Overview:
- What’s in Umbraco 9.2?
- Package Telemetry
- Markdown for Property Descriptions
- Member properties moved to Content App
- Updated dependencies
- What to test
- Known issues
- How to test
- How to get your hands on Umbraco 9.2 RC
- When is the public release?
To help you provide us with feedback, I’ve gathered an overview of some of the items that you can help test for this RC. We have run internal testing and are very happy with the current state of the build - but extra polishing and testing are always helpful. So if you have time to help - or just find yourself super curious, feel free to dive into the 9.2. RC today.
What’s in Umbraco 9.2?
Not the biggest release we’ve ever done but you get some fantastic improvements and some nice new features. Once again the community has stepped up and provided a large part of the additions, not least thanks to the fantastic Hacktoberfest contributions - HIGH FIVE YOU ALL ROCK! Let’s take a look at some of the highlights:
Package Telemetry
New feature adding the ability to send analytical data on package usage in Umbraco. Having solid data on package usage is important for both package developers and the Umbraco ecosystem. This new feature will send anonymized analytical data for packages and provide more reliable numbers for package authors than what we get from NuGet today - all out-of-the-box.
In order to do so, two new properties have been added to package manifests.
allowPackageTelemetry is enabled by default, also when not present in the manifest. Adding this property and setting it to false allows you to turn off telemetry for the package.
version to indicate the version number of the package. This needs to be in place for version-specific telemetry to work. If not set, the data will still be recorded and the version number will be set as not specified.
The “name” property will be used to map telemetry to a package, if the name property does is not set, the folder name will be used to map the data.
We plan to make these data available for the package owners so they have a better number than NuGet installs. They will be used on Our for the package section and will support the work on the Umbraco Marketplace. We’ll have more information on how the data will be used and presented in the release blog post.
You can find more information on the PR: https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS/pull/11738
Markdown for Property Descriptions
You can now write simple markdown in property descriptions. There is support for:
- **bold**
- *italics*
- 
- [links](links)
Additionally, you can add extended descriptions, that will only show if expanded. Making it possible to add more helpful text and documentation in the backoffice without cluttering the interface. This is done by adding a double dash “--” to a new line, everything below the dashes will be hidden in a Read more link.
All in all, a really useful feature for making your property descriptions even more helpful and friendly.
You can find more information and examples on the PR: https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS/pull/11628
Member properties moved to Content App
Addressing some issues with the required Member properties, when creating new Member types and/or working with tabs on your Member types. The default Member properties are now added to a Member Content App as opposed to a Member Group.
This gives a clearer indication that these are indeed required properties and now, working with tabs and groups for custom properties works as expected.
Previously the login, email, password and member groups fields were shown in a fixed "Properties" group that was added below all existing groups. If you started using tabs, this group would be displayed in a Generic tab (and couldn't be moved elsewhere). By moving these fields to their own Member Content App, you'll get a much better experience when using tabs!
Members also require some additional properties (comments, failed password attempts, is approved, is locked out, last lockout date, last login date, last password change date), which are added to the "Membership" group by default after the first save. You can now move these properties to other groups and even tabs. Because these properties are required for members to work correctly, they will show up as 'Locked' and can't be removed: this is now also enforced when using tabs. So if you don't see the delete icon on tabs/groups anymore, make sure to move any of these properties to another tab/group first.
You can find more information and examples on the PR: https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS/pull/11587
Updated dependencies
ImageSharp.Web is updated to version 1.0.4 in order to address an issue with custom crops not being created correctly. Additionally, ImageSharp.Web now processes the image based on the order of processors in the query string. It has allowed us to remove some workarounds in previous CMS releases and clean up the code.
You can find more information and examples on the PR:
https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS/pull/11349
What to test
We’re interested in all feedback from testing the release candidate but here are a few areas that are worth paying attention to:
Custom zoomed crops, created with the Image Cropper, should now, as mentioned above, be rendered correctly. Be aware that the fix in ImageSharp.Web might result in different generated images. It is recommended that you delete /umbraco/Data/TEMP/MediaCache (or wherever you have configured the ImageSharp.Web cache, like Azure Blob Storage) in order to generate new and correct cached version of the crop.
ImageSharp.Web will now process the image based on the order of processors in the query string. You’re more than welcome to give this a go as well. This for example allows you to have a background color applied after cropping an image to a specific width, You can find more details here: https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS/pull/11241.
Granular permissions for user groups had some issues in certain instances, a fix has been added to Umbraco 9.2, which involves a database migration. If you are using User Group permission for content, do let us know if you see any inconsistencies. You can find more information and examples on the PR: https://github.com/umbraco/Umbraco-CMS/issues/11458
Known issues
There are a couple of known issues regarding the new Member Content App:
- The 'Is Locked Out' property issn't using the checkbox/toggle and readonly-state
- The Member Content App displays the 'Id' and 'Member Type' (they will be removed, as they are already visible on the Info Content App)
The regressions ae still visible in the release candidate but have been addressed for the final release of Umbraco 9.2.
How to test
First, you need to make a new Umbraco installation from 8.1RC (links below) or upgrade an existing project, both scenarios can provide valuable feedback.If you find things in the RC that are not working, we’d be grateful for feedback on the Github issue tracker. You’re welcome to add comments to the features and fixes listed under Umbraco 9.2 release or submit new bug reports (click New Issue and select Bug Report), please prefix the issue with 9.2RC:
As mentioned previously, the RC is 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 Umbraco 9.2 RC
As always, installation and release notes can be found on Our: https://our.umbraco.com/contribute/releases/920
This release candidate is also available from NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Umbraco.Cms/9.2.0-rc
When is the public release?
Usually, the final release is ready 2 weeks after the release candidate but as it would hit right in the holiday period we’ve decided to postpone the release one week 🎅 We’re aiming for a full public release on January 6th, 2022. This means Umbraco 9.2 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 Umbraco 9.2 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 to product@umbraco.com