Today I have started to take a look at Joomla! 1.7 and the new K2 V2.5 which is currently at RC (Release Candidate) stage.
The particular version I tested included build files from the 9th of September, but these will be updated as issues arise. 

Firstly, I would like to point out to our K2 template customers, that the templates we currently offer should only be used on K2 V2.4.1 as there are new files added to V2.5 K2 templates with each file have some code changes to allow K2 to work in the new Joomla framework.

Fear not, I do plan to port these over to Joomla! 1.7 and K2 V2.5 at some stage, but I am still waiting maturity of some key extensions which I normally use on my Joomla! sites. In addition, a new demo site will be required to show of Joomla! 1.7 and the new K2 templates.

Apparently, there is not much in the way of new features added to K2 V2.5, but there are some subtle ones.
For example, K2 parameters screen sports a new layout.

Notice the addition of Tabs for key k2 sub parameters and a new Permission tab making using of Joomla ACL.

Generally, there are some additional control functions added too, which will be covered in a seperate guide in due course.

Moving on to files, these have been updated to allow the component to work in 1.7, so although not tested, don't expect K2 2.5 to work on your Joomla 1.5 site or for K2 V2.4 to work on your Joomla 1.7. Use the correct version.

A quick look at item.php in the template folder, you will now see j:text has been updated from:

<?php echo JText::_('Edit item'); ?>

to

<?php echo JText::_('K2_EDIT_ITEM'); ?>


So not to much of an issue to do a quick search and replace.

There are a number of additional files that have been added and a lot that have had some serious updates, based on new file sizes.

A quick look at a comparison of files between V2.4 (left) and V2.5 (right) shows the modified files in red and new files in blue.

Notice the addition of a separate print.css, permissions file and a generic_search.php.
The most substantial changes appear to take place in the views files, more investigation will be done on reported later.

The Images folder shows new files, but only 2 new images added which are a search.png and a searchloader.gif, so some animation has been added during k2 searches, I presume.

Whilst comparing files, lets take a look at the K2 templates folder, the bit that excites me the most.

First off, there are now 10 files in the template folder, as opposed to 7 so even more styling is now needed as we have separate tag and user pages and a new itemform.php.

You will notice that the common user file, is now a template file which is great news. Why?
Consider having a site with each author being able to write to their own category, which is assigned its own template. Per user templating!!

So I am pretty excited about that.

As for the rest of the installer, there are not too many additions, other than required code changes.

The media folder has been extended with a new assets folder which contains some addition css, images and js folders.

Well thats a quick taster, with more in depth information to follow, so subscribe to this category to be kept informed.