Roadmap update November 2023

Roadmap
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Hello everyone, here is an update to our roadmap. :star_struck:
Our primary focus remains on Advanced CMS features and The Developer journey.

Project-oriented approach :nerd_face:

We have aligned our development efforts with a project-based model by grouping functionality, improvements, and documentation across different products. Below we list the major projects that are currently in progress and will soon be completed. We hope you like it!

In progress

Developer Getting Started - Milestone 1 :man_technologist:

Over the past year, our emphasis has been on simplifying the introduction process to Enonic XP, making it more accessible and user-friendly for developers. This effort has resulted in releases spanning various product and documentation enhancements. The remaining tasks are:

  • Sandbox templates - Bootstrap sandboxes with apps from CLI
  • Sandbox configuration - List sandbox configuration directory and files
  • Developer portal navigation - Breadcrumbs and search adjustments
  • QueryDSL examples - Included in new version of Developer 101 docs

Sandbox improvements will be released with XP 7.14 - late 2023.

Documentation and dev portal improvements ETA november.

API first :gear:

We are turning Enonic XP into a highly dynamic Digital Experience back-end by making APIs a first class citizen of the platform. This means that building or extending APIs will be as natural as building websites with XP. What you can expect:

  • New endpoint: /api
  • Implement your own APIs that extend the API endpoint i.e. /api/com.example.myapp
  • New media API - access media across all repos
  • New global Guillotine API - access all content from a single endpoint
    • Extend with 3rd party apps and “guillotine.js” controllers
    • Rewrite marketplace apps to extend Guillotine API
  • Service accounts - key-based authentication for system userstore

These features (and more) will be released in XP8.

Cloud - Free plan :sun_behind_small_cloud:

We are converting our current cloud trials into a Free plan, as well as introducing several improvements to UI and stability. What you can expect:

  • Claim your free forever account
  • Run XP instances for development and testing
  • Max 5Gb storage
  • Instances will auto-hibernate

Release late 2023.

K8S operator :video_game:

We are in the final stages of wrapping up the Enonic XP operator for Kubernetes. What you can expect:

  • Deploy to your K8S cluster
  • Run and manage XP instances via custom resources
  • Manage and deploy apps
  • Manage configuration
  • Will be available under the Enonic License

Release late 2023.

Next.XP 3.0 :3rd_place_medal:

This is another iteration on the Next.js framework.

  • Support the Next.js /app routing model
  • Updates to cache revalidation

ETA late 2023

Coming up…

Preview 2.0 :mag_right:

Content Studio preview has so far been provided by the site engine, which gives some limitations when previewing external rendering engines. What to expect:

  • New widget type for previews
  • Build your own preview widgets - optimized for your front-end
  • Next.XP app will be updated to use the new preview
  • New standard JSON preview

Will be released in Content Studio 6 together with XP8.

AI assistant :robot:

We’re diving into the world of AI, and will integrate ChatGPT directly into Content Studio. More details will be revealed later.

XP8 Core :heartbeat:

Our main focus has been to limit the amount of breaking changes, and make it as smooth as possible to upgrade. The project scope has also been limited to a minimum. We are planning to bring more improvements and functionality in future XP8 feature releases. What to expect (in addition to the already mentioned projects):

  • Native Ecmascript 2023 support (GraalJS as the default JS engine)
  • Node patching - modify without creating new versions
  • Change permissions without creating new versions
  • Improved navigation in Users app and XP menu
  • Code: Renaming of Xdata, Mixins, and site/ folder
  • Java 21 and dependencies updates
  • Update of documentation

ETA has not been confirmed yet, but will be our primary focus after completing the above projects.

Workflow 2.0 :white_check_mark:

Content Studio has been offering basic workflow capabilities through permissions, issues, and the publishing wizard. With this project, we will add customer requested features, and polish and improve almost every aspect of it. What to expect:

  • Pluggable checks for content readiness
  • Per item review from issue
  • Support for scheduling modified items
  • Rich text and attachments in comments
  • Improved issues UI

That’s it for now! :clapper:

If you have comments or suggestions for improvements, please post in the Features category, or use our support system (for subscription customers only).

8 Likes
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Node patching - modify without creating new versions

This sounds very useful for when we need to change data structures in XML-files. :+1:

2 Likes
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Will Node patching be used internally in XP for login? So that each login doesn’t create a new file with only a node containing last login timestamp?

1 Like
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Maybe.
Also, this problem is already partly mitigated by the vacuum function in XP that cleans away old unused versions.

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Perhaps still part of the roadmap, but for years the biggest annoyance in Content Studio is that when session times out, all tabs that we have open (which are many) return to the login-screen and we loose all context. The back button doesn’t work to return to the page/view I had. “Soft logout - Modal dialog instead of redirect”, or at least keep a ?redirect=xx part in the URL so pages return to where they were after login. Usually you have CS open, scrolled to a certain point in the content tree, with a few open nodes, and you have 2-3 tabs open for editing different contents, all these return to the login-screen on timeout.

2 Likes