The first thing that you notice after installing the component is the very cool Googlesque predictive search terms that Finder provides. The only thing missing is the ability to be able to tap down on the keyboard and press return to search. Right now you need to click on your desired search query from the list and then press return.

There is further polish when you see your list of search results. Every instance of your search term is highlighted:

And then  when you click on on of your results, Finder continues to highlight the query!

The best thing about Finder is that it’s an index based search component. This means that it searches a single table of entries rather than the whole site. This means:

1. Speed: this search is so speedy.
2. Control: you can publish and unpublish your items in the search table to be displayed in results. Ie: you can turn off the custom 404 page, remove dead links, choose which types of components articles should be displayed (such as contacts, or weblinks).

The only drawback from this type of search is that any type of content to be searched needs a plugin to talk to Finder. JXtended builds in plugins for all core Joomla! components, and many third party components. Check out their website for more info.

But if you have been reading the CB forum thread on the announcement, you might have even seen this post from Beat (CB Developer):

Regarding roadmap: following releases are currently planed for 2008, with work already advanced quite well for all of them:

CB 1.2
CB 1.3
CB 2.0

Exciting stuff to be sure. Here’s hoping that the CB team can make their tight schedule. I’m also hoping that a 2.0 CB would entail a major design overhaul. It would be great to see the CB Profile page become properly modular, with plugins having much more freedom.

From what I have read, to achieve real flexibility in an elegant design, users need to purchase additional software. I am a supporter of professional developers, and I can understand why some developers make commercial products for open source projects. However, to sell a product which customizes an open source extension for an open source CMS, seems to going against the ecosystem slightly.

If you have not tried EventList before, it is well worth a look. I use it in my own Joomla! website crawl.net.au, and also contribute the EventList project run by Christoph. The new EventList forums are powered by the new phpBB, as is the new Joomla! Forums.

Link: EventList on extensions.joomla.org.

The jump from 1.0.x to 1.5 was what the developers called a major re-write, in that significant parts of the Joomla! code was re-written, forcing 3PDs (Third Party Developers) to update and modernise their extensions to run in the latest version. I absolutely love 1.5. I just love using it. But what I don’t love is waiting for 3PD’s to update their extensions to function in the new version of Joomla.

I am not being critical of 3PDs, everyone knows how much hard work (most of it volunteered) it is to develop and maintain software for open source projects like Joomla. I simply would like to see a very long period of watching (and helping when I can) developers migrate to 1.5, and then refine and polish their 1.5 software.

Via Amy Stephen at OpenSourceCommunity.org

Update: You can check out a fascinating discussion on the J1.6 white papers at the Google Discussions page for Joomla here. 

Here are the links to all of the reviews on his blog:

• Artio SEF
• Open SEF
• SEF Advance
• JPromoter
• RemoSEF
• SerrBizSEF

Those are all full reviews, but recently Steve posted a sneak peak into the next version of the SEF extension sh404SEF, which Steve says is rapidly becoming the “the 800 pound gorilla of SEF tools.” And it’s easy to see why, it’s a very cool extension, but perhaps it’s greatest strength is the support from the developers.

While some SEF components have suffered from inactive development (such as NuSEF which began as a resurrected OpenSEF.) sh404SEF is in very active development, and the forums for the component are a great resource, and participated in by the developers.

But all of the components that Steve has reviewed have something good to offer. Be sure to check out his blog when choosing your next SEF solution.

• In the image select screen it is now possible to delete images
• A new screen got introduced: “Housekeeping”. Currently you can now delete unused venue and event images with one click.
• Some performance improvements.

This is a developers release, and is not ready for prime time, as EventList 0.9 has been rewritten for Joomla 1.5.

But if you use EventList 0.8 on your website right now, you should download this developers release and test it with your Joomla 1.5 RC3 installations, or SVN.

You can report bugs you may find in the Schlu.net forums. You might also see me in there (user-name: nhudell), as I am a Mod in the forums, and occasionally do English language editing for EventList.