Overview:
- New release: Umbraco 9.2
- New release: Patches for Umbraco Deploy and Forms
- Upcoming release: More patches 🎉
- Upcoming release: Umbraco 8.18
- Umbraco Cloud Release Notes
- Updates to the Roadmap
New release: Umbraco 9.2
The first minor of the year for Umbraco 9 is now available. Quite a few new, and very useful features are added and a long list of improvements and tweaks that’ll all help to improve the CMS.
You can see demos and explanations in the Unboxing Umbraco 9.2 video, where Warren and Ronald go through some of the highlights:
More details and examples can be found in the Umbraco 9.2 release blog post. The new version is now available for the new Umbraco Cloud projects and as an upgrade for existing projects.
Umbraco 9.2 was released on January 6th, 2022.
New release: Patches for Umbraco Deploy and Forms
2 new patches are now available, 2 for Umbraco Deploy and 1 for Umbraco Forms addressing a few regression and stability issues.
The patches have been rolled out to all eligible projects on Umbraco Cloud and are available for download via the links above.
Released on January 11th, 2022
Upcoming release: More patches 🎉
Next Tuesday another round of patches is ready for you both on Umbraco Cloud and if you’re using Umbraco Deploy or Forms in on-premises installations.
Follow the links for details on the patches.
Target release: January 20, 2022
Upcoming release: Umbraco 8.18 (LTS)
The final minor release for Umbraco 8 is getting closer! We don’t want to leave you empty-handed at the end of the Umbraco 8 ride and, in fact, we think we’ve given you a super stable CMS. Umbraco 8 works great, has had many wonderful feature additions and, most of all: years of bug fixing from both HQ and the community.
Previously, we have communicated that we will still be shipping patch releases. In fact, Umbraco 8.18 is an LTS release with 2 more years of patching (We cover regression issues covering the past 3 minors, other fix PRs are welcome) and then an additional year of security fixes.
The support phase (2022-2024)
As Umbraco 8.18 is the last planned minor release for Umbraco 8, it will be considered as Long-term Support (LTS) and enter the support phase. This means that for the next 2 years we commit to:
- Fixing regression issues on the last 3 minor releases (Umbraco 8.16, 8.17, and 8.18)
- Adding compatibility patches (to ensure new server versions, browsers, and .NET Framework versions are supported)
- Continue to review issue reports and patch PRs. This will be done with stability in mind so no new features, only “critical” fixes.
- Provide relevant security advisories and updates
The security phase (2024-2025)
After this, Umbraco 8 will be in the security phase for an additional year, ensuring that security issues are addressed along with relevant security advisories.
Wrapping up the release also means going through the issue tracker and ensuring that all the relevant improvements and fixes are included. We have continuously been reviewing issues and features submitted for Umbraco 8 and in September we started a dedicated effort to wrap up the release in a series of workshops which you can read more about in the Shaping up Umbraco 8.18 blog post.
In a few short weeks, you can try out a bunch of new features for Umbraco 8 including Tabs, History Cleanup, and Package Telemetry. You also find a number of community contributions that improve the overall experience of using the CMS. The Umbraco 8.18 release candidate is targeted for February 1, 2022, and we hope you’ll help with testing it out and making it a great release.
Target release: February 17, 2022
Umbraco Cloud Release Notes
2021 was a great year for Umbraco Cloud with a lot of new features, improvements, and even a brand new infrastructure released. We published 5 Cloud Updates throughout the year to keep you up-to-date. The last one was published in December recapping the highlights of the year and there was a lot to talk about. While it’s always fun to look back, it also became clear that we can be better at making users and community aware of all the things going on in Cloud land in a more timely fashion.
I’ll of course continue to keep you updated on news in Product Updates but going forward you’ll also be able to get updates directly from the horse’s mouth (the Cloud team that is 🐴). They add value to the platform multiple times each month and what better way to let you know than with release notes? Well, we can’t think of any so that's what we did!The first release notes are already published and there are some great new features in there already. You can now break the reference between baseline and child projects yourself. This was previously something you had to request but now you’re in full control, with just a couple of clicks.
There’s also a new Project Overview page where you can find general information about the project, permissions/roles in Team Member invite workflow, faster loading of baselines when creating a new project, and improved upgrade notifications. And that’s not all, there are a number of smaller improvements to the overall user experience in the Umbraco Cloud Portal.
The release notes can be found in the Umbraco Cloud documentation and soon you’ll also be able to access them directly from the Umbraco Cloud Portal. You can read the first one for January 6, 2022, and the brand new release notes for January 19th, 2022, now - enjoy 😀
Updates to the Roadmap
There are quite a few updates to the Product Roadmap this time around with both new items and updates to existing ones.
New in “Now”
Static outgoing IPs on Umbraco Cloud
With this feature, you’ll be able to assign a static IP address to your Umbraco Cloud projects. It will be available for Standard and Professional projects.
Target release: Q1, 2022
Easier workflow for logging in Members from external sources for Umbraco CMS
The CMS team is working on making it easier to add OAuth integration and authentication for Members similar to what you know from backoffice users.
Target release: Q1, 2022
Editable entries for Umbraco Forms
Allowing you to edit or update forms submissions directly in the backoffice will soon be possible. This item has been moved from “Next” to “Now”.
Target release: Q1, 2022
New in “Next”
Customizable project overview in Umbraco Cloud
An improved and customizable overview of all your Umbraco Cloud projects.
Payment handover option in Umbraco Cloud Portal
Giving you the option to transfer project payment responsibility to another user or organization.
Roadmap History
Finally, no less than 3 items have been completed and moved to the Roadmap History page since the latest product update.
Define Extension API for Umbraco CMS
We laid out a proposal for a new extension API for Umbraco’s backoffice in an RFC (Request for Comments) in November last year and it was accepted on December 28th, 2021. A huge thanks to all who contributed to the discussion with feedback and examples 🙌 We’re excited to get implementation work underway and build a modern and future-proof way of extending the backoffice.
You can read the accepted RFC here.
Backoffice Localization for Umbraco Forms
The Forms section now supports localization and is translated into multiple languages. As of now there is support for Spanish, Italian, French, Polish, English UK, and of course the default English US, and it works for both Umbraco 8 and 9. You can read more about this and the other great features added to Forms in the Umbraco Forms 8.10/9.2 release blog post.
Improved Package Metrics for Umbraco CMS
The first step in improving metrics for Umbraco Packages is adding support for built-in Package Telemetry. This will allow for better statistics on how packages are used, which versions are installed, upgrades and more. You can find additional details on how it works in the Umbraco 9.2 release blog post.
That's all folks...
As you can see from the above 2022 is going to be an exciting year and these are of course only some of the things to look forward to. If you want to peek a little further into the future you can get it directly from our CEO, Kim Sneum Madsen, in the 2022 and onwards blog post. Here you'll find an updated vision for the next five years as well as key goals for 2022.
The first Community Office Hours of 2022 is also full of information on the upcoming year. Join Kim, Filip and Warren from Umbraco HQ for an extended Q&A session:
… Until next time
A large part of the work we do is inspired by the feedback we get from you. For issues and specific feature requests, you can find the issue trackers for our products on the Umbraco Github account.
If you have product feedback, you’re welcome to reach out to us at product@umbraco.com.
