Joomla 2.5.5 and Joomla 2.5.6: New Features and Bug Fixes

The Joomla! Project recently released a new version of their popular open source CMS, version 2.5.5. Shortly after this release was made available some significant bugs were noted and the Joomla team quickly responded with Joomla 2.5.6 to fix the known issues. Site administrators are now encouraged to update their Joomla site with Joomla 2.5.6 and not Joomla 2.5.5.

Some of the new features introduced in Joomla 2.5.5 and now available in Joomla 2.5.6 include:

• The Add ability to copy a template - This new feature lets one create an exact copy of an existing template with a new name.
• Implementation of Terms of Service - One may choose a specific TOS article and associate it to a user registration when editing the user profile plugin parameters.
• Add counter to redirect component - Lets administrators know if an old url is still used by adding a column, 404 Hits, displaying the number of hits in the Redirect Component Manager.
• Media formfield: show preview
• Add buttons in each menu selection tab in the module admin manager - Until now, the "Select All", "Clear Selection", "Toggle Selection" buttons in the Menu Assignment of a module edit page were applying to all menus. This new feature lets apply them also to each separate menu, once the setting "Only on the pages selected" is set.
• Multi-File Upload -  HTML-based interface supports multi-file uploads (Flash interface is no required for this functionality). See Jen Kramer's comments below for additional information.

For those that remain curious as to the bugs found in Joomla 2.5.5, a discussion regarding these issues can be found on this tread in the Joomla Forums. Amy Stephen was also kind enough to leave some comments here at CMS Report. Finally, the Joomla 2.5.6 release announcement also contains a list of 12 issues that were fixed in this release since the release of Joomla 2.5.5.

The latest version of Joomla 2.5 can be found at Joomla.org via the Download Page.

Update 9:28 PM CDT: There is a possibility Joomla 2.5.5 contains a bug causing a fatal error when running the auto-updater. A detail discussion can be found on this tread in the Joomla Forums.

Updated  6/19/2012 A: Added a qualifier on Multi-File Uploads based on Jen Kramer's comments.

Updated 6/19/2012 B : With the release of Joomla 2.5.6, updated this post with the new information message and with a new title.

[Source: WHAT'S NEW IN 2.5.5, @HilsCheyne]