Some of you might already have noticed that there are two new updates.

A new version (2.5.0) of the events component has been released a few weeks back already (and a small updated version 2.5.1 a bit later), version 2.5.0 of the seatmap component has been released just now. Both now run in native mode, so no need any more to use the legacy plugin in Joomla! 1.5.

Both versions bring much more than just fixes for native mode. Check the download repository pages for a complete changelog, but the most important ones are:

• Email notification for the events component (e.g. when a user is marked as 'Paid')
• New 'Pay cash at door' and 'Bank transfer' payment options
• Much cleaner front end display in the events component
• New permissions model in the seatmap components (e.g. you can now allow 'Pending' customers to temporarily hold a seat for themselves until their payment has cleared)

To upgrade, as usual, just uninstall the previous component version and install the new one.

IMPORTANT: You will lose your component configuration when you upgrade because it is stored in a file. So, after upgrading, please make sure you quickly glance at all the new configuration options to make sure you are happy with your settings. I know this is a problem and in the seatmap component from this version onwards, the configuration is stored in the database. The same will count for  he next release of the events component too.

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Roadmap update

These are the planned combined features for the next few releases of the seatmap and events components:

• Different seat/ticket categories
  • Specify your own categories of tickets and seats (e.g. lower, standard, higher)
  • Users are then only allowed to occupy a seat of a matching (or lower) category
• Allow users which buy multiple tickets to permanently occupy the matching number of seats
  • So if Bob buys five tickets for his clan, he can immediately block five seats, before his four friends even sign up on the website
• Allow users to submit a comment when they order a ticket (and then notify the admins)