K2 | The powerful content extension for Joomla! developed by JoomlaWorks

K2 version 2.6.9 is now available to download. This is a quick maintenance release which addresses the item time problem introduced from changes in the Joomla API in the latest Joomla 3.3.x releases. The creation/modified time in K2 items would simply switch to null when editing existing K2 items. Again, this problem was caused only in the latest Joomla 3.3.x releases.
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Here's a short demo video, showcasing the responsiveness of the new UI. Yeap, it feels like a desktop grade app. K2 Next is running on a remote (busy) dev server.

In this first video, I'm browsing and filtering a list of 100 K2 items, by using the top filters as well as the pagination buttons. Then I switch to "infinite scrolling" mode (no pagination, just a stream of all items).

Of course there are various things to "iron out" - design wise - and small bugs, but the functionality is ready!

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First and foremost: make sure your Joomla! extension or template is built to integrate with K2. If it doesn't, we won't publish it and this is not the place to submit it. There is the Joomla! Extensions Directory for that.

If it does integrate with K2, please make sure your extension and/or template meets the following guidelines before you submit it to the K2 Extensions Directory:

1) Use only the name of the extension or template, e.g. you would use "Nuevvo Toreda" but you would NOT use "Nuevvo Toreda - Responsive eCommerce Joomla Template". Instead add tags for any attributes that differentiate your product. For this example, we would add: "responsive", "ecommerce" and "template". This makes filtering e.g. only for "responsive" templates an easy process for the site's visitors.

2) Make sure your presentation HTML is clean. Do not use inline links (they will be stripped off either way), tables or other weird HTML elements (span, font etc.). Only basic HTML formatting is allowed: strong, em, ul, li, img, h3, h4, p, div, br. DO NOT colorize phrases to make them stand out.

3) Use proper English in your presentation text. If English is not your native language, ask the help of a friend. Don't use Google Translate or other non-human translation services. Spell-check what you write. Make sure it makes sense. Use the universal typing and punctuation rules (e.g. one space after a full stop or comma, no double or triple spaces between words etc. etc.). Got lists to display? Don't use a hyphen. Make sure you use HTML to display them. Use the WYSIWYG editor for that. Entries that do not meet these standards will be rejected. If you're bored to check what you write, we are 10 times bored to do it for you.

4) If you need to add links, fill in the related Extra Fields section. Make sure you fill in as much as possible beyond the required.

5) Use at least 1 image (in the Image tab) to make sure your product is properly visible on both category listings and the presentation page. Got a video? Use the Video tab as well. Got an image gallery? There's the Image Gallery tab.

6) If you are offering a free product, you can choose to upload it inside the presentation page or use an external link. That's up to you to decide. But make sure you provide an easy way for people to download your product.

If you meet the above guidelines, your extension or template will be published within one week's time after it's been carefully moderated. If you fail to meet the above guidelines, incomplete entries will be permanently deleted after 2 weeks. More

K2 version 2.6.8 is now available to download for everyone. This is a maintenance update and it includes performance optimizations & bug fixes. The highlight of this release is the switch to the InnoDB storage engine for new installations of K2. In non-geek terms this means a lot better database read/write performance on websites with high traffic and/or large number of K2 items, comments etc.

We also have a new downloads page :)
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Nuevvo has just released Takai, the official K2 demo site, as a free Joomla!/K2 template, available for everyone to download and use.

This new iteration of the demo site has been fully modernized to be responsive, uses multi-color variations (with the option to create yours as well), is built using flexible grids, features cool off-canvas navigation (when on mobile) and uses Nuevvo's awesome no-framework template parameters & standard features.

Takai is the best starting point for everyone just joining the K2 Community.

Learn more about Takai and download the template package and the quickstart packages for both Joomla! 2.5 & 3.x at the Nuevvo website at: http://nuevvo.com/joomla-templates/free/takai More

We have just finished the migration of the K2 code repository from Google Code to Github.

The new code repo is now located at: https://github.com/joomlaworks/k2

So why this move to Github you ask? Well, Github will now make it a lot easier for casual developers (and experts of course) to submit code to the K2 code base. Previously this was a very tedious process with Google Code, such that most third-party additions or improvements were essentially completed manually via the bug tracker.

This also means that bug solving will now be a lot faster and more transparent.

Finally, since we're moving to a new code repo, you'll notice that https://getk2.org/bugtracker now properly redirects over to the Github "issues" section of the K2 project.

We also plan to utilize Github's "wiki" features to gradually have a proper and up-to-date documentation on the latest K2 code base.

Happy coding! More

Today we're releasing K2 version 2.6.7, a maintenance update which adds minor improvements to anti-spam security and frontend ACL, while resolving the first ever VEL report for K2.
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If you haven't yet understood why, let me clarify...

The K2 Community is a very popular site. It's got an Alexa rank of about 10.000 and a 7/10 Google Pagerank. It does a little over 1 million page views per month on average. Spammers love such facts. Not spam bots, actual human spammers.

The past 2 weeks we are being heavily spammed by real human beings with regular Joomla!, Twitter or Facebook accounts (you need a mobile number to get a FB account and bots don't have mobiles). Not mention this has happened again (back when we hosted the community site on the Ning platform which is supposed to have a much better platform to fight spam)... Guess when? When effing Iron Man 2 was released. Spammers love blockbusters.

So what now?
We're temporarily disabling new user signups for a few days in order to harden security measures on the site. That includes social logins as well. Fighting real human spam is a very tough situation to deal with. That means we need to add more services like Akismet and extend the integration with StopForumSpam.com to better fight these spammers that have been identified in these huge spammer databases. We also need to improve Kunena's code to allow for quick spam user banning. And since the version of Kunena we're using won't be updated anymore, we're going to get our hands dirty :)

So please bear with us for a few days until we sort the matter. It's a tough call, but I guess it's the price to pay for a popular project.

P.S. If you need to ask a support question and you are not already a K2 Community member, please use Twitter if possible to direct your questions to @k2devs - we'll do our best to answer you there.

Update on May 15th, 2013: We have re-enabled signups to the community. More

Today we're releasing K2 version 2.6.6, a bug fix update which address redirect issues with the newly introduced Advanced SEF options, plus some minor performance improvements.
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We were pleasantly surprised today when we read HostGator's blog post on the top 10 Joomla! extensions, ranking K2 as #1 in their list!

HostGator is one of the largest shared hosting companies in the world (part of the Endurance Int'l Group of companies which also owns Bluehost) so it's really an honor for the K2 project to be ranked #1 Joomla! extension according to them. I don't know if this list is just a "snapshot" of what's hot in the Joomla! community or a list based on stats HostGator gathers from hosting probably thousands of Joomla! sites. In any case it's flattering :)

Check out the full list on HostGator's blog: http://blog.hostgator.com/2013/03/28/top-10-joomla-extensions/

We were actually double-flattered as JoomlaWorks since we were the only company with 2 extensions on this top 10 list. Frontpage Slideshow ranked #6 essentially declared the best slideshow system for Joomla!. More