Overview:
- What’s new in Umbraco Forms 12.1 and 10.5?
- How to test
- How to get your hands on the Release Candidates
- When is the Public Release?
Update: We, unfortunately, put in the wrong public release date. Umbraco Forms 12.1 and 10.5 will be available on August 17, 2023.
We are releasing functionally equivalent minor updates to Forms 10 and 12, so whether you are on Umbraco's LTS (long-term support) or the latest major version, you'll be able to benefit from the same new features added to Forms.
As with previous releases, we are first issuing release candidates so you can evaluate what’s included and ideally try them out on your existing solutions. Of course, if you do find any issues, or simply have comments for further improvement on the new features, we welcome any feedback.
How to get access to the new version and where to submit any comments and report issues, is discussed at the bottom of the post.
Let’s have a look at what you can expect in this latest release 👀
What’s new in Umbraco Forms 12.1 and 10.5?
This release is primarily around resolution of issues, wrapping up a number of items raised and resolved over the last month or two on the tracker. Whilst some are bug fixes, some require us to introduce new features to best provide a solution, and for this reason we are classifying the release as a minor.
Prevalue Source Caching
Prevalue sources are a feature of Umbraco Forms that allows you to define a set of options used in a form field. When you create a drop-down list or multiple-choice field, you need to define the options that the user can pick from. These can be added individually to each form, but if you want to reuse the same set of options between forms, a prevalue source is the best way to go.
There's a lot of flexibility in defining where the source of options comes from. Out-of-the-box Forms allow you to use text files, SQL queries, or Umbraco content, and you can create custom sources too. Forms historically have cached the information retrieved from the source, which makes sense particularly if the retrieval is expensive or the information changes very rarely.
Unfortunately, the caching behaviour is rather blunt - caching in memory until the prevalue source is saved again, or the website is restarted. This works nicely for prevalue sources whose information is stored within the source definition itself - such as with a text file - but less so if the source is dynamic and can change independently.
To provide more flexibility here, we now allow you to select an appropriate level of caching for each prevalue source.
You can choose between:
- No Caching - no caching will be applied and the list of options will be retrieved from source on every request.
- You will likely only want to choose this option if the information changes frequently and it's important that the latest is presented to website visitors.
- Cache For Specified Time - the list will be cached for the period of time provided.
- Cache With No Expiry - the list will be cached on first request and not retrieved again until either the prevalue source is edited or the website is restarted.
- This is the backward-compatible default, and most appropriate to use for information held within the prevalue source data itself (such as when uploading a text file).
these updates.
Accessibility Improvements
We received and have applied several suggested accessibility improvements to the default theme for Umbraco Forms.
There's one in particular though that's worth calling out, as you will need to set a configuration value to opt into using it. We provide the option to use alternative markup for rendering checkbox and radio button lists. These use the more semantically correct fieldset and legend elements, instead of the previously used div and label.
Although this semantic markup is preferred, it could be a presentational breaking change for those styling the default theme. As such we have made this markup improvement optional. You can opt into using it via configuration, by setting the value of Umbraco:Forms:Options:UseSemanticFieldsetRendering to true.
If working with custom field types that use multiple input fields - like the built-in single choice and multiple choice types - you can also opt into this rendering by setting the new RenderInputType property available on the field type to the value of Multiple.
Other Updates
The other updates included in the release are as follows:
- Added the option to use the www.recaptcha.net domain for the reCAPTCHA 3 field type.
- Added behavior to scroll to the form when navigating multiple-page forms.
- Added a setting for the files selected label text for the file upload field type.
- Fixed a casing issue with the form picker.
- Ensured custom field settings applied to the data consent field type are used in the creation of new forms.
- Fixed issue related to conditions applied to radio button or checkbox lists when a custom field ID prefix is configured.
- Fixed a second issue related to conditions found when hiding a field based on a non-visible field.
- Clarified the labeling on selecting to include attachments in email workflows.
- Fixed issue with Umbraco Documents prevalue source retrieving unpublished nodes.
- Updated naming of primary keys to match database conventions.
- Fixed issue with retrieving forms for a user with start folders defined.
How to Test
You can either create a new installation using the package available from the link below or upgrade an existing project. Both scenarios can provide valuable feedback. If upgrading, you may find you need to update your cache buster version number.
If you find anything in the release candidate that is not working as you’d expect, we’d be grateful for feedback on the GitHub issue trackers for Forms. You’re welcome to add comments to the features and fixes listed linked above or to submit new bug reports indicating that you have been working with the release candidates.
How to get your hands on the Release Candidate
Release notes can be found on the Umbraco Documentation website. The release candidate is available from the usual NuGet feed.
When is the Public Release?
Update: We, unfortunately, put in the wrong public release date. Umbraco Forms 12.1 and 10.5 will be available on August 17, 2023.
We’re aiming for a full public release on Thursday, August 10, 2023Thursday, August 17, 2023, when the package will be available for new and existing projects on Umbraco Cloud and via NuGet.
A big H5YR 🙌 to everyone who has contributed to these releases by highlighting pain points, reporting issues, providing feedback, and suggesting solutions. And thanks to everyone willing to lend a hand in testing it out.
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.
