The Joomla! Extensions Directory ™

Firstly, it's nice to have a CKEditor extension for Joomla from those involved with the project itself. It lends some confidence as to things being done correctly and that the extension will be kept up to date.

Overall the editor is great and functions very intuitively, with there being a set of beginner/easy options as well as advanced/more-challenging configuration possibilities. It makes it so that basic setups and common options are readily apparent and available, but the depth is available and not hidden if you need it.

My sole lament is that the source/code editor (HTML view) doesn't do syntax highlighting, which makes it difficult for me to use this in preference of other editors for myself or my advanced users. For those non-technical who won't be viewing source, however, I may switch them to this editor as the default since it seems to behave more consistently and intuitively than many of those with equally advanced features.

At the time I write this, JCal Pro's version for the Joomla! 1.5 compatible release is 1.5.9 RC. Note the RC, it means "Release Candidate." This means that the extension, while it works in version 1.5 is not a final, stable release but rather still in development. Despite this, however, I'm impressed at how well it works overall and how consistently the developer responds to problems, even if it's only to let you know that he's aware of them.

I mention this both because I've been very satisfied at how usable JCal Pro has continued to be despite its pre-release status, and in light of the possibility that others might notice reviews complaining of bugs in this or prior pre-release versions.

There have been a couple of problems, and they have been frustrating at the time. But hey, that's the risk of beta and other pre-release software and--quite honestly--they are to be expected, which is why the developer warns people to think twice before deploying a pre-release version of the extension to a production site.

The simple truth is, in my opinion this is currently the best calendar available for Joomla and I'm excited about the fact that it's now out of the beta stages and into the release candidate cycle, because the only thing keeping me from using it everywhere I can (everywhere it fits) is its production-ready status.

Kudos to the dev for an awesome product.