The new version also heralds the beginning of a new development lifecycle for the open-source software, one that allows for quick updates as well as long-term support for enterprises.

"The two major goals for 1.7 were to release it on time and [complete] the platform project," said Mark Dexter, a Joomla development coordinator.

Henceforth, new editions of Joomla will be released every six months, in January and July. Every third release will be designated a long-term release (LTS), which will be supported for 18 months with security updates and bug fixes. The next edition, Joomla 1.8, due in January, will be an LTS release. This current version, Joomla 1.7, will be supported for seven months.

The new schedule should enforce some discipline on the development cycle, Dexter said. Previously, major new versions of the software were only issued when all the features planned to be included were fully developed. As a result, it took three years to release Joomla 1.6, which debuted last December.