A month and a half of really, really solid work has started to pay dividents!  I’m very proud to announce the release of CodeIgniter 1.6, the kick ass open source web application framework for PHP developers working in the real world.  The release marks a new turn in the development of the framework, and has received considerable attention from both EllisLab developers, and the community.

Among a host of new capabilities, this release features:

• A Database Forge class: database agnostic table and field manipulation
• An enhanced Active Record library
• A revised Session Class with “flash variables” and additional security
• An extendable Model Class with auto-loadable Models
• Extendable Helpers, and additions and enhancements to existing Helpers
• A revised view architecture that allows for simple inclusion of multiple views
• And over 120 different enhancements, improvements and bug fixes.  Yup one two oh other changes.

What’s even more exciting?  Development on CodeIgniter is moving forward in earnest.  There are great things on the horizon, and as soon as some of the 1.6 dust settles, we’ll be ready to kick up more dust in the form of another version, with a raft of new features.  I expect the release cycle to get much tighter now.

Some of the changes are so simple and elegant, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t think of it earlier.  The new view functionality for example is so simple yet functional.  Rick did a great job with that.  Extending the helpers?  I love this change.  That particular innovation was courtesy of Derek Jones.  Again, very simple, very elegant change.  Brilliant.

I hope this release is as exciting for you as it is for us - and hey, just because its out doesn’t mean you get to sit back now!  Keep hitting the SVN for more changes, features and enhancements.