upgrades or framework upgrades would be applied.
  • Average product life of templates from the first release to code freeze is around 6-8 years. Code freeze of templates over the years would help us to maintain a healthy advanced template portfolio for you to choose from which would be advanced in terms of technology and design.
  • Lets face it, with so many technological / feature changes in the Joomla, as well as advances in the scripting (backend/ frontend) and not to mention the groundbreaking advances in UI / UX, design concepts every year renders a Template life spanning around just 5 years. Beyond which a site redesign and restructuring is warranted.

Summary :

Besides from providing life cycle visualization for our Joomla templates the aim is also to assure our members of longer life of our products as compared with others. The information above and illustration in the support life cycle chart is for information purpose only and is subjected to changes based on changes to Joomla! release strategy and internal policy decisions.