Sitefinity 7.0 Beta Released

This is to let you know that Sitefinity 7.0 Beta is available for download on this link.

This build contains:

• Custom Fields in Pages
• Media fields (images, videos, files) in Static Modules (News, Events, etc.)
• Option to Duplicate Page Templates
• Option to Duplicate Forms
• Sharing of Forms Between Sites (in Multisite Mode)
• Ratings with Comments for All Content Types
• Dynamic Image Thumbnail Generation
• Deletion of Dynamic Modules Content Types (created with Module Builder)
• Page Sharing to Unauthenticated Users
• Improvements in Image/Video/Documents Upload Dialogues
• Filtering by custom taxonomies for all the static modules
• Improvements in the Backend of Dynamic Content Type Items
• Improvements in Multilingual Split Pages
• Performance Optimizations
• Azure SDK upgrade from 1.8 to 2.2

Please, note that the build is for evaluation purposes only. Upgrades to it from earlier versions have not been tested extensively. Upgrades from it to official 7.0 will not be supported.

RELEASE NOTES 

Custom Fields in Pages

1. To add a custom field for pages, go to Backend>Pages, and in the right side bar click on “Custom fields”. On the page which loads you will see option to add custom fields of type “Short text”, “Long text”, “Related media (images, videos, files)”, etc.
2. To edit the value of a custom field per page, to go Backend>Pages, choose a page and click on “Title&Properties” in the Actions menu.

Media fields (images, videos, files) in Static Modules (News, Events, etc.)

1. To add a media field (to images, videos or files ), go to the Backend section of the static module (News, Blogs, Events, Lists, etc.) and click on “Custom fields” in the right side bar. In the page which loads, add a custom field of type “Related media”.
2. To associate media items to a content item, go the Backend Edit screen of that content item, and select media files to associate to it.  Associated media files will show automatically in the page where this content items is displayed on the public site.

Option to Duplicate Page Templates

To duplicate a Page Template, go to Design> Page Templates, select a page template and click on “Duplicate” in the “Actions” menu. This will duplicate the page template and all its content, layout and settings.

Option to Duplicate Forms

To duplicate a Form, go to Content> Forms, select a form and click on “Duplicate” in the “Actions” menu. This will duplicate the form with all its content, layout, and settings (Subscribers to responses will not be duplicated). 

Sharing of Forms between Sites (in Multisite Mode)

To share a Form between Sites, go to Content> Forms, select a form and click on “Share with…” in the “Actions” menu. You will be given options to specify the sites to which this form should be shared. After that, a form can be displayed on all sites where it is shared. 

Ratings with Comments for All Content Types

1. To enable ratings for any Content Type, go to Advanced Settings>Comments Module, select the desired Content Type and check option “Enable user ratings as part of the comments”. (This option will be enabled by default for Products.)
2. On the public site, the Comments widget will start displaying content item rating and will allow users to specify rating when commenting on an item.
3. In the Backend>Comments section, administrators can see ratings together with comment. Average rating per content item will be displayed.

Dynamic Image Thumbnails Generation

Users editing Images in the Image Widget or Content Block, can select the image and apply to it a Custom Thumbnail (in the “Image thumbnail” drop down). This will create an image automatically, based on the specified preferences.  

Deletion of Dynamic Modules Content Types (created with Module Builder)

To delete a dynamic module, go to Administration>Module builder, choose a module and click on “Delete” in the “Actions” menu. This will delete the content types in this module, together with their content items, configuration, and associated widgets.

1. To enable Page Sharing to unauthenticated users, go to Administration>Settings> Advanced> Page, and check the “Allow backend users to share link to preview pages” checkbox. Specify the “Expiration time for shared links” in hours (note that this could be a floating point number).
2. To share a Link to a Page, go to Pages, in the ”Actions” menu of any page could click on the “Share link… “.A dialog opens, providing a link to the page. Send this link to the person to whom you want to share.

Improvements in Image/Video/Documents Upload Dialogues

Users uploading image/video/files in the Image/Video/Documents and Files Widgets see option to specify title, alternative text, categories and tags for the files they are
about to upload. 

Filtering by custom taxonomies for all the static modules 

For all the static modules (News, Blogs etc.) users will see newly added options for filtering by custom taxonomies in the right sidebar.

Improvements in the Backend of Dynamic Content Type Items

In the Backend section of a Dynamic Content Type (created with the Module Builder) users will see newly added options to sort items by date modified and title. In the right side bar, there are options to filter by item status and taxonomy (categories, tags).  
In Administration>Module builder, modules are sorted alphabetically.

Improvements in the Multilingual Split Pages

A parent page in split multilingual mode can have child pages in synched multilingual mode. A page which has children pages can be set in split multilingual mode.

Performance Optimizations

• Output cache can be enabled for personalized pages
• Output cache is enabled for forums browsed by unauthenticated users
• Reduced application startup time

Azure SDK upgraded from 1.8 to 2.2

We look forward to receiving your feedback.

Sitefinity Team.

Dear Ivan

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Dynamic Image Thumbnails GenerationUsers editing Images in the Image Widget or Content Block, can select the image and apply to it a Custom Thumbnail (in the “Image thumbnail” drop down). This will create an image automatically, based on the specified preferences.

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 Will this finaly come with the option that - show image in original size opens in Lightbox mode instead of the 90's new browser tab image?

 Markus

Hi Markus,

I disagree with you on this point: I think the original image shouldn't open in a lightbox. Personally I think a lightbox is also 'old school' :) Also, if you have big images this isn't a very good solution.

@Sitefinity: great to see the beta for 7.0. Nice job!

I agree with Daniel...you phrase it like it's some core basic functionality that's missing, like if you click "Pages" in the backend "Why doesn't it finally go to Pages??"

In reality this is just some functionality you want to happen...where others might not.  I sure as hell don't want fancybox loading on my page if I use an image widget.

Notes:

- Default install shows all 3 twitter widgets
- Image\Doc widget is WAY more useful now, custom thumb worked as expected although it would be nice to have an option to edit the querystring options. 
Example: sf7.medportal.ca/.../bindings2.png
If I change any of the settings it says "The image cannot be displayed because it contains errors."  I would like that to not happen, and be able to set max width\height vars...know what I mean?  So someone can't request a 100000x100000px image.  However like ImageResizer the querystring scaling\thumbs are such a great tool to have available.

- Custom Fields "Long Text" only has the option for Rich Text Box, we need the regular "Text area" like we have from the module builder as well....I know I can add it as "Custom"...but common :p
- Instructions for delete are wrong...you should click (drill) into the type, then bottom right otherside of "Finish" there's a delete link.  The instructions are deleting the entire module which has always existed....anyway, this works as expected (WOO!)
- I dont see the role option anywhere for personalization...this is my select

- Why does the Stats script render below </html>?

"Azure SDK upgraded from 1.8 to 2.2"

Will you supply a beta for Thunder that supports Azure 2.2 for deployment?

 Thanks

-Lino

@Daniel, Steve

http://www.marktold.com/screencast/sf_original_image.swf 

@Daniel
- Lightbox old school might be but its part of Sitefinity now in the gallery widget.
- Open it in the same tab loosing focus of site to me is very old school

And I would have opted for a solution that would let the client choose a size to be shown if opened not simply original size

@Steve

Sorry to annoy you once more. My ideas would have been similar Fancybox solution but I would call it out-of-the box :-) www.sitefinity.com/.../random-site-controls-for-sitefinity-   

 Case closed! Please don't hammer this on me! Have a good day.

Markus

My control is to show "Something" in a fancybox when I want a fancybox...not have the script always loaded if I just want to put an image on the page.

 Take the 30 seconds to wire up the jquery to open said image in a popup instead of forcing it on everyone.  This is *not* desired functionality...

@Markus fancybox/lightbox it's not yet there, it is a functionality that is no hard to be done but its not available out of the box. I am also seeing this feature is not so wanted curently. You can vote here feedback.telerik.com/.../101043-image-widget-open-single-image-in-lightbox for it (and not only you) but currently this has only 1 vote.

 @Steve the parameters of the custom image thumbnail size are exactly the same as the properties that the chosen image processing method uses. So indeed you cannot customize them but you can create your own custom processor method ( www.sitefinity.com/.../how-to-process-images-in-sitefinity ) which can just call ours but with different parameters OR you can create one completely custom, with additional watermark for example, without using ours and it will automatically shown in the custom size combobox (if it doesn't have Browsable(false) attribtue) with the names for parameters that you want (only the "method" parameter will be always named this way all the others are coming from the processing method itself) You can also hide all ours methods by putting Browsable(false) as shown in the link above.

Regards,
Nayden Gochev

Hello Ivan,

 I'm having some trouble adding the new image fields to news/events. I've added the custom fields, uploaded some images (both a single image and multiple image fields are added). That works perfectly.

However when I try to show it on the public side of an event/news I can't get it to work. I opened the event item but as soon as I enter the code in the widget template to add the image (<sf:RelatedMediaField runat="server" DataFieldName="Images" />) this breaks the page and nothing is showing up anymore.

What am I doing wrong?

@Rick
You will need to register the following namespace in your widget templates in order to display your related media items in the frontend:
<%@ Register Assembly="Telerik.Sitefinity" Namespace="Telerik.Sitefinity.Web.UI.Fields" TagPrefix="sf" %>

Please let me know if you have any other issues?

Regards,
Georgi Dimitrov

@Georgi
Thanks that did the trick. One more question though. When you select the multiple images widget and you upload at least 2 you get a speech bubble in the image.

 - Can this be disabled? I've already disabled comments for that particular news/event item but it still shows.
- When I click on the bubble it redirects me to some page which is completely empty.

 Please see the attached screens.

Hi Rick,

There are two options:

• The first of them is to disable comments for Images: http://screencast.com/t/PSpLvGsS1BqN
• The other one is to remove all comments controls from “List of thumbnails and overlay dialog (lightbox)” widget template: http://screencast.com/t/7s8zcXyH6F

Regards,
Georgi Dimitrov

@Nayden why the pushback on allowing it to just work?  Sitefinity has always kicked the concept of dynamic resizing on the url to the curb everytime we've brought it up?

 Open the backend config, go to like system->Allow Dynamic Image Sizing...then it would just work for us...what's the fundamental problem with it if as a concept it EXISTS right now?

**confused**

Hello Steve, 

it looks I misunderstood your question.  What I answered was how to change the "names" of the parameters and this indeed is possible via custom image processor and custom resize method.  I mean if you want to change the "width" to be called "stevewidth" for example.

 About your other question... the "signature" is a  parameter which is suppose to protect from DoS attach and flooding our server by randomly generating images. The idea is if you or some other client write an application making requests for a single picture starting with width 1 to 1000 and height 1 to 1000 and etc the combinations are a lot and he can flood not only the CPU of the server but the disk space as well. Because of that we added signature. The signature is generated for each combination of parameter(names) and parameter values. This means that changing the width from 1000 to 1001 for example will require a new signature. You as a developer can use the method in MediaContentExtensions.GenerateUrlParamSigniture to generate this signature for each number of parameters and their values + the image for which you generate this signature.

Also we made a service in ThumbnailService mapped at the following URL /custom-image-thumbnail/url?imageId=imageId&customUrlParameters=customUrlParameters&libraryProvider=libraryProvider which can be used to get the URL together with the signature. This service is only for authentificated users ( so the idea is to be used from a widget designer or something like that and also the authenticated user should have permissions on that particular image in order to generate the signature.. so this again stops attacker from calling the service and attacking us with random parameters.

Also if you want you can turn off the signature completely. There is an option in advanced >> libraries >> images  where you can turn off the signature and from this moment on all combinations of values for parameters will work (but you may be exposed to Dos attacks so the responsibility is yours.

I hope I was able to clarify everything :)

Regards,

Nayden Gochev 

@Steve,
- We’ll have the obsolete Twitter widget. Thanks.
- On editing the query string options:  I assume you want to edit the properties, i.e. change “Width=100” to “Width=200”. You cannot do that because is because of the signature, which contains info on the thumbnail properties. The signature is done for DOS attack prevention. However, we give ways to generate thumbnail URLs with signatures, as explained by Nayden above. Let me know if that helps.

- Custom Fields "Long Text" – we’ll add “Text Area”

- The role options for personalization are not in this build. I’ve updated the release notes, sorry for misleading you.

- On the stats script – we’ll review that .

@Lino,

Yes, we’ll have another Beta in the following weeks including Thunder that
supports Azure 2.2.

Best,

Kalina