In a blog on the Joomla! Developer Network, Wilco Jansen posted an article describing the changes that have taken place between Joomla! 1.5's beta-1 and beta-2.
The following are some of the changes in user features for Joomla! 1.5 beta-2 that caught my eye:
- Implemented caching
- Refactored session management for JSession, database, files, APC, and eAccelerator.
- Complete refactoring of the installer
- Added new archive libraries to better support zip|gzip|tar file extraction
- Several improvements on default Joomla! templates, including support of newest browsers
- Added open-id support
- Further LDAP improvements
- Further improvements on the media manager like the ability to remove multiple files, or image preview option
- Added windows support on the FTP layer
Of the above features changes, I'm probably most interested in the implementation of caching as well as the the refactored session management. These changes should really help improve Joomla's performance on the server. Plus, as most of you know, I'm a big fan of eAccelerator and any other tools to get the server humming along.
Please be sure to read Mr. Jansen's complete overview of changes for Joomla! 1.5 beta. In the article he also discusses feature changes that would be of interest to designers and developers. In a more recent article, he also discusses accessibility improvements that can be expected in Joomla! 1.5. Exciting stuff for those of us that have accessibility requirements for our applications.