Release notes

Article number: 303140

10.1 release notes

10.1 introduces major improvements to the CMS in some key areas. The outline list follows with details on each of the changes further down

  • New forums - moderation, full control over appearance, pin, lock and approve discussion threads.
  • Improvements to posts - more lookups plus a new geographical location field type, easier front end population and moderation.
  • Architectural changes - a new editor, updated jquery support and the whole platform is now 'azure ready'.
  • SE friendly URLs - easier SE friendly RESTful URLs for dynamic pages.

In addition to these we've also had time to add A to Z of files so they now sort by keywords, a 'view live' for pages in the asset tree. Administrators have a choice of page layouts to use when they create a page and forms now support multiple muli-part file uploads.

Looking at those items in detail now:

New forums

The new Sitekit CMS forums are built on v10's posts system. They provide easy to use fully functional configurable forums allowing administrators to lock, sink, pin and approve posts. New forums also allow users to upload content into them. User posts can be moderated or otherwise.

Improvements to Posts

Posts are a powerful new addition to the Sitekit CMS they allow you to create related cross-referenced structured lists. In 10.1 we've extended that functionality based on user feedback. Users are now using posts for A to Zs, staff directories, supplier directories, news and events systems

The key new changes to posts are: 

  • support for using posts for forums - see above.
  • improved iCal output  - for use outputting events allowing user to create events/reminders on their own local Outlook/Gmail etc calendars.
  • new lat/long geolocation field type - ideal for location directories this field type prompt with an initial search and then allow the administrator to zoom into a map and drag the pin to the entries location. From there it's easy to create clickable maps of your location for your front end users.
  • new user and member-of field types - for use to personalise content. New posts can be marked up relevant to their user group and then the post filtered based on which group a user logs into.

The original worked example of a training system has been extended to include an example of the geolocation type. Our new user forum is a good example of posts used for forums. We've also improved the admin system, with sorting, pagination and searching.

Architectural changes

A lot has been changed under the bonnet in this release. The benefits are improved performance and more flexible hosting options. Changes include:

  • Updated text editor, meaning improved speed and accessibility. Support for pasting from other applications is improved saving you time re-formatting text and it's even easier to embed videos and code from other websites.
  • The underlying jQuery engine has been updated again improving performance.
  • Azure platform changes. Microsoft's Azure platform has very specific requirements when it comes to database structure and management. This release supports Azure's requirements meaning that as a customer you now have more hosting options, from shared, dedicated, premium, AWS and now Azure. 

The new text editor

 

Search Engine friendly RESTful page names

User feedback from the last release indicated that while our users liked the posts system they weren't too happy about the ugly looking post details page names. This release improves that issue un a way that can be applied to any data driven page on any Sitekit site. 

So a URL like this http://<domain>/pages/port-details.htm?portid=22 could be replaced with this http://<domain>/ferry-ports/scotland/south/ardrossan/22

The URL options are accessible from the advanced tab in page properties there is also a full worked example using the 'Training system'   

Deprecated functionality

Because we're adding the new forums in this release we're also withdrawing support for our old forums. These will still work but we won't be adding anything new to them. New users won't even see them as an option on their admin menu.

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