Release Notes for OpenCms 17

April 9, 2024: OpenCms 17 gives content managers the new app "Date search" to find content that has been changed in a certain time range. The "Websites" app allows to easily export the content of a complete site for archiving, directly from the list of configured sites. An option has been added to hide "sensitive" content in the Offline project that will only become public for all content managers when the "availability" date is reached. The default Mercury template has been further improved, e.g. with SEO optimized job postings, a "spacer" function and marker clusters for maps. OpenCms 17 has also been tested and certified using Java 17 LTS and 21 LTS, while keeping compatibility with Java 8 LTS and Java 11 LTS.

Please note that OpenCms 17 will be the last major OpenCms release that keeps Java 8 compatibility. Future OpenCms Versions will require at least Java 11.

Main new features of OpenCms 17

• New app "Date search" to find contents changed in a date range
• Export complete site contents for archiving in the "Websites" app
• Option to hide contents with restricted "availability" date even in the Offline project
• Support for Java 17 and 21 (in addition to Java 8 and 11)
• This is the last OpenCms release that keeps Java 8 compatibility, future releases will require at least Java 11

Further improvements in OpenCms 17

• Page editor: The "Project" switch is now available in the toolbar
• Page editor: The "Move" Dialog is available from the edit point "info" context menu
• Page editor: The fade animation on the toolbar has been removed
• "Element Author" users can now upload images
• "Element Author" users can now access 'Rename', 'Undo changes' and 'Properties' in the galleries dialog
• Source search app: New type restriction "All except images and binaries"
• Source search app: Improved search when using "XML content values only"
• Explorer: The real deletion date is shown when restoring deleted resources
• Folder with locked resources: Allow "Undo Changes" on the folders itself
• Folder with locked resources: Allow access to the "Permissions" dialog
• Settings: Translations for renamed values and / or properties
• Settings: Support escaping of chars in Default and WidgetConfig nodes
• Configuration: Add filter options for two select widgets in master sitemap configuration
• Localization: Added french workplace localization
• Build using Gradle 8
• Pull request #792 extended shell with multiple classes
• Pull request #784 Remove unnecessary logs to the Servlet Container
• Pull request #794 Code review

Bug fixes in OpenCms 17

• The site selectbox sometimes does not show all options when using a filter
• <Synchronization> nodes now work in nested XSD schemas
• Added several missing DB indices for MS SQL Server
• Macros in <Search>listtitle</Search> are now resolved
• Unused content finder: Fixed NPE if explorer type configuration is missing for a type
• Sorting for display type in lists is now using the rank correctly
• CmsJspElementSettingValueWrapper#getExists wrongly returned false in some cases
• It is not longer possible to create two projects with the same name in the "Projects" app
• Expired resources are now correctly handled in the "Database export" app
• Fixed wrong module version in the zip file name for auto-incremented version numbers
• Fixed issue where the link dialog in inline editor mode sometimes showed the wrong locale
• Fixed issue where switching display formatters in a list did not work as expected
• Fixed issue when configuring a serial date for monthly events
• Fixed issue with NPE in element setting dialog for formatters that do not fit the container
• Fixed issue with incorrect detail page link generated for contents in a foreign site
• Fixed issue #782 where CmsShell command "replaceModuleFromDefault" did not work
• Fixed issue #796 with data view widget
• Fixed issue #768 with detail-only pages not being properly unlocked on logout

General OpenCms features

• The page editor allows WYSIWYG inline editing of web pages and arrangement of content by drag & drop.
• The form based editor allows editing of structured content in a well defined form mask.
• The sitemap editor allows to create new pages and re-arrange the navigation tree by drag & drop.
• Responsive "Mercury" default template based on Bootstrap 4 with many features.
• Headless API for accessing content as JSON from external applications.
• Content creation for mobile devices with preview and device specific content control.
• Structured contents can be defined using a simple XML schema.
• Easy to use "Online / Offline" workflow, changes must be approved before they become visible.
• Link management for all internal resources with broken link detection.
• Integrated image scaling and cropping.
• SEO features with automatic sitemap.xml generation and page alias support.
• Full featured user management that supports the concept of "Organizational Units" (OUs).
• Allows management of multiple websites within one installation.
• Contents can be served dynamically or exported to static HTML files.
• File access to the OpenCms content repository over a shared network / SMB drive.
• CMIS and WebDAV access to the OpenCms content repository.
• Integrates Apache SOLR for powerful content searching and noSQL like queries.
• Full text search for web pages as well as in office documents like PDF, MS Office and Open Office.
• Extensions can be added through a flexible module system.
• The "time warp" feature allows to view resources which are expired or not yet released.
• JSP integration for dynamic functionality in templates, dynamic forms etc.
• ... and many more

Backward compatibility

OpenCms 17.0 is backward compatible with all 16.0, 15.0, 14.0, 13.0, 12.0, 11.0, 10.5 and 10.0 versions. Templates and other OpenCms developed code from these versions should work mostly "out of the box" with version 15.0.

Notice for users of Alkacon OCEE Users of Alkacon OCEE require a new OCEE version for OpenCms 17.0. The update is free for Alkacon customers with a valid OCEE subscription. Please contact Alkacon to receive the new version.

Compatibility with Java versions, servlet containers and databases

OpenCms 17 has been written and tested for Java 21, Java 17, Java 11 and Java 8. We have tested with ORACLEs JDK as well as OpenJDK. OpenCms should run with all compliant JVMs.

OpenCms 17 requires a Java Servlet 4.0 compatible web container. We have tested this release using Jetty and Tomcat. It works "out of the box" with Jetty 12 or Tomcat 9. Others have reported deploying OpenCms successfully on other web servlet containers like WildFly, GlassFish, WebLogic, WebSphere and Resin.

On the database side, we provide support for MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server, DB2 and HSQLDB.