Last week I started working on the new features that will be introduced on the new JWallpapers release. This new release is mainly intended to fill some gasps that the application have been carrying since v1.0, some of which are: Independent menu items (already implemented) and ACLs (Access Control Lists).

Independent menu items (with consistent breadcrumbs) is one of the most significant contributions for this major release. In the current version, menu items are all tied to the JWallpapers main gallery menu item. JWallpapers menu items get redirected to their corresponding view on the main gallery menu item. The idea behind this scheme was to keep things simple while providing an unique but consistent gallery, i.e. all views pointing to the same menu item resulting on an unique but consistent breacrumb.

The new scheme will allow the administrator to create independent menu items for each available JWallpapers view while providing consistent navigation within those items. Each menu item will have a layout configuration of its own which is independent of the component's main configuration.

I was hoping to wait for J1.6 in order to implement ACLs, since J1.5 only offers very limited ACL functionality. However I'm afraid that we won't be seeing this new Joomla! release before the end of this year, so I think it's time to work with what we already have. The way ACLs will work on JWallpapers is not yet defined, but it will probably behave as any other Joomla extension that makes use of the native ACL engine.

Some other major improvements that will be included in this release are:

• The possibility to upload more than one picture in the frontend submit area (up to five).
• Tag clouds.
• Editor's picks.

Other adjustments will be made in order to improve the integration with the contest module. It will be possible to disable votes in a per category basis. This will allow the module to activate / disable votes on competing categories once the contest starts / ends.

Finally, a considerable amount of minor fixes (mostly on the backend) will be included as well.

This new major release will take JWallpapers to the next level regarding personalization and functionality. This release should be available for the last week of April if everything goes as planned.