Overview:
It’s been a busy month since the last Product Update with some really exciting release.
A new major version of Umbraco CMS is now available - Umbraco 11 comes with full support for .NET 7. This means a very long list of performance improvements to the underlying framework as well as all the new features and enhancements that come with C#11.
For Umbraco itself, there are architectural improvements, updated dependencies, including a major version upgrade of TinyMCE, the brand-new Block Grid Editor, and more.
Umbraco 11 is fast, stable, and well worth the upgrade. Get the full story in the Umbraco 11 release blog post.
Umbraco 11 was released on December 1, 2022.
Over on Umbraco Cloud Umbraco 11 is also available but there are even more new goodies to use with your Cloud projects.
Secrets Management was launched just a few weeks ago making it possible to add and store secrets through the Umbraco Cloud Portal.
Secrets are added on a per-environment basis and make it easy to store everything from API keys to credentials in a secure way and use them when you need them.
You’ll also find updates to the Organization page, providing a better overview with new information for your projects, a new shortcut to KUDU on the Projects Dashboard, and improved Allowlist management. More details on the new features can be found in the December Release Notes.
If you haven’t tried out Umbraco Cloud yet you can get a demo directly from HQ or take a free trial.
December also saw the launch of a brand new add-on for Umbraco CMS. As the name suggests, Umbraco Workflow adds workflow functionality directly in the backoffice and can integrate with any existing Umbraco 11 installation.
It’s easy to install and you can immediately start configuring everything from simple approval processes to multistage workflow, content review notifications, custom email templates, and much more.
You might recognize some of the functionality and the great UI. You might even say this looks like Plumber for Umbraco 🤔 And you’d be absolutely right! Umbraco Workflow is a new and improved version of Plumber. Update to run on Umbraco 11 and .NET 7, including substantial rewrite and cleanup of the code. It also comes with new features such as content refresh notifications and the ability to send rejected content back to a specified stage in a multistage workflow.
You can read all about what Umbraco Workflow can do for your projects in the release blog post. Note that Plumber is still available in both free and licensed versions for Umbraco 10 and 8. Come January Workflow will be made available for Umbraco and you can upgrade existing Plumber installations (and licenses) to the new version.
Umbraco Workflow was released on December 7, 2022.
There are also a couple of new links for you to book mark in your browser:
Umbraco Documentation has moved to a new platform with improved design, easier navigation, and better search functionality. This means that from now on all documentation for Umbraco 10+, Umbraco Cloud, and add-on products, is available at docs.umbraco.com.
It’s been a long time in the works and we’re both proud and really pleased with the positive reception it has already received. Not only is it an improvement for anyone using Umbraco documentation, but it also provides better tools for the team managing and updating the docs. All while still keeping it open-source, and open for community contributions.
Head over to docs.umbraco.com to see it for yourself.
Along with Umbraco 11, we have launched a new home for Umbraco packages. The Umbraco Marketplace is fully integrated with NuGet and the Integrations and Tech Partner listing on Umbraco.com. This means you’ll get a better overview of all available tools and services for Umbraco 8+.
The new marketplace is available at marketplace.umbraco.com and it is also added to the backoffice of Umbraco 11 (coming to Umbraco 10 in January).
The marketplace contains Umbraco packages for Umbraco 8+ as well as integrations and profiles for the growing Tech Partners eco-system. It is the place to go to see what is possible in terms of extending Umbraco and integrating 3rd-party services. So make sure to update your packages so they are listed on the marketplace. Documentation on how this works is available here.
The “old” package listing at our.umbraco.com/packages will still be there for older versions of Umbraco.
Documentation and Marketplace moved to their new homes on December 1, 2022.
This new package for Umbraco CMS makes it easy to start integrating Algolias powerful search and recommendation engine.
You get a Management Dashboard for inspecting and managing indexes in Algolia allowing you to define how your Umbraco content is indexed. It’s built using the Umbraco UI Library so there’s also some good inspiration to get started using the UUI components in the backoffice. And it’s of course open-source and available on GitHub.
See the Integrating Umbraco CMS with Algolia blog post for a detailed description of how it all works.
The Algolia package was released on December 21, 2022.
There are already some exciting new features lined up for both Umbraco 11 and this week they were made available for testing.
You get a new customizable Maintenance Page for when Umbraco is upgrading. This means no more redirecting to the login screen if the site is unavailable due to a pending upgrade. It works in a similar way as the 404/error page and can be swapped out with your own.
There’s also improved drag-and-drop support for the Media Picker, Tags Editor now works with Element Types, Single Block Mode for the Block List Editor, performance enhancements, and a whole lot more.
All this and more is available in Umbraco 11.1 and it’s also coming to Umbraco 10 with the release of Umbraco 10.4. Furthermore, the new Block Grid Editor has also been added to the 10.4 release, which means there is now feature parity, at least on the Umbraco side of things, between 10 and 11.
Note that there are no further scheduled minor releases for Umbraco 10, and future (feature) development will be targeted toward Umbraco 11.
Both release candidates are out and you can read all about what to focus on for testing, find release notes, and get the full story in the release candidate(s) blog post.
Umbraco 11.1 and 10.4 are scheduled for release on January 12, 2023.
Alongside the release of Umbraco 11 new deprecation and breaking change announcements we’re added to the Umbraco Announcement repository. The changes are aimed at ensuring we don’t have duplicate functionality and carry over legacy property editors to the new backoffice implementation targeted at Umbraco 13.
This means that the Legacy Media Picker is now deprecated and will be removed in version 13. The same goes for the Grid Layout Editor (now superseded by the Block Grid Editor) and Nested Content (superseded by the Block List editor).
If you go to the issue section you can see all current announcements and filter based on version and so forth. Remember, you can subscribe to the repository if you want to be notified when new announcements are made.
Here at the end of the year there are no new items added to the Product Roadmap. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of updates in the new year. A couple of items have received updated target release windows, and then there are all the items moved to the Roadmap History page as a consequence of the recent releases. These are:
Quite a list to end the year on 🚀
What a year it has been for Umbraco Products. It’s been a pleasure updating you on all the new features, developments, and releases in 2022. Looking back (for example at the Roadmap History page) I believe we can confidently say that we have added substantial value to the entire product portfolio.
Umbraco Cloud and Heartcore have received numerous improvements, and a long list of new features aimed at making the offerings even better and providing you with tools and information to build, maintain and manage your Umbraco projects. And that’s on top of all the valuable additions to Umbraco CMS, Forms, and Deploy.
We also made significant expansion in the cDXP (composable Digital Experience Platform) offering with multiple integrations from our Commercial Packages Team, and a long list of new Tech Partners added.
2022 was the first year with the new major release cadence in full effect. This is quite a big change for Umbraco going from a major version every 5-7 years to every 6 months. While it does take some getting used to, it also adds a new level of predictability and means that it is easier to stay up-to-date in the long run. Both Umbraco 10 and 11 were released this year, and upgrading from 9 (or 10) to the latest version is easier than ever. In fact easier than some of the minor releases of years past. It provides a path for everyone using Umbraco to benefit from all the amazing work being done on .NET and ASP.Net Core both in terms of performance, developer experience, and security.
I literally can’t wait to update you on all the exciting things that will take place throughout 2023. If you want to get a hint at what’s to come I encourage you to read the recently published blog post where Umbraco CEO Kim Sneum Madsen, and partners, takes a look at the CMS trends in 2023 and how they will change going forward. And while we’re talking about the future, why not…
Once again we celebrate the new year with an Umbraco New Year’s reception! We’ll take a look back at 2022 and the great things that happened, such as the biggest Codegarden ever and the first-ever Umbraco U.S Summit. Most importantly, we’ll look ahead at 2023 and some of the amazing things we have in store... and there's a special surprise 🥂
Join us online on January 10th from 16:00 - 16:45 CET. You can reserve your spot for the New Year’s reception here.
A large part of the work we do is inspired by the feedback we get from you. If you find issues or have specific feature requests, you can find the issue trackers for our products on the Umbraco Github account.
I’m signing off for 2022 and looking forward to giving you monthly on all things product in 2023. If you have any feedback for our products in general or Product Updates and communication, you’re more than welcome to reach out to us at product@umbraco.com.
Thanks for a great year - see you in a bit
Rune
Umbraco CMS is now running .NET 7 with all the features and improvements the new framework brings. On top of that, you get a brand Block Grid Editor, that is sure to delight developers and content editors alike. With a new marketplace for packages and integrations, overhauled documentation, and updates for both Umbraco Forms and Deploy, there’s plenty to be excited about for Umbraco 11 and beyond.