Enhanced User Safety and Transparency in Publications

We have implemented safeguards to guide users through complex interactions and provided clearer information about changes in the Review Changes screen. 

Smoother Workflow for Publication Editors

The new toolbar offers real-time insights to help editors stay focused and efficient. We have improved the toolbar to provide essential context, including current publications, potential conflicts, and change history.

Enabling users to be notified externally by allowing email notifications when a new user is assigned to a publication.

Boost Liferay’s platform with drag-and-drop, multi-selection, and cut/copy/paste features for easier field and fragment organization.

Create smooth multistep forms directly in the page builder with Liferay’s new fragment—making complex processes simple and intuitive!

Liferay DXP makes it easy to create dynamic, multi-step forms. Simply add a stepper fragment to any existing form to transform it into a multi-step journey. You can then organize your form into different steps, moving inputs between them as needed. Users can easily navigate through the steps using the step menu or form buttons, which you can customize to fit your needs.

Enable JavaScript Client Extensions within SaaS environments to enhance customization and flexibility for administrative tasks, allowing tailored solutions directly within the platform.

This feature ensures that theme CSS client extensions "just work" out of the box when referencing images from the base theme. It reduces friction in the development process, increases reliability, and provides a more seamless and predictable experience when customizing their Liferay environments.
 

How it works:

Simplified Image Management:

• Developers no longer need to manually handle or configure paths for images included in the base theme.

• Relative paths (e.g., ../images) can now directly reference these images, reducing complexity and errors.

Out-of-the-Box Compatibility:

• The feature ensures that theme images are automatically included during the build process via the assemble step.

• This means that after deploying the theme CSS client extension, image references work seamlessly without additional configuration.

The upcoming Marketplace release of the Liferay Connector to OpenSearch 2.x will provide an alternative to Elasticsearch for Self-Hosted Liferay deployments.

IMPORTANT: Please note that the Liferay Enterprise Search Learning to Rank, Cross-Cluster Replication, and Monitoring applications are not compatible, and thus not supported with OpenSearch.

Synonym Sets now also supports the following languages (locales) out of the box:

• Portuguese (Brazil): pt_BR

• Portuguese (Portugal): pt_PT

• Italian: it_IT

• Arabic (Saudi Arabia): ar_SA

• Catalan (Spain): ca_ES

• Catalan (Andorra): ca_AD

• Catalan (Spain, Valencian): ca_ES_VALENCIA

• Chinese (China): zh_CN

• Chinese (Taiwan): zh_TW

• Dutch (Netherlands): nl_NL

• Dutch (Belgium): nl_BE

• Finnish (Finland): fi_FI

• French (France): fr_FR

• French (Canadian): fr_CA

• German (Germany): de_DE

• Hungarian (Hungary): hu_HU

• Japanese (Japan): ja_JP

• Swedish (Sweden): sv_SE

Administrators are advised to review the Elasticsearch connector configuration and remove any customized field mappings and settings added previously for the above locales from the Override Type Mappings and the Additional Index Settings as now they are provided by the platform out-of-the-box. (Requires a Full or Concurrent Reindex!)

The new Date Range and Range aggregation types unlock powerful search capabilities for your Liferay assets, including Web Content Structures and Objects.

By configuring any date or numeric index field, you can:

• Group and Filter Results: Create dynamic search filters based on specific dates or numeric ranges.
• Customize User Experience: Offer flexible search options with predefined ranges or custom input fields.
• Visualize Data Effectively: Leverage out-of-the-box display templates for a seamless user interface.

Think of Date Range as a versatile extension of the Modified Facet. You can now select any desired date field to refine search results precisely.

Note:
The functionality of the Date Facet widget was introduced under a Developer Feature Flag in LPS-153839 2024.Q1 has been integrated into the Custom Facet and is now available as GA. The Date Facet widget is no longer available.

Improved Disk Space Utilization for Elasticsearch and OpenSearch Deployments

To reduce disk space usage on the search engine side, we have optimized default field mappings which no longer use stored fields. Instead, the platform uses the fields parameter as the default document field retrieval method.

Important Considerations for Administrators:

• Review Advanced Settings: Administrators should carefully examine the "Additional Type Mappings" and "Override Type Mappings" settings within the search engine connector configuration.

• Compare with Defaults: After reviewing the advanced settings, compare the existing mappings to the new defaults to identify potential adjustments. While stored fields are still supported, they are not recommended.

Potential Impact on Custom OSGi Modules:

While most users should experience seamless transitions, developers of custom OSGi modules that utilize Liferay's Java Search APIs may encounter changes in search response behavior. This could occur if the modules rely on specific fields being included in the search response. In such cases, developers may need to make adjustments to their modules to ensure correct functionality.

OpenAI can now be configured as a Text Embedding Provider for Semantic Search.

OpenAI offers two powerful third-generation embedding models promising lower costs, higher multilingual performance, and stronger overall performance compared to the predecessor models.

If your organization is already utilizing OpenAI's ChatGPT or other OpenAI Platform APIs, now you can take advantage of OpenAI's Vector Embeddings capability to deliver semantically more relevant search results through Liferay's semantic search feature (BETA) without the need to sign up for another service.

The Data Set Manager sorting tab has changed its purpose. From now on, the sorting options created under this section will be added to an Order Drop Down that is added to the Management Bar. This way, users will be able to sort by different criteria, even if those criteria are not visible in the Data Set items.

Admins can now leverage Data Set actions to send targeted requests to a specified endpoint. This enables dynamic updates to persisted objects, such as changing a user's status to "Inactive." While the request body content is currently static, this powerful feature provides a flexible way to manage and modify data within your system.

Data Sets now offer even greater customization power. Admins can directly add manual query parameters to the endpoint URL, enabling fine-grained control over data retrieval.

This flexibility allows you to:

• Filter Data: Apply specific filters to narrow down the results
• Select Fields: Choose the exact fields you want to retrieve
• Flatten Responses: Simplify complex data structures
• Search for Specific Terms: Find relevant information quickly

By tailoring the endpoint response, admins can provide a more curated and user-friendly experience for end-users.

Behind the Scenes:

The platform seamlessly reconciles these manual parameters with those generated by:

• Admin Configuration: Fields and Actions tab settings
• End-User Interactions: Filter and sort options selected in the UI

This ensures a consistent and efficient data retrieval process.

On top of that, admin users can also add or map fields manually to be displayed in the Data Set, so they will be able to bring the information back for those endpoints that don’t have the fields properly typed in the response.

The Database Upgrade Report is now enabled by default and offers expanded information compared to previous releases.

After running a database upgrade, check the reports/ directory for reports about what occurred in the system during the upgrade. The new upgrade_report_diagnostics file includes further details to diagnose any possible issues.

New properties and configurations have been added to allow control over the default user created for new virtual instances.

The instance admin user can be defined by the system admin upon instance creation or be disabled completely. This adds an immediate additional layer of security to a new virtual instance.

This update enhances the transparency and accountability of your Process Builder definitions. By tracking modification dates and user information, you can easily identify changes, troubleshoot issues, and ensure compliance. With this improved version history, you can effectively manage your processes and make informed decisions.

Currently, in Liferay Forms, users can customize field labels for ease of reference in the page’s HTML.

Now, users are able to fully customize and reference in the HTML the remainder of the Form.