Umbraco Product Update - May 2023

• Overview: 

  • New releases
  • Umbraco Workflow 11.2 and 10.2
  • Availability & Performance feature for Umbraco Cloud
  • Removal of minify feature in Umbraco Cloud
  • Umbraco 11.4
  • UI Library 1.3
  • Umbraco Marketplace Update
  • Patches
  • Upcoming releases
  • Umbraco 12
  • Umbraco Forms 11.2 and 10.4
  • Roadmap updates
  • Request for Comments for Global Blocks

New releases ✨

Umbraco Workflow 11.2 and 10.2

The feature set in Umbraco Workflow continues to grow.  The key addition is configurable Approval Thresholds, allowing users to determine the number of approvals needed at each stage of a workflow. This feature provides flexibility and accommodates different consensus requirements. Additionally, the release includes the ability to disable mandatory comments for approvals, introducing Delayed Content Locking to allow last-minute content updates without canceling workflows, and an updated UI for Workflow Settings. 

The release also includes several smaller fixes and improvements, benefiting developers and users alike. It’s all available for both Umbraco 11 and 10 versions of Workflow. Details on the new features and how to get your hands on them are in the release blog post.

Released on May 9, 2023

Availability & Performance feature for Umbraco Cloud

A new and exciting feature is available on Umbraco Cloud to help manage your projects more efficiently. With the new "Availability and Performance" feature users can monitor and optimize their cloud projects effectively. The feature provides tools to track HTTPS status codes, response times, CPU usage, and memory usage, enabling proactive issue identification and resolution.

Specific views tailored for dedicated and shared projects are available, showing average CPU time and memory usage for dedicated options and a comparison of CPU and memory usage against the shared plan quota for shared projects. And this is just the beginning, more features and tools are planned to be added in the future. You can read more about the new feature and what we plan to add in the May release notes for Umbraco Cloud.

Removal of minify feature in Umbraco Cloud
Note that the release notes also mention a feature that we've had to remove from Cloud projects. Due to a change in Cloudflare's services, we can no longer automatic modification of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as part of the "CDN and Caching" settings. It's unfortunate, but luckily you can still minify these assets and you still have features for managing caching of static assets and more for your Cloud projects.  

Released on May 26, 2023 

Umbraco 11.4

The release focuses on adding support for the new 'Umbraco Package RCL' project template enabling distribution of packages as Razor Class Libraries, streamlining package reference and integration. You’ll also find improvements for extending Models Builder allowing developers to use dependency injection more effectively in certain scenarios, simplifying the process, and eliminating the need for request interception. 

Aside from the above, there are numerous other improvements, fixes, and updated dependencies. Close to two-thirds of the contributions for this release are community contributions marking another great community release. 

Umbraco 11.4 is available on Umbraco Cloud and NuGet - details on the new features and how to start using the latest version are in the release blog post. 

Released on May 25, 2023

Umbraco UI Library 1.3

There is also a new release out of the Umbraco UI Library. The latest version comes with a new approach to events, aligning them to native browser functionality. Dependencies are updated and support for Node.js 18 (the latest LTS release) is added, as well as a long list of tweaks and fixes. You can find the full list of features and changes in the release notes.

Released on May 31, 2023

Umbraco Marketplace Update

Several enhancements for the Umbraco Marketplace were also released in May. The display of package information has been improved to help users get a better understanding of the value a listing provides. Winners of Umbraco package awards are now promoted with a dedicated panel. Further under-the-hood improvements include the implementation of Redis caching and Azure Cognitive Search, enhancing website speed and search functionality. A new "most active installs" filter has been introduced to measure package popularity based on telemetry data.

On top of all this, the documentation for package developers has been migrated to the Umbraco documentation website, offering improved tools for updating and contributing to the documentation.

You can find all the details in the Marketplace Update update for May 2023. 

Patch Releases

Umbraco Deploy 4.8.1, 10.2.1, and 11.1.1 were released containing some small bug fixes and an additional configuration option for batch processing of large transfers and restores.

Released on: May 23, 2023

Umbraco Deploy 9.6.1, 10.2.2, and 11.1.2 were later released containing a fix for a minor security issue.

Released on: May 30, 2023

Umbraco Forms 8.13.9, 10.3.3, and 11.1.3 containing minor bug fixes were also released.

Released on: May 30, 2023

Upcoming releases 💫

Umbraco 12

Umbraco 12 brings exciting new features and improvements to the CMS. This major release focuses on Umbraco-specific enhancement including a Content Delivery API for easy access to headless capabilities, support for Entity Framework Core to bring custom database tables, updated dependencies such as ImageSharp 3, and new documentation.

The release candidate is available and provides full access to try out all the new features features and improvements. As always we appreciate all the help and feedback we can get and especially encourage testing of the Content Delivery API. You can get all the details and a full list of features and changes in the Umbraco 12 release candidate blog post. 

The public release of Umbraco 12 is planned for June 29, 2023.

Release candidates for Forms 10 and 11

Release candidates for the latest features in Forms 10 and 11 were made available for testing.  For more details on new features such as API enhancements, performance improvments, tag helpers and more, please see the release candidate blog post for Umbraco Forms 11.2 and 10.4.

Also released was a second release candidate for Forms 12, which includes all the latest updates compatible with the upcoming major version of Umbraco CMS.

Targeted for release on June 2, 2023

Updates to the Roadmap 🛣️

A lot of updates and additions this time around. Make sure to check the Product Roadmap for the latest target release dates. 

New in “Now”

Pre-installed packages in new projects

This item has been updated to focus on initially adding support for official Umbraco add-ons such as Umbraco Workflow, and target release updated from Q2 to Q3 2023.

New in “Next”

Backoffice preview for Umbraco Forms

The backoffice preview did not make it into the upcoming release for Umbraco Forms. We have moved the item back to next and updated the target to July 2023.

Content import/export with migrations

We'll be looking into providing a feature for import and export of content from Umbraco, using Umbraco Deploy. This will allow for the extraction of content as an archive of ".uda" files - the same format that schema is managed - and to apply that to other environments. We also plan to provide a hook for migrations, such that content migration between Umbraco versions is possible.

Automated minor upgrades for Umbraco Cloud

Umbraco Cloud will offer automated upgrades to minor version updates, eliminating the need for manual intervention. This new support ensures that your Umbraco Cloud projects stay up-to-date with the latest minor versions for Umbraco CMS, Deploy, and Forms without any hassle.

Webhooks for Umbraco CMS 

This item has been moved from Later to Next and updated slightly to clarify that the initial release of this feature will make it possible for developers to use webhooks in code. A separate item has been added for Webhook UI in the "Later" category below.

New in “Later”

Block level variations for Umbraco CMS

Variant support for blocks (for use in Block List and Block Grid editors) has been moved from Later to Next as we’re starting work on this functionality.

New RFC: Global (reusable) Blocks for Umbraco CMS 

A new RFC (request for comments) has been published. The RFC proposes the introduction of Global Blocks in Umbraco, allowing reusable content blocks across multiple Block Lists or Block Grids. Included in the proposal is a new "Library" section which can be used to manage global Blocks, and potentially other global content such as Tags, and Content Templates.

Global Blocks will allow the block-level inclusion of features such as publishing, scheduling, and language variations. The Content Section would still support Local Blocks but with the option to make them global and vice versa. Permissions would be similar to Content Nodes, and technical considerations involve storing Global Blocks as content (in the database) and how to handle separating block content and settings.

We believe there is great potential in this new feature and are looking forward to getting your input. You can read the full RFC for Global Blocks here and add feedback in the dedicated Github discussion.  

All this and more at Codegarden…

As you can see, there’s plenty of progress on all things Umbraco and we hope to see you at Codegarden, our yearly developer conference, which takes place June 14-16. We'll share even more product-related news, there are plenty of talks that take a deep dive into everything from Umbraco Cloud over the new features in Umbraco 12, to deep dive into the UI Library. And we of course look forward to meeting you and discussing it all with you. 

The best thing is you get to share it all with 100s of like-minded Umbraco enthusiasts and take part in all the activities, sessions, and just plain old fun - we can’t wait to see you all. If you haven’t booked your ticket already, head over to codegarden.umbraco.com to learn more. 

… Until next time

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.

If you have product feedback, you’re welcome to reach out to us at product@umbraco.com.