Sitefinity CMS 11.1 Beta 2 instructions
Dear Sitefinity CMS customers and partners, we are excited to announce the second Beta release of Sitefinity CMS 11.1. This is a cumulative Beta release containing all the functionality that was already made available with Sitefinity CMS 11.1 Beta 1, together with new features and improvements. The Beta program will continue from Sept 17 through Oct 20. Below, you will find the details about the Beta 2 release, how to obtain the release, and how to communicate with us in case you encounter any issues or have any recommendations.
What is new in the Beta 2 release (Oct 1 2018):
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Out-of-the-box generation of Accelerated Mobile Pages (Google AMP) per content type. The AMP pages are based on templates, located on the file system, that could be easily extended and deployed. Sitefinity CMS provides preview and validation of AMP pages to ensure the generated markup complies with the AMP requirements.
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Improvements in the search indexes enable you to modify existing search index by adding newly created content types. You do not need to recreate search indexes or reindex them anymore.
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Improvements in OpenGraph and SEO properties.
Available out-of-the-box custom field types for OpenGraph properties. OpenGraph support for pages.
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Available out-of-the-box custom field types for SEO properties.
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Improve website performance in multilingual mode. Your website performance will be perform equally better with one language or with many.
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- Improvements in the concurrent editing of multilingual content enable editor teams to work on translations of the same content simultaneously, because Sitefinity CMS locks the content items individually for each language. Additionally, related content items and related media can also be translated concurrently, directly from the content editor.
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- Provide out-of-the-box open redirects protection. Define whitelist of trusted external locations that the Sitefinity CMS website is allowed to redirect to.
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Improved UI for managing security headers. Easily extend the list of trusted content sources (Content-Security-Policy). More user-friendly configuration for the referrer information (Referrer-Policy) and Strict-Transport-Security, etc.
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Contextual onboarding and help tips for the new content editing experiences
When working in the new content editing experience, users can now benefit from the onboarding and help tips, displayed in the context of the task they want to complete. Users are guided where and how to complete key activities, related to creating, editing, and managing content. Each user can dismiss onboarding tips or skip the onboarding sequences altogether. In addition, Help tips direct users to relevant and related content that can further advance them in their tasks in the specific context. Onboarding preferences are persisted per user.
How do I get the Beta release
Only current Sitefinity CMS customers with active maintenance are eligible to participate in the Beta program. Sitefinity CMS 11.1 Beta is provided to customers via their customer accounts. To obtain the Beta installation, login to Your Account and switch to the Beta tab page, where you can find the download link to the Sitefinity CMS installer and the Beta license file, valid for 30 days.
When you install the Beta version, as usual, you need to accept the Terms and Conditions for the Beta program as a click-through agreement. We do not recommend updating your production environment to the Beta release, nor will we support upgrades from the Beta versions. However, you can certainly use our Export/Import option to recreate a version of your site for working with the Beta version.
How do I communicate with the Sitefinity CMS team regarding the Beta
For all Beta users, we have set up a dedicated email alias sitefinity11.1beta@progress.com. Use it to contact the Sitefinity CMS product team directly regarding Sitefinity CMS 11.1 Beta topics. We will respond to every single email. Also, feel free to initiate threads in the Sitefinity CMS Google+ group for broader discussions concerning the Beta program, which we will also monitor, but keep in mind that response to these threads is more or less ad-hoc.
What do we expect from Beta participants
The Sitefinity CMS team is very grateful to all participants who will dedicate their time to help us validate our new release. This is a feature-rich release, and you may not have time to examine all the new features and updates. Therefore, we recommend that you focus on those (few) that are most applicable to your current or anticipated usage of Sitefinity CMS. We have been in contact with a good number of customers and partners to review the features in the design phase, and we expect these users to focus on the features that we have discussed, as that fits their context best.
It would be ideal, if you, as a Beta user, prepare a Beta report at the end of the Beta period. This will inform us which new features you evaluated, whether everything worked in accordance with your expectations, and whether you have any further suggestions regarding the features. In any case, should you need to communicate anything to us as the Beta program goes on, please use the Beta program email.
We will also be sending a Beta survey at the completion of this Beta program to all of you who downloaded the Beta. Thus, you can provide us with any valuable feedback, comments, and suggestions about the Beta features.
Regards,
Progress Sitefinity Team