New in Zikula v1.0
While Zikula v1.0 has many new features for developers, you should also note that the end user was also taken very deeply into consideration throughout its development. New technologies integrated into the system with useful and accessible libraries give you easier control, manipulation, and performance.
AJAX
AJAX libraries are now part of the core, giving modules easy access to these technologies. Technology integrations such as this give your site the feel of an modern drag and drop interactive application rather than an old static, point, click, and refresh one. AJAX is no longer a buzz word used to create useless demos, it is being used by Zikula to create useful, intuitive, and simple to manipulate applications.
Theme System
From Xanthin 2.0, the Xanthia 3 is now renamed "Themes". Themes are reworked into a new easier-to-use interface. You are given control of your themes in a more open-ended logic. You can easily use your knowledge of HTML and CSS languages to reflect into your Zikula design. The separation of presentation and design over function is widened, giving you the ultimate control of your site's look and feel.
Templating
Core modules are fully-templated. You no longer have to rely on the original layout logic of the module designer. It can be at your whim to rework and template for a given module to suit your needs.
WorkFlow
Workflow is another buzz word. But what is Workflow? Workflow allows you to create a procedure for getting tasks completed. Material can be passed through a hierarchy to complete work in an efficient and effective manner. For example an article would move from draft, to edit, to review, to publish. With the workflow enabled quality of work can be increased and easily managed.
PageLock
Pagelock is simply the checking out of a resource. Any given resource can only be manipulated by one user at a time, to ensure concurrent changes are not being made at any given time. For example if you are editing an article, only you can edit it while you have it checked out.
Development Made Easy
Zikula boasts continued expansion of the core functions to improve development time. Use of core functions allows you to spend more energies on actual module development rather than implementing core components into a module. The use of pnForm for information gathering and user error input generating will allow you as a developer to focus on your modules features and functionality, rather than countering and predetermining user input mistakes. DBUtil allows you as a developer to reduce the code needed to access and filter through the database, by providing the technology for you. PNObject introduces a component model, separating module use cases from object-specific behavior, allowing the reusing generic functionality for several object types, at the same time improving upon maintainability. But that is just the beginning, there are CatergoryUtil, standardization of module frameworks, standardiztion of API calls, AJAX, enhanced search functionality, and so on.
With development technologies in play, you can develop or expect development of new and exciting modules!