Umbraco 4.8.0 Released

This version, codenamed “uComponents”, has a modest list of new features.  You can see it here, http://our.umbraco.org/contribute/releases/480.

Some of the flashier features stem from the free add-on package the update is named after, uComponents.  But really, what’s impressive about that?   You can easily install the package a few different ways.  And to add insult to injury, the entire uComponents package wasn’t absorbed into the core CMS project, though many of the commonly used features were.

A few other interesting features included in this update were features to ease content searches, Nuget support for installing packages (such as uComponents), and a cryptic update to the TinyMCE editor which is a WYSIWYG text editor used throughout the backoffice.

So, really nothing ground breaking.  However, when you look at the issues and tasks list for this version you can start to get a sense of what they’ve done and where they’re going.  This list, found below the features list, shows a bug fix or two as well as bringing a lot of libraries and dependencies up to current releases.  It becomes clear that we’re looking at a CMS build that’s stabilising and preparing for big improvements.

Looking at their new roadmap, http://our.umbraco.org/contribute/roadmap, we see great new feature sets on the way.  Promises like MVC support, better document type inheritance features, logging improvements, etc. that sank with the demise of version 5, are now re-emerging within version 4.  There are even plans and references to versions 6 and 7 on the horizon.

Will the Umbraco team redeem themselves for failing to deliver on version 5?  They seem to be on the path and moving fast.  The next 4 months should be very exciting.