Here’s what excites me about Joomla 1.6:

1) Nested categories and bye-bye to sections – When I first learned Joomla, I remember having trouble remembering the hierarchy if sections were made up of categories, or categories were made up of sections. Now we just have categories, which can be nested to multiple depths (like a tree structure).

2) ACLs – Access Control Lists -More granular access controls for who can view and edit various types of content; more configurable; now has user groups; unlimited access levels; permissions can be inherited.

3) New Update Manager – allows developers to build in automatic update functions allowing their users to update to new versions with just a few clicks; this will thus allow site-owners to stay more up-to-date when their extensions are updated. Plugins now have the same common structure as components and modules.

4) Joomla Admins – now remembers where you were and saves your place for you.

5) “Save and New” and “Save and copy” – new buttons, save a few clicks

The video below is 1 hr 21 minutes, but will acquaint you in much more detail with the new features: