ZOO 2.0 app bundle – Get a sneak peek in our video tour
A couple of weeks ago we released the ZOO 2.0 BETA. Today we have great news for all of you: ZOO 2.0 has hit "Release Candidate" status. So you guys won't have to wait that much longer for the free public release! At the same time we are happy to announce the app bundle for all ZOO members. Apps are small ZOO extensions which are developed for a specific purpose like a blog, a product catalog or a download archive. Each app has its own template, own types, own configuration and much more. All of them can be used out of the box and can be customized very easily.
ZOO 2.0 will come with two, free preinstalled apps. The pages and the blog app. Both are ready to use after the installation of the ZOO 2.0. All types, elements and layouts of the apps are predefined, you can start using them right away. No configuring needed. Of course, you can customize them, if you want to. Additionally, we will offer an exclusive app bundle which can be purchased and is not included with free ZOO 2.0 download. All current ZOO Pro customers will get this app bundle for free. The app bundle includes the following apps: Product Catalog, Download Archive, Business Directory, Movie Database, Cookbook and Documentation.
Now! Check out our exclusive preview of our video tour through the ZOO 2.0. In the video you will get a sneak peek at all the new apps! The new ZOO website, the documentation and the free download will be available with the stable release. Read on to get a quick overview of all the apps and their features.
Blog
The blog app has all the typical features that are state-of-the-art for a great blog. It is ready to use, so you can create your blog in a few minutes. Authors can publish articles with images, videos, social bookmarks and much more. You can easily extend your article type to fit your needs. Articles can be tagged and users can leave comments. To make it perfect a tag cloud and a latest comments module are included in ZOO 2.0. The blog app will be freely available for the public with the ZOO 2.0 release.
Product Catalog
With this app you can build a clearly arranged catalog with many built-in features. It provides RSS feeds, an alpha index navigation and a multi-column layout with up to 5 columns for your listed categories and products. Create nested categories and assign products to multiple categories. Based on a predefined product types you can create products with image galleries, videos and many more within seconds. Visitors can rate them or leave a customer feedback.
Download Archive
If you want to build a download archive which is simple to administrate, this app is the right choice. You can add file downloads easily with information about the version, the author and the license. The app automatically assigns download icons for all common file extensions. It is possible to count the downloads, limit the total amount of downloads and protect the files from direct linking. Visitors can rate your offered downloads and leave a comment.
Business Directory
This app lets you create a comprehensive business directory. An alpha index makes it very easy to find the right entries. For each company in the directory you can provide information, like a company logo, address and contact information. Further you can add employees, who have their own detail page but also show up on the related companies page. Last but not least addresses of the contacts are displayed on Google Maps and a "Get direction" tool help your visitors to find their route to the company. Route planning has never been easier!
Movie Database
With the movie database you can manage and present all your favorite movies. The categories can be used to arrange the movies in genres. That gives your visitors a great overview of the existing database. You can write a comprehensive summary about the story, the cast and characters and provide information like runtime, release date and much more. Further you can add actors and directors, which have their own detail page with a list of their related work. Actors and Directors are also linked from the related movies. Visitors can rate and comment on the movies.
Cookbook
Create an amazing cookbook with this exclusive app. You can sort all recipes in multiple categories like origin, diet or occasion. Provide detailed directions, a full list of ingredients and information like cooking time, people to serve and complexity factor. Create tags for the recipes and let your visitors rate their favorite meals. You can cross-link different recipes to show suitable meals or similar recipes. Comments allow your visitors to discuss the recipes and share new ideas.
Documentation
You need a FAQ page, some tutorials or a comprehensive documentation for your software? This is the right app!It even allows you to provide multiple documentations for different products. You can easily write tutorials which match in style and typography and add related articles, videos and social bookmarks. The icing on the cake is a build-in code syntax highlighter. The code will be automatically highlighted, for example to show CSS, PHP or JS code in your documentation.
Pages
The pages app is a little bonus app to manage static content pages. For example if you want to create a contact or service page you don't necessarily need a catalog with categories. But of course you can extend these static pages with images, comments and more. With the pages app you can build up your whole Joomla website using ZOO. It will be freely available for the public with the ZOO 2.0 release.
