Mar - Apr 2025 Product Updates

It's time for another round of updates to our Joomla extensions—and this one comes with big changes, some spam-fighting tools, and a dash of extra security.

This release marks the beginning of our transition from Joomla 3, introduces smarter anti-spam protections in Convert Forms, and delivers a new way to help search engines understand your site through the Google Structured Data extension.

In case you missed the earlier edition, check out 2025 B1 Product Updates to see what we've shipped this year.

Dropping Support for Joomla 3

As of this release cycle, we've officially raised the minimum required Joomla version to Joomla 4.0 across all our extensions. New updates will no longer be compatible with Joomla 3.

But don't worry—we will not abandon you if you still use Joomla 3.

• Support is still available through our ticket system, as long as you have an active subscription.
• Security bug fixes will continue to be released for Joomla 3-compatible versions.
• You can still access previous versions of our extensions compatible with Joomla 3 from the Releases page.

No new features will be added to those older versions, but we'll help you keep things secure and stable until you upgrade.

Convert Forms

Time to Submit: Smarter Spam Protection

Real people don't submit forms in under a second. They take time to read the questions, type their answers, double-check things (or hunt for their phone number). But bots? They skip all that. They fill out and submit forms instantly—no reading, no thinking, just spam.

That's where Time to Submit comes in.

When enabled, the form tracks how long a visitor has been on the page. If they try to submit it too quickly—faster than the minimum time you've set—it gets flagged and blocked as spam.

It's a simple but effective way to catch bots that:

• Inject data straight into form fields without visiting the page normally
• Submit the form immediately after the page loads
• Don't behave like humans (because, well, they're not)

Since real users naturally take some time, this filter helps prevent automated submissions without adding any friction for your actual visitors.

Honeypot v2: Even Trickier for Bots

Spam bots are greedy. They tend to fill in every field they see—whether it's meant for them or not. That's exactly what a honeypot is designed to catch.

A honeypot is a hidden field added to your form. It's invisible to real users, so it should always stay empty. But bots don't know that—they fill it out anyway. If the honeypot field contains a value on submission, it's a strong sign that a bot is behind it.

That's how the traditional honeypot works. Now, with Honeypot v2, we're making it even trickier for bots to escape detection.

Here's what's new in v2:

• Unique field names per session: Every visitor gets a honeypot field with a different name, making it harder for bots to identify and avoid.
• JavaScript-based injection: The honeypot is now injected into the form using JavaScript after the page loads. Bots that don't process JavaScript won't even know it exists.
• Caching-friendly: Since the field is added dynamically, it won't be in cached versions. That means it works well with Joomla's Page Cache and Conservative Cache.

It's a stealthier, more reliable version of the classic trick—and another layer of defense against spam bots that think they're clever.

Regex Filtering for Conditional Fields: Smarter Option Control

Let's say you're building a form where users first select a country, and then get to choose from a list of cities in that country.

You've got one dropdown with 300 city names. Instead of manually creating separate lists for each country or using complex logic, wouldn't it be great if you could just filter the list based on a pattern?

You can now use regex (short for regular expressions) to filter which dropdown, radio, or checkbox options appear based on user input.

With this feature, you can use regular expressions (regex) to show only the cities that match what the user selected before. For example:

• If someone selects “Germany,” you could show only options that start with DE-.
• If someone selects “United States,” show options that contain USA: in their value or label.
• Or filter out any options that contain a certain keyword or pattern.

This is incredibly useful when:

• Your list of options is long or shared across multiple conditions
• You want to keep your forms dynamic without duplicating field values
• You're dealing with structured data (like codes or labels with prefixes)

In short, it saves you time, makes your forms easier to manage, and gives you more control over how users interact.

Blocking Administrator Group Assignments

In case you don't know, Convert Forms has an add-on that lets you create custom registration forms for Joomla. With this add-on, there's an option where you can choose which user groups the newly created user will be assigned to, making it easy to tailor user access rights from the form.

Now, we've made an important security improvement.

You can no longer assign users to the Administrator or Super Users groups through the form. This is a safety measure to help prevent accidental privilege escalation or potential misuse.

If you're currently using the User Account addon, take a moment to review your settings. If you need to assign someone to a higher-privileged group, you'll have to do that with custom PHP code (and yes, we can help with that if needed).

Better safe than sorry, especially when it comes to user roles.

Google Structured Data

Site Representation: Helping Google Understand Your Identity

We're taking a step forward in helping Google understand who's behind your website—whether it's a person or an organization. This information helps feed Google's Knowledge Graph and can lead to the long-awaited Knowledge Panel appearing next to your site in search results.

To achieve this, your homepage or about page must be marked with the Organization or Person schema, including key details like the name, website URL, address, description, and contact information.

While our extension has supported both schema types for a long time, adding them used to require multiple manual steps. You had to go to the Items section, create a new structured data item, select the correct schema type, map each property, and apply display conditions to target specific pages like the homepage.

The new Site Representation tab replaces the old Global Structured Data tab and simplifies this process. It brings all identity-related settings into one place. Once completed, it automatically generates the appropriate structured data—Organization or Person—for your site's homepage.

This change is part of a broader goal: making structured data creation more automatic and reducing the need to create items in the Items section manually.

Removed the Unsupported Sitelinks Search Box Schema

On October 21, 2024, Google announced the official deprecation of the Sitelinks Search Box feature. Originally launched more than a decade ago, this feature allowed users to perform searches directly within a website from the main Google search results page. However, as Google stated, “usage has dropped,” the feature was officially retired worldwide on November 21, 2024.

As a result of this global change, we have removed the Sitelinks Search Box option, which was previously available under the Global Structured Data tab. Since Google no longer supports this feature, even for Joomla sites, it was also time to remove it from the extension.

New: Structured Data Setup & Clean-Up Service

We've introduced a new Structured Data Setup & Clean-Up Service to help you get the most out of the Google Structured Data extension—without the guesswork.

We've been getting many questions about setting up structured data, so we figured, why not make it easier for you? Let us handle all the messy details. We'll review your site, configure the right Schema types based on your content, fix any errors, and run everything through Google's tools to ensure it's all good to go.

Just place your order, and we'll take care of the rest—no more scrambling through Google's documentation or wondering if you did it right!

Supporting the Joomla Community Around the World

This year, we're proud to support several JoomlaDay conferences as sponsors. It's our way of giving back to the community that helped shape our journey. These events bring users, developers, and enthusiasts together, and we're excited to be part of them.

Here's where you'll find us in 2025:

• JoomlaDay USA Washington (April 23–26) – Gold Sponsor
• JoomlaDay Netherlands Utrecht (October 3–4) – Silver Sponsor
• JoomlaDay Spain Malaga (November 7) – Silver Sponsor
• JoomlaDay DACH Freiburg (November 14-15) – Bronze Sponsor

Milestones, Moves & More

• Convert Forms: 900 Reviews on JED: We've surpassed 900 reviews on the Joomla Extensions Directory—all 5 stars. Thanks for your continued support! Write a Review
• Upgraded to Joomla 5: Our site is now running on Joomla 5. Faster, cleaner, future-proof.
• Dropped K2 in Favor of Joomla Articles: We've fully moved to native Joomla articles for better compatibility and simplicity.
• Join Our Facebook Group: Connect with other users, ask questions, or share your experience in our community. Join our Facebook Group
• Using Multiple Extensions? The Bundle Plan is worth a look—it might simplify your setup and save you money.
• Using WordPress, too? if you have popup needs on WordPress, FireBox (our popup plugin) has you covered. It's the WordPress counterpart of EngageBox and has been around for a while.

Your Feedback Makes a Difference!

If you've enjoyed using our products and services, we'd love to hear from you! A quick review on Trustpilot helps us improve and motivates us to deliver better tools and support.

It only takes a minute, and your feedback means the world to us. Plus, it helps other users know they're in good hands!

Head over to Trustpilot and let us know what you think. Your kind words can make a difference and inspire us to keep doing what we love!

Thank you for being part of the journey! 🙏✨