Overview:
- What’s in Umbraco 11.3?
- What to test
- How to test
- How to get your hands on the release candidates
- When is the public release?
To help you provide us with feedback, I’ve gathered an overview of some of the items that would be helpful to focus on in the release candidate period. We have run internal testing and are very happy with the current state of the build - but extra polishing and testing is always helpful.
We have postponed the public release by one week due to bank holidays which means there is an additional week for testing - if you’re not on vacation that is 😉 So if you have time to help - or just find yourself super curious, feel free to dive into the release candidates today.
What’s in Umbraco 11.3 and 10.5?
There are some neat new features such as the ability to sort domains in the backoffice, plenty of additions to backoffice translations, and another round of performance tweaks.
Also worth mentioning is that we have changed the default value of telemetry settings on a new install to Detailed. We hope to see more data that can help us all analyze the use of the CMS and packages, and make more informed decisions going forward. You can read more about the reasoning behind this in the Telemetry Status that was recently published on the blog.
Let’s dive into what is important to get tested. Unless noted otherwise, all features and improvements are available for both Umbraco 11 (11.3) and 10 LTS (10.5).
What to test
Missing Property Index Value Factories added
The most important thing to test is the newly added missing Property Index Value Factories. These are the ones that convert IPublishedContent into values in the Examine search indexes. A few property editors were missing these and as a consequence produced JSON directly in the search index, which was not easily searchable.
The editors that have added property index value factories are:
- Block Grid
- Block List
- Tags
- Media Picker
- Image Cropper
To test this, you need to have Content Types with the specified Property Editors and rebuild your indexes. After this ensure your search functionality still works, and ensure you can find content by searching for text in these properties.
Media and Image Cropper content is still not searchable by design.
Example of new index data:
And this is how it was indexed previously:
Due to the fact, those have been missing for quite some time, we encourage everybody to ensure you do not rely on the old behavior. If it turns out, many are relying on the old behavior, this bugfix is subject to change or being moved to Umbraco 12.
Prioritize surface controller requests
Another interesting fix, that we think is valuable to get tested is the change that ensures Surface Controller requests are prioritized. This has always been the intention, but it was discovered that sometimes when virtual routes and surface controllers are in the same route, the virtual route would be handled even if the query string contained information about a surface controller.
To help test this, please ensure that your virtual routes and surface controllers still work as expected.
Inline Macros in Rich Text Editor (Umbraco 11.3 only)
Previously it has not been possible to use Macros inline in the Rich Text editor. There are cases where this can be useful and thanks to jomehmet it is now possible in Umbraco 11. Huge thanks and HIGH FIVE YOU ROCK for adding the functionality!
You can find details on how to use the new feature in this documentation PR.
The most important thing to test is that existing macros are not affected by this new feature.
And a whole lot more...
Both releases contain additional features and some fantastic improvements and bug fixes. You can find the full list of whats included in the release notes for Umbraco 11.3 and Umbraco 10.5 respectively.
How to test
First, you need to make a new Umbraco installation from 11.3RC/10.5RC (links below) or upgrade an existing project. Both scenarios can provide valuable feedback.
If you find things in the RC that are not working as expected, we’d be grateful for feedback on the Github issue tracker. You’re welcome to add comments to the features and fixes listed under 11.3/10.5 release or submit new bug reports (click New Issue and select Bug Report), please prefix the issue with 11.3RC or 10.5RC:
As mentioned previously, the RCs are feature complete, so we’re not going to add additional features but will, of course, fix bugs that prevent a stable release.
How to get your hands on the release candidates
As always, installation and release notes can be found on Our:
This release candidates are available from NuGet:
- https://www.nuget.org/packages/Umbraco.Cms/11.3.0-rc
- https://www.nuget.org/packages/Umbraco.Cms/10.5.0-rc
When is the public release?
Note that the public release date has been postponed by 1 week due to bank holidays.
We’re aiming for a full public release on April 13, 2023. This means Umbraco 11.3 and 10.5 will be available for upgrade on Umbraco Cloud and via NuGet. We need a couple of days to wrap up the release so the sooner we get your feedback the better 🙂
Big H5YR 🙌 to everyone who has contributed to the releases and thanks to everyone willing to lend a hand in testing it out. It means the world to get it validated by the users.
Bug reports are best handled on the issue tracker and as always, we welcome you to submit product feedback and questions on product@umbraco.com
