The Joomla! community have released Joomla! 1.5.5 [Mamni]. This is a quick turnaround release to address the Duplicate Title error from 1.5.4. This release also contains important SEF URL improvements and fixes for com_content in addition to a number of bug fixes and improvements. It has been nearly three weeks since Joomla! 1.5.4 was released on July 8, 2008. The Development Working Group 's goal is to continue to provide regular, frequent updates to the Joomla! community.

Release Notes

* Fix Duplicate Titles Bug
* SEF URL improvements and fixes for com_content
* Fixed error restricting Search to Article content, only
* Archived Articles now link correctly with SEF URLs
* Category Blog pagination and Link List corrected
* Category List Menu Item and Frontend now allow List length selection
* Fixed Contact Item Bad Word parameter that prevented email
* Private Messaging Search now returns results
* SWF Banner correction allowing definition of dimensions
* Improved 403 reporting for Submit Article and Web link permission issues
* "Register to Read More" fixes for Newsflash
* Page Break and Read More fixes
* JA Purity Hornav position, login token code, and language string fixes
* BEEZ fieldset alignments for Search and Read More link corrections
* Installer fixes for updates to Components and Modules
* mosmsg now used by 1.0.x extensions

Statistics

Statistics for the 1.5.5 release period:

* Joomla! 1.5.5 contains:
o 36 Issues Fixed in SVN
o 11 Commits
* Tracker activity resulted in a net decrease of 43 Active Issues:
o 86 New Reports
o 93 Closed
o 36 Fixed in SVN
* At the time 1.5.5 Release was packaged, the Tracker had 113 Active Issues:
o 55 Open
o 40 Confirmed
o 18 Pending

Additional Documentation

Following is additional information for important fixes and enhancements available in Joomla! 1.5.5.
Fix Duplicate Titles Bug

One of the goals for Joomla! 1.5.4 was to build consistency for Joomla! Component Page Titles for each of core template. Overall, the project was very successful except for the appearance of "double titles" on the Article Layout due to both the Page Title and the Article Title printing on the Web page. The reason for this quick release of Joomla! 1.5.5 is to resolve this problem.
Page Titles will appear on Articles only if each of the following three conditions are true:

    * The Article is presented using the "Article Layout" Menu Type.
    * The "Page Title" parameter has a value.
    * The "Show Page Title" parameter option is "Yes."

Articles that are navigated to by clicking the "Read more..." from a Blog, or clicking an Article Title from a List, no longer print the parent Page Title on the Article Web page.

As a reminder: the "Show Article Title" Global, Menu Item, and Article parameters continue to govern the display of the Article Title. That did not change with the Page Title consistency work and it has not changed with this fix, either.
 
SEF URL improvements and fixes for com_content

One of the most important features of Joomla! 1.5 is improved SEF URLs. A number of bugs with SEF Content URLs were fixed in this release, including issues related to Section List links, Breadcrumbs, Article Archives, Page Titles, and Article links in various Modules. A goal for the Joomla! 1.5.5 release was to correct those errors. In addition to the bug fixes, an improvement to Category Blog SEF URLs is now available in Joomla! 1.5.5.

Prior to Joomla! 1.5.5, Category Blog Article SEF URLs followed this pattern:

http://example.com/menu-item-alias/nn-category-alias/nn-article-alias.html

With Joomla! 1.5.5, the URL no longer includes the nn-category-alias node, as this pattern shows:

http://example.com/menu-item-alias/nn-article-alias.html

Existing Joomla! 1.5 Web sites should experience no problem due to this SEF URL enhancement. The Joomla! Bug Squad tested to ensure existing SEF URLs for Category Blog Articles continue to navigate to the correct page. No problems were discovered during this testing.

To help ensure all SEF URL fixes produced intended results, the Bug Squad introduced automated testing for SEF URLs. While this initial testing is far from exhaustive, it has proven to be valuable. Expanded automated URL testing will be an integral part of ensuring SEF URLs continue to provide consistent results for future releases.

Source: joomla.org