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!)

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.

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.

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.

External Reference Code is now supported in Roles, Specification Groups, Specification Labels and Addresses.

It is also now possible to use the ERC to update and delete these entities via their headless APIs.

Additional ERC support for linked entities has been added when creating new Options, SKUs, Accounts, Catalogs, Orders, Shipments and more.

This new feature allows streamlined return processes for both buyers and sellers.

Buyers can easily initiate return requests directly from their order history, specify the reason for the return and request a refund.

Returns Managers, within the Returns admin pages, can review the return details, communicate with customers, and issue refunds with just a few clicks.

Customize Your Checkout Experience: one integration, multiple payment methods.

Elevate your online store and give to your buyers a personalized and streamlined checkout experience. Expand payment options beyond credit cards – Offer Pay Later, Venmo, and popular regional methods like Bancontact, eps, and iDEAL to enhance customer satisfaction. Build trust with secure transactions, all managed within your existing platform.

Perfect for: Marketplaces, Ecommerce & Shopping Carts, Sharing & Gig Economy, Tech Partners & Payment Providers and Crowdfunding.

This feature enables granular product filtering based on custom fields to enhance admin/practitioner efficiency and user experience, so that they can easily find what they are looking for.

Commerce Classic is a new Site Initializer based on the Liferay Classic theme.

The order pages have been redesigned using a Display Page Template for the Order with Fragments, overall offering greater flexibility and customization options. This allows for more dynamic and personalized order experiences.

The new Order Pages now enables the users to select shipping and payment options directly from the order page. Once all required information is filled in, users can quickly checkout with a single click, streamlining the purchasing process.

Previously, the Search Terms card displayed only the top 5 keywords users searched for on the site, providing limited insights. With this new feature, users will have access to a comprehensive list of all search terms, offering a much clearer understanding of user behavior. This improvement will help them optimize for a wider range of keywords, leading to better insights and more effective strategies.

A new version of our Minium Theme arrived!

With a fresh look and style, the new version of our B2B-optimized site comes in as a collection of 3 Client Extensions that, once installed in your instance, provide the B2B Commerce site ready for use in your environment.

Minium 4 is based on the new Commerce Classic Site Initializer, and shares and will share the new capabilities and improvements.

Account Management + Account Selector:

Catalog + Mini-Cart:

This new feature enables users to add individual attributes for breakdown and filtering within the existing event analysis functionality.
Previously, only event attributes were displayed.

Users can select and reorder categories for a blog’s friendly URL, so they can preview the order of the categories in the friendly URL.

The configuration settings for "Autogenerate Structure Key" and "Autogenerate Template Key" have been moved from their previous location in System Settings > System Scope > Administration to a more instance-specific location under System Settings > Web Content > Virtual Instance Scope > Web Content, appearing as the first options after "Custom Token values." These options allow instance admins to control whether structure and template keys are automatically generated at the instance level.