Sitefinity 4.0 CTP is Available for Download

Hi all,
We are happy to announce that the Public Community Technology Preview Release of Sitefinity 4.0 is now available for download in the Free Trials section of Your Accounts.

The purpose of the CTP is to demonstrate the progress of our work on Sitefinity 4.0 and gather feedback on the technologies used, the functionality developed, and the overall performance and user experience.  This release is intended for testing and evaluation, and is not to be used in production environment. Many of the features planned for Sitefinity 4.0 are still in progress, and will be made public in subsequent releases. 

What’s New in Sitefinity 4.0 CTP

The major focus of the Sitefinity 4.0 CTP Release is the improved Generic Content API, with built-in taxonomy, structured content, enhanced granular security and new OpenAccess based data access layer.

Sitefinity pages are also based on the new Generic Content API, bringing them the flexibility, features and performance of the Generic Content based modules.

Apart from the new functionality and stronger API, we were able to achieve major performance improvements.

Several highly usable enhancements were done as well. The consolidation of administration styles and embedding of all files into one single assembly (Telerik.Sitefinity.dll) have the goal of making Sitefinity more maintainable and reduce the costs of upgrades and support.

Features List

• Improved Generic Content API
  Integrated Open Access, new implementation of categories & tags (Taxonomies), structured content.

• Improved Pages API
  Pages are now based on the Generic Content API, where each page is a unit of content with its specific properties and features. This will allow developers to have a greater control of pages and reuse knowledge.

• Sleeker Backend design
  The new design of the administration is task oriented and compliant with the latest usability standards. AJAX and RESTful services are used for optimal performance.

• Content Classification by Taxonomies
  Powerful taxonomies are introduced to help build complicated content structures. Flat and hierarchical taxonomies are used to create lists of categories, tags, sitemap, etc.

• Layout builder
  Advanced layout builder can be used to design complex layouts for Pages and Templates without the need for external tools.

• Granular permissions
  Permissions can be set per page, content section, and content item.

• Winforms project manager and upgrader tool
  The new Sitefinity Project Manager is a winforms application which performs all necessary settings of the IIS to set up a new Sitefinity project with no obstacles. The Project Manager comes with an upgrader tool which transfers data from one version of Sitefinity to another and simplifies greatly the upgrade process.

• Composing all Sitefinity files into a single Telerik.Sitefinity.dll file
  All files previously located in the Sitefinity folder are now embedded or handled so that Sitefinity CMS consist of one .dll file and few minimal configurations (connection strings , and so on). This will improve greatly the upgrades and installations process.

• Configurations manager tool
  Configuration settings previously set in the web.config file, are now edited by users directly in the backend interface. The purpose is to simplify the upgrade process and the deployment of custom modules.

• Localization manager
  Users can now localize Sitefinity resources through Sitefinity administration area, without navigating through countless resource files inside of Visual Studio.

• Other
  LINQ to Sitefinity, WebServices, RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX, Web Application Projects

• Introduction Video on Sitefinity 4.0 CTP
• System Requirements and Installation Guide
• Support Resources and Documentation
• Roadmap for Sitefinity 4.0
• Frequently Asked Questions on Sitefinity 4.0 CTP

Sitefinity Team is working towards a Beta release due in the end of the summer.

Please, report any feedback and suggestions in the Sitefinity 4.0 forum and we will be glad to consider them in the process of implementation.

Enjoy!
The Sitefinity Team

this place is just amazing :)

Looking forward to testing the Beta of 4.0. The CTP looks great. I hope the workflow is improved as much as the rest of the application.

Would love to test the nect CTP, Alpha, pre Beta :-)

Any chance we get a newer version for testing soon?

Markus

Hello Markus Berchtold,

We have plans to release BETA version next month so you will be able to test it and share your feedback with us.

Best wishes,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team

Dear Ivan

Thanks for the quick replay. I was hoping for an alpha to maybe have some more testing early on. This way I was hoping to might get some feedback into the beta.

Looking forward to the beta

Markus