OpenCms 13 release notes

The OpenCms 13 release notes contain detailed information about the new features and fixes in this version.
Datum:
13. April 2022

April 13, 2022: OpenCms 13 features a new plugin system as a more flexible replacement of the "headincludes" functionality. Geo search functionality has been added to find contents by geo coordinates. Extensions to the template variant mechanism allow setting overrides and renaming of formatter keys. There are also refinements for the "Mercury" default template as well as security improvements.

Main new features of OpenCms 13

  • Introduced a plugin system for formatters and dynamic functions as a more flexible replacement of the "headincludes" feature.
  • Introduced a Geo search feature in order to retrieve XML contents by geo coordinates.
  • Element setting overrides allow to change formatter settings by template variant master configuration.

Further improvements in OpenCms 13

  • Plugins: Added ${cms.plugins} EL function to access plugin definitions in a JSP page.
  • Plugins: Added "Site plugins" that can be automatically activated for all pages that share a site configuration.
  • Geo Search: Added Geo mapping syntax for XML content schemas, even if coordinates are stored in linked contents.
  • Page editor: Extended the <cms:display> tag to handle upload for binary resources in lists.
  • Security: Updated Log4j to the latest version to solve the Log4j security vulnerability.
  • Workplace: Improved the image upload so that pictures taken with a mobile device are rotated correctly.
  • Workplace: Improved the "Image preview" dialog to better display SVG images.
  • Workplace: Improved the "Page editor" and the "Form editor" to better work with touch devices.
  • Workplace: Improved the "Publish directly" dialog options depending on whether folders or files are selected.
  • Workplace: Improved the usage of <script> tags in the page editor and in the workplace.
  • Workplace: Added an option to manually define the resources in the "Add content" dialog.
  • Template Variants: Shared settings and overrides can be defined for specific formatters only.
  • Template Variants: Shared setting definitions now have an optional comment node.
  • Template Variants: Container pages now support an alias option for formatter keys.
  • Template Variants: Container pages now support a fallback mechanism for formatter keys.
  • Page editor: Improved the layout of the "Element settings" dialog.
  • Page editor: Improved the lock removal when publishing directly from the form editor.
  • Page editor: Improved the detail page mechanism to allow multiple default elements for different types.
  • Search: Extended the search implementation to facet and filter XML contents by date range.
  • Search: Improved the performance when re-indexing container pages containing model groups.
  • General: Improved the import process so that it continues if a file throws an error during import.
  • General: Improved the role and permission cache by reworking the flushing with regard to efficiency.
  • General: The "Image Preview" dialog now has a checkerboard background, improving the display of white or transparent images.
  • General: Optional logging of certain user activities such as login, logout and password change.
    Updated TinyMCE editor to version 5.10.3.
  • Updated CodeMirror editor to version 5.65.2.
  • Fixed issue with localization in the TinyMCE link dialog.
  • Fixed issue where the explorer view in the workplace was not always updated correctly for deleted resources.
  • Fixed issue where the layout of the "Resources to export" tab in the DB export app was broken.
  • Fixed issue where a folder with an expired expiration date could not be renamed in the explorer.
  • Fixed issue where scheduled publishing did not clean up publish locks correctly.
  • Fixed issue where the layout of the "Bookmarks" dialog was broken in Safari.
  • Fixed issue where the layout of the "RFS Synchronization" report view was broken.
  • Fixed issue where the "New Resource Type" dialog did throw a NPE if no module was selected.
  • Fixed issue where the "Reload page automatically" mechanism did not work if a hash was at the end of the URL.
  • Fixed issue where the layout of the "Edit point" icon bar in the form editor was broken.
  • Fixed issue 611: NPE in custom error pages.
  • Fixed issue 641: Added tool tips for resource tables.
  • Fixed issue 645: TinyMCE style select menu could become unreadable due to text color.
  • Fixed issue 657: Full static export report now shown in a popup dialog.
  • Fixed issue 658: Improved button labels for RFS synchronisation tool.
  • Fixed issue 665: Missing JPedal dependency in build scripts.
  • Fixed issue 685: Realm attribute for HTTP Basic Authentication changed from context path to server name.
  • Fixed issue 721: Vulnerability in profile picture upload.
  • Fixed issue 726: Log management tool producing unnecessary warnings in the log.

General OpenCms features

  • The page editor allows WYSIWYG inline editing of web pages and arrangement of content by drag & drop.
  • The form based editor allows editing of structured content in a well defined form mask.
  • The sitemap editor allows to create new pages and re-arrange the navigation tree by drag & drop.
  • Responsive "Mercury" default template based on Bootstrap 4 with many features.
  • Headless API for accessing content as JSON from external applications.
  • Content creation for mobile devices with preview and device specific content control.
  • Structured contents can be defined using a simple XML schema.
  • Easy to use "Online / Offline" workflow, changes must be approved before they become visible.
  • Link management for all internal resources with broken link detection.
  • Integrated image scaling and cropping.
  • SEO features with automatic sitemap.xml generation and page alias support.
  • Full featured user management that supports the concept of "Organizational Units" (OUs).
  • Allows management of multiple websites within one installation.
  • Contents can be served dynamically or exported to static HTML files.
  • File access to the OpenCms content repository over a shared network / SMB drive.
  • CMIS and WebDAV access to the OpenCms content repository.
  • Integrates Apache SOLR for powerful content searching and noSQL like queries.
  • Full text search for web pages as well as in office documents like PDF, MS Office and Open Office.
  • Extensions can be added through a flexible module system.
  • The "time warp" feature allows to view resources which are expired or not yet released.
  • JSP integration for dynamic functionality in templates, dynamic forms etc.
  • ... and many more

Backward compatibility

OpenCms 13.0 is backward compatible with all 12.0, 11.0, 10.5 and 10.0 versions. Templates and other OpenCms developed code from these versions should work mostly "out of the box" with version 13.0.

Notice for users of Alkacon OCEE Users of Alkacon OCEE require a new OCEE version for OpenCms 13.0. The update is free for Alkacon customers with a valid OCEE subscription. Please contact Alkacon to receive the new version.

Compatibility with Java versions, servlet containers and databases

OpenCms 13.0 has been written and tested for Java 11 and Java 8. We have tested with ORACLEs JDK as well as OpenJDK. OpenCms should run with all compliant JVMs.

We have tested this release on the Tomcat servlet engine, which we recommend. OpenCms works "out of the box" with Tomcat 9 and 8.5. Others have reported deploying OpenCms successfully on other servlet containers like JBoss, WildFly, WebLogic, WebSphere, GlassFish and Resin.

On the database side, we provide support for MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server, DB2 and HSQLDB.

Regarding version numbers and build tags

The main OpenCms Git repository is available on Github at github.com/alkacon/opencms-core.

In case you want to get the most current OpenCms 13.0 sources from Git, please check out branch master. This release is tagged build_13_0_0.

How you can help

Contributions to the OpenCms core development are most welcome. Please send us your pull requests directly on GitHub.

Please report issues found in OpenCms using our GitHub issue tracker.

Thank you for using OpenCms and have fun with OpenCms :-)