Joomlatools Framework (codename 'Koowa') is a open-source extension framework for Joomla. Developed and maintained by Timble with the help of passionate developers from all over the world.

Joomlatools Framework can be installed in Joomla as a plugin and lets you focus on the "business" logic of your extension. By doing most of the repetitive work for you boilerplate code is eliminated which greatly reduces the time to develop Joomla extensions.

The design pattern based architecture makes your extension more flexible: your extension becomes more re-usable, replaceable and more easily extensible. Additionally Joomlatools Framework provides you with excellent out-of-the-box security features.

Joomlatools Framework uses a component based architecture and includes everything needed to create Joomla extensions according to the Hierarchical Model-View-Contoller (HMVC) pattern.

Joomlatools Framework is built to help developers create custom Joomla extensions and tries to solve following problems:

• Abstract differences between Joomla versions 2.x and 3.x.
• Provide a solid modern and lean architecture for building extensions.
• Allow extensions to be more flexible and extended easily.

Joomlatools Framework is for developers creating custom Joomla extensions. The framework can only be installed using Composer and cannot be installed using the Joomla installer. If you are a developer who wishes to distribute the framework as part of an installable package please contact us first.

The framework uses a conservative development approach focused on the lowest common denominator, at time of writing this is Joomla 3.x and PHP 5.4. The framework is fully forwards compatible with PHP 7.

The framework follows the semantic versioning standard. Rest assured : it's designed for stability and compatibility. We promise that all minor versions will be 100% backwards compatible. Only in major versions backwards compatibility is not guaranteed.

• Joomla 3.x
• PHP 5.4 or newer
• MySQL 5.x

Go to the root directory of your Joomla installation in command line and execute this command:

composer require joomlatools/framework:3.*

Joomlatools Framework is an open source, community-driven project. Contributions are welcome from everyone. We have contributing guidelines to help you get started.

See the list of contributors.

Joomlatools Framework is open-source software licensed under the GPLv3 license.

Keep track of development and community news.

• Follow @joomlatoolsdev on Twitter
• Join joomlatools/dev on Gitter
• Read the Joomlatools Developer Blog
• Subscribe to the Joomlatools Developer Newsletter