A deep dive into dotCMS 5.1 new features

dotCMS 5.1 has officially landed! If you’ve been waiting for it, now’s the time to buckle down and take notice. dotCMS has provided us with an excellent upgrade, with a string of new exciting features and functionalities.

Edit mode anywhere

This is a big, very exciting new capability.  Front-end technology that you might use to render the content with, can deploy dotCMS headless and still have access to super-important tools like preview, in-line editing, and drag and drop.

Edit mode anywhere bridges the gap between technology stacks such as .Net, Java and SPAs and levels the playing field. It brings the control back to the customers to choose how to deliver apps on their preferred technology while maintaining a slick editorial experience. If that wasn’t good enough, this feature now enables CI/CD process to be adopted however a business needs, with no limitations from dotCMS.

So, whether you’re feeding angular or react, or even more legacy apps such as ASP.net or PHP, it’s irrelevant. Edit Mode Anywhere really helps business users to do what they want to do: create great experiences without having a disrupted editor experience. This ties into the NoCode philosophy, but also adds to the continuity of the hybrid CMS.

GraphQL support

dotCMS includes a high-performance GraphQL API. Minimise your JSON payloads, combine requests and only get back what you need. dotCMS now auto-generates GraphQL schemas based on the content repository, and allows you to query and return content quickly and efficiently.

Scriptable API builder

dotCMS already offered a scripting language on top of the content repository. This scripting language has been tuned over the years, and now enables content delivery at a really high rate. So, using that same technology, dotCMS can enable its users to build custom REST endpoints that access the content repository and information within the CMS in ways that contain custom logic, without touching the line of Java Code.

Field variables

As you know, content type has multiple WYSIWYG, some large and some small. With field variables, they can all be customised individually. Essentially, you can customise any field to create a custom view for content contributors by only showing them the tools they need.

Content relationships

Content Relationships was already a powerful capability of the content model. In dotCMS 5.1, a relationship field allows you to add a content type, which improves usability and simplifies the content management.

Content type designer

Design and create custom content editing screens to better organise fields and improve the content management experience. This update provides the ability to create multi-column forms.

Improved accessibility

What dotCMS has done in 5.1 is given the back-end a stylistic refresh. dotCMS 5.1 has breadcrumb trails throughout the editing experience. It gives you context of where you are, what you are looking at and, most importantly, it can allow you to navigate easily with keyboard shortcuts.

Containers as files

File-based containers are an important step in beginning to really separate the idea of code and configuration from content within the dotCMS system. What containers as files does, is improve CI/CD with externalising the management and versioning of container code and micro templates.

dotCMS is on a journey to deliver content foundation as-a-service, enabling enterprises to build, orchestrate and deploy their Digital Experience Platform, and deliver connected, trusted and continuous experiences. The CMS is cloud-ready, with a decoupled and open framework aiming for the highest level of NoCode in the industry.