What’s New
Module Builder
The module builder is a tool which allows users to create new modules (and hence content types) through the user interface, and enable for them core Sitefinity features such as workflow, permissions, search, RSS feeds, etc. For each new module the module builder inserts a new section in the backend where the module items are managed, and a new widget to display the module items on a public page. A special code reference section is created for the module, thus giving developers quick access to ready-to-use module related code.
When creating a module, users can define the fields it contains and the way they show in the backend interface. The supported fields are: Short text, Long text, Choices, Yes/No, Date and Time, Number, Classification, and Media (images, videos, files). Users can also adjust the layout of the backend sections where the module items are listed and created. Modules can be easily activated and deactivated.
Site Staging & Syncing
(Included in Enterprise Addition, Add-on available for Professional Edition)
The feature allows users to synch content updates between development, staging, and production environments thus allowing them to separate development activities from testing and authoring on the live site.
Sitefinity content subject to synching is: Content Blocks, News items, Blogs, Events, Blog Posts, Albums, Images, Documents, Videos, Lists, List Items, Taxonomies (Tags, Categories, Custom), Pages, and Page Templates.
Syncing transfers items which were newly published or deleted since the previous time. History log and changes since the last sync are available for users’ review.
The synchronization is based on CMIS and uses Basic Authentication.
Ecommerce
Product Variations - Implemented flat product variations including options, additional cost, and SKUs. The merchant can setup Attributes such as Size or Color and create Values such as Small, Medium, Large, etc. The merchant can then create product variations by selecting from the Attributes and Values.
Multilingual Store - Allows a merchant to create products in multiple languages. The merchant can use the language selector and create pages for the product listing, product detail, shopping cart, and checkout.
Additional Backend Filters - Additional filters were added to help the merchant find products based on product title or SKU in the backend.
Other
- Buy Now Widget: Implemented selection of widget template
- Product Detail Template: Added template for product which fits within the left sidebar area
- Orders: Fields can be hidden selectively from the order notification email
Blob Storage on Windows Azure
Content files in Sitefinity (images, videos, documents, etc.) can be stored on Windows Azure blob storage.
- Users can upload files to the cloud
- Users can choose to transfer an existing file or a library to Azure blob storage
- The Implementation includes support for Windows Azure CDN
- Users can apply caching profiles in the cloud
Migration Tool 3.7 SP4 to 4.x
- Widgets: Added support for the migration of all 3.7 widgets and their settings and content associations
- Widgets: Improved the migration process of user controls
- Templates: Improved the migration process of master pages and templates
- Blogs, Lists: Enabled migration of blogs and lists owners
- User and Roles: Users are migrated with their original passwords
- User and Roles: Introduced a new membership provider in 4.x that supports the default 3.7 authentication * API: Introduced public API for migration of custom 3.7 widgets to 4.x (blog post)
(Detailed Migration Module Change Log)
Other
- Social Sharing: Added option to display social share buttons that allow users to easily share Sitefinity content to popular social networks (Facebook, Google +1, Twitter, etc.)
- Text Editor: Added a new section “Administration> Text editor” where administrators can easily edit and add tool sets to the text editors in Sitefinity (RadEditor based)
- Navigation Widget: Added option to highlight the parent and current page in Horizontal mode (Public, 2)
- Navigation Widget: Added option to show the parent page in navigation in Vertical mode
- Widget Templates: Added formatting, highlights and coloring
Upgraded Developer Tools
- RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX - to 2011.3.1115
Note: All RadControls built-in skins, except for Default skin, were moved from Telerik.Web.UI.dll to Telerik.Web.UI.Skins. (Blog post)
- RadControls for Silverlight - to 2011.3.1116
- jQuery – to 1.7.1 (Release notes)
What’s Fixed
Ecommerce
- Products: The product title truncates to 25 characters (Public)
- Products: Updates to images associated to products in section Content>Images are not reflected in section Ecommerce> Products
- Products list widget: In Chrome, products are not properly aligned when product titles differ greatly in length (Public)
- Product list widget: Products list displays full images at thumbnail size instead of displaying the resized thumbnail images
- Buy now widget: Clicking on "Edit" and "Create" template buttons produces no results
- Departments widget: Unnecessary scroll appears when Tree mode is selected
- Departments widget: Department filter lost when paging on product details control (Public)
- Customers: Deleting a user associated to customer profile, results in error in Customers and Orders section (Public)
- Checkout: When buying a shippable product after a non-shippable product, the Billing and Shipping Addresses are not retrieved properly from the customer profile (Public, 2,3)
- Checkout: Deleting a product while the user is paying during checkout results in error
- Checkout> Billing/Shipping Address: In Country dropdown there are two values for Netherlands
- Taxes: Taxes applied to European Union member nations apply to all countries in European
- Coupons: The same coupon can be used twice, the corresponding discount applies
- Orders: Order number increments on declined or failed payment
- Orders: The discount section shows even if there are no discounts applied
- Store Settings> Currency and Location: Going to SupportedCountriesConfig and pressing the Create new button, results in error
- FedEx: The FedExProvider always uses Pounds when getting shipping rates
- Multilingual>Products: Deleting one product translation deletes all language versions of the product
- Multilingual>Products: Making a translation of an image doesn’t update the Alternative text and Title of the image
- Multilingual>Orders: Long translations result in wrongful display of amounts
- Multilingual>Products list: Products show in the Products list even if they don't have a translation for the current culture of the page
- Multilingual: Page selectors on widgets: shopping cart, shopping cart summary, buy now, and orders list widgets designers do not display the localized titles of the pages
- Multilingual>Checkout: Discount amount doesn’t use the currency culture
- Multilingual>Checkout: Order details and invoice display incorrect currency symbol on products listed
- Multilingual>Checkout: Order summary displays "NaN" prices when updating shipping method during checkout
Other
- Pages: Attempt to create a page with a dot in the title results in error
- Pages: Changing pages position in the hierarchy causes problems with nonexistent pages showing in sitemap, circular references, and leftover records in the database
- Pages: Home page can be deleted from Actions menu
- News, Blogs: In section Custom Fields, clicking on field “Summary” and on “Save changes” disables all subsequent edits to the summary field in backend (Public)
- Widget Templates: New templates cannot be created for controls registered from external assemblies (Public)
- Email Campaigns> Mailing lists: Deletion from Actions menu is not working when Subscribers are filtered by mailing list (Public)
- Email Campaigns: Users in roles “author” or “editor” can access email campaigns and send them
- Blogs> Live Writer: Blog posts cannot be published and remain in Draft state
- Feeds & Notifications: When multiple providers are configured, RSS feed displays data only from one provider
- Multilingual: Backend lists look distorted when there are more than five languages (Ticket ID# 483164)
- Multilingual: Group page redirects to the first child in the default language and not to the first page in the current language (Ticket ID# 483502)
- Multilingual>Lists: Clicking the "Read More" link opens the translation in English and not in the current language
Upgrades
- Supported Upgrade Paths: from Sitefinity 4.2 SP1 and 4.3. Older versions should be upgraded to one of these first.
Breaking Changes
See this link for a list of breaking changes from Sitefinity 4.3. to Sitefinity 4.4.
Known Issues
See this link for a list of known issues.