We are happy to announce the release of our new image slideshow module for Joomla 1.6/1.7/2.5, Mod Panelsider. This module displays your images in an attractive and unusual scrolling javascript slideshow. The display consists of a main image with previews of the previous and next images in two semi-opaque side panels.

This is our first extension release designed specifically for Joomla 2.5: we wanted to take advantage of some of the advanced features only possible with Joomla 2.5.

The module comes in 3 versions: the basic version which requires no external extensions, a version for Ignite Gallery, and a version for FW Gallery.

The long awaited new release of Com Jigsaw, our Flash puzzle game for Joomla, is now available. This component allows you to turn your site images into a jigsaw puzzle, and is great fun for adults and children. It will load images from any site folder you specify, and automatically turn them into a puzzle.

Version 3 includes some great new features:-

• The layout is completely flexible, it can be resized to any dimensions required, to fit into any site;
• unlimited images can be displayed;
• the puzzle now includes a timer, user time scores are now uploaded to a database table and displayed;
• social sharing buttons encourage users to advertise your site by posting the puzzle to their Twitter and Facebook accounts

You can buy the game here.

The  latest release of our Amazon Web Services content plugin for Joomla 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7, and for Mighty Extensions Resources, is version 2.4.2. This content plugin allows you to embed product information and reviews and links from Amazon Web Services into your Joomla articles. 

This release includes several improvements:-

• It adds support for Joomla 1.7
• It adds support for the latest version of the Amazon product advertising API (2011-08-01)
• It adds support for the new Italian and Chinese Amazon product advertising APIs (see https://forums.aws.amazon.com/ann.jspa?annID=1115)

We have a new release of our slideshow module for Joomla, mod Featured Items Slideshow. This module can display images from your Joomla! articles as a slideshow, with a caption taken from the text, and a link to the articles. The module finds your article images automatically, the administrator just needs to pick the section or category, or the individual articles.

Version 2 includes a completely new HTML 5 layout, supporting a variety of image transition effects.

The latest release also includes several other improvements:

• the controller display is now optional
• the slideshow speed is now optional
• multiple images can be displayed from each article
• improved image resizing now allows you to specify the exact width and height of each image displayed.

Joomla is the world's most popular system for building and managing websites. It is an example of a 'content management system' - often abbreviated to CMS. This article discussess some of the reasons for Joomla's popularity.

Why Use a CMS?

In the early days of the web, most websites consisted of static html pages. The site content of a typical website seldom changed, and when it did, it was neccessary to edit the actual page html code, requiring at least a basic level of expertise. However, for all but the most simple of websites, these days this is not a practical way to manage a website. Individuals and businesses want the freedom to be able to manage their site content without having to learn coding: the solution is a CMS.

For large businesses the preferred choice is always likely to be a custom CMS. However creating a custom CMS can be a complex, time and resource consuming process, requiring extensive programing, and will typically cost many thousands of pounds, making it an unrealistic option for small and even medium-sized businesses. Fortunately there are many 'off-the-shelf' content management systems available, the most popular of which is Joomla.

We have a new release of our Featured Items Pro module, version 3.4.0.

This highly versatile module for the Joomla 1.5 and 1.6 CMS allows you to feature articles picked by id, by section or by category. The module displays a thumbnail plus an extract from the text with a link to the article for each item. The items can be displayed in a variety of layouts, including tab pane, accordion, highlighter, thumbnails, and article rotator, with a choice of transition effects for the highlighter and rotator layouts.

There is a choice of colour schemes. Also the module can use GD graphics for improved thumbnail quality.

The latest release includes several improvements, including support for using multiple instances with different colour schemes, a much improved rotator layout, and a new highlighter layout.