The 1.5.0 'Stable' versions of the JCE Admin Component, 1.5.1 of the Editor Plugin and 1.5.0 'Stable' versions of the Image Manager Extended, Media Manager, File Manager and Template Manager have been released.
This release attempts to fix a number of important bugs, and generally bring some stability and 'production readiness' to the code. On top of the numerous bug fixes, there are a number of important and cool new features:
Administration Component
- Groups can now be copied
- The plugin parameters and editor configuration provide a default set of parameters for each new group.
- The editor's position can now be set (left, right, center), and can also be placed 'outside' the content area.
- Uninstalling the Admin Component attempts to uninstall the editor and all plugins.
- Plugin extension parameters are listed within the Group
- New plugins are automatically added to the 'Default' group.
- File types are now grouped by type, eg images=jpg,gif,png which is used in the Flash Uploader to filter the file type when selecting a file to upload. See this blog article
- Various additions to the plugin extension system
- Some major plugins now have tooltip help for most fields.
- The browser layout has been re-coded. Looks and works better.
- New Link Brower replaces previous 'link selection system'. Uses a dynamic tree to locate and display links, Click for an example
- Events tab has been removed to simplify dialog.
- Dialog has been redesigned for user friendliness.
- New E-mail icon launches prompt dialog for entering address details.
- New FLV player includes fullscreen option and new time display.
- Popup option for creating poup links for JCE Utilities 2.x (requires content selection - text, image etc.)
- Better support for replacement FLV player, eg: JW Media Player
A new AdvLink extension, DocmanLinks, provides Docman category and document links for the AdvLink link browser (Docman required, obviously)
IMPORTANT! Clear your brower cache after installing and before use!
The next generation of the JCE Utilities mambot/plugin has been released for Joomla! 1.0.15 and Joomla! 1.5.4.
Changes and additions include:
- Create a popup of any media type, from images to flash files, quictime movies and Youtube movies.
- Content loading now also uses ajax to load local files.
- Optional PNGFix now works on background image styles too.
- Optional WMode fix fixes layering issues with flash files by setting a 'wmode' parameter of 'opaque' where necessary.
- Popups are customizable using 'templates'. Three different types have been included with this release, Standard, Standard-Top (same as standard but with captions and navigation on top) and Squeezebox, which pays homage to the original Squeezbox, which is used in Joomla! 1.5.. More details on creating a template will be available soon.
The first, and hopefully only, release candidate of the JCE Editor Plugin has been released, as well as an update to the Admin Component, updates to the Image Manager Extended, now also at RC1, and the File Manager and Media Manager plugins.
Thanks to everyone who reported bugs and made suggestions. I would hope that the Release Candidate status is short lived.
JCE Editor 1.5.0 beta 4 has been released along with an update to the Admin Component, File Manager and Media Manager plugins. The Image Manager Extended also joins the bunch with its first beta in 1.5.0!
This is sort of a milestone release as it includes the new JCE Groups Permissions System, which adds a powerful and versatile method to control acces to the JCE Editor's features. There is a full tutorial on JCE Groups , I suggest you go through it after installing the new versions. Like sharks with lasers, the new JCE Groups system is awesome, but the concept can be a little confusing at first, especially to users used to the old system.
Another new and exciting feature is the Advanced Code Editor plugin, included in the core, which adds syntax highlighted code editing to the HTML view (the popup, not the toggle view). Its got a similar icon to the HTML view, but is red instead 
One other change to take note of is that the AdvLink icon has changed. This is to differentiate it from the Link icon. The new icon is 
None of the versions released to day are compatible with anything released before. The required versions are:
Please report bugs where you find them and post suggestions etc in the forum. Please remeber that this is still beta code, so use with caution (ie: test it before using it live!)
There has been a lot of interest, requests and concern regarding the current status of JCE 1.5, and in particluar the Image Manager Extended plugin. I haven't been too good about communicating the status and progress of the project recently, and for this I apologise. Rest assured, JCE 1.5.0 is alive and very well, and a release is imminent. It will also feature one of the most important feature updates to JCE yet, (inspired by conversations at the Dutch Joomla!day) JCE Groups!
Image Manager Extended
Creating this plugin for JCE 1.5.0 has been quite a lot more work than anticipated, and has required some extensive modifications to the JCE 'API', mainly the inclusion of an event systems to trigger actions after events, eg: onUpload, onFileDelete etc. to handle Image Manager Ext thumbnail and resize operations without having to duplicate existing functions used by all the Manager plugins. For example, after a successful file upload, the onUpload event is triggered which in the Image Manager Ext's case calling an onUpload function to do the resizing, rotating (yes, rotating of images has been added!) and thumbnailing to the uploaded file. A similar thing happens onFileDelete to delete the associated thumbnail and possibly thumbnail folder.
Image rotating has also been added, and is available in the Upload dialog, (see screenshot popup) as well as in the Transform dialog (which includes resizing).
There have been one or two minor improvements too, such as the ability to have rollover images and tooltips at the same time, as well as some general fixes and improvements to the Manager plugins code in general.
The Image Manager Extended will be released as beta 1
 |
 |
 |
JCE 1.5.0 beta 4 and JCE Groups
Included in the next JCE 1.5.0 beta 4 and JCE Admin Component RC 3 will be the new Groups system. This is a major change to the way permissions are handled in JCE and presents what is essentially the ability to create individual user and/or user type profiles, each have a unique layout and button configuration, as well as specific editor and plugin parameters. Groups can contain a mix of user types and individual users.
For example, you can create a group for Authors which only has access to Bold, Italic, Underline and the Image Manager. You then set the Image Manager to be restricted to a folder with the groups name, as well as disabling file and folder deleting, set via the plugin's group parameters. For this group you also disable the ability to insert javascript and php code (via the group's editor parameters), and just for good measure, add the user Joe Schmo to this group, because despit the fact he is an Editor, he just no ready for all the features you have assigned to your Editor group.
A default group exists for all default editing user types (which can be edited). Super Administrators have access to everything (always, regardless of what group they are assigned to), and Guests and Registered users are not in any group by default and are therefore presented with a blank editor (you can change this by assigning them to a group or creating a new one).
Here are a couple of screenshots of the JCE Groups Admin.
 |
 |
 |
Expect a release this coming week. Guaranteed.