Upgrading applications from XP6 to XP7

Contents

This section describes the steps required to upgrade an XP application from 6.x to 7.0

This section is only relevant when upgrading from XP6 to XP7.

Preparations

Before you start the upgrade procedure:

  • Make sure you have Enonic CLI installed

  • Check out the project source code to a local folder i.e. myapp/

1. Create a sandbox

With XP 7 you no longer need to install Java separately - it comes bundled with XP.

To create the sandbox, go to your project folder and run the following command:

enonic project sandbox

When the command has completed successfully, the sandbox will be associated with your project. This enables us to build, deploy and test the application.

Using Git? Enonic CLI adds a .enonic file to your project root, consider updating your .gitignore file with the following entry:

### Enonic ###
.enonic

2. Build system

The standard build system used for XP projects must be updated.

Gradle Wrapper

XP 7.0 to 7.12 standardizes on the use of Gradle 5. XP 7.13 standardizes on the use of Gradle 8.3. We recommend bundling Gradle wrapper of version 8.3 or later in your project

If you have installed Gradle 5, from your project root, run:

gradle wrapper

This will install or update your project with a new Gradle wrapper.

XP Gradle plugins

Application upgrade

If you are upgrading an application, you need to use version greater or equal to '2.0.0' of the XP Gradle plugin (com.enonic.xp.app). It supports Gradle 5, Java 11 and building for XP 7. Gradle plugin '3.4.0' supports Gradle 8.3 and Java 17 - recommended to build apps for XP versions 7.13 and greater

This plugin expects application properties to be defined in the app {} section of build.gradle and enables quick reference to the Enonic repo via xp.enonicRepo() shortcut

It is recommended to use latest version of Gradle 8.x as older Gradle versions may not work properly.
Syntax for adding plugins to Gradle may have changed for your project, we recommend the following updates to your build files:
build.gradle sample
plugins {
    id 'com.enonic.xp.app' version '3.4.0'
}

app {
    name = "${appName}"
    displayName = "${appDisplayName}"
    vendorName = "${vendorName}"
    vendorUrl = "${vendorUrl}"
    systemVersion = "${xpVersion}"
}

dependencies {
    implementation "com.enonic.xp:script-api:${xpVersion}"
    include "com.enonic.xp:lib-content:${xpVersion}"
    include "com.enonic.xp:lib-portal:${xpVersion}"
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    xp.enonicRepo()
}

Additionally, this is the recommended format for gradle.properties

gradle.properties sample
# Gradle Project settings
projectName = myproject
version = 1.0.0-SNAPSHOT

# XP App values
appDisplayName = My Cool App
appName = com.acme.something.myproject
vendorName = Acme Inc
vendorUrl = https://example.com
xpVersion = 7.0.0

# Settings for publishing to a Maven repo
group = com.acme.something
appName and appDisplayName are only used for application projects, as well as app config in build.gradle

Library upgrade

If you are upgrading a library, you don’t need to use com.enonic.xp.app plugin or have app {} section in build.gradle. Below is a sample content of build.gradle and gradle.properties files for a library:

build.gradle sample
plugins {
    id 'java'
    id 'maven-publish'
    id 'com.enonic.xp.base' version '3.4.0'
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    xp.enonicRepo()
}
You only need to use com.enonic.xp.base plugin if you are using XP dependencies and need to shortlink to Enonic repo via xp.enonicRepo() shortcut
gradle.properties sample
group=com.mycompany.lib
projectName=mylib
xpVersion=7.0.0
version=1.0.0-SNAPSHOT

Dependencies

The following libraries have been take out of XP core, and are now released and versioned separately:

If your project used the bundled libraries, update you build.gradle dependencies to use the new libraries

Verify

After completing the steps above, you should now be able to test that your build is working, using the Enonic CLI:

enonic project deploy

This command proxies the gradle wrapper, but also connects with the project sandbox. You may also use enonic project build to build without deploying

Projects containing Java code might get build errors at this point, otherwise the build should complete successfully.

XP_HOME

XP 6 developers will discover that the XP_HOME variable is no longer required. However, you may still specify this variable manually to build with gradle directly.

To achieve this, you must also specify JAVA_HOME to build with the Java embedded in XP 7.

The XP_HOME must essentially reference your Sandbox directory, and JAVA_HOME must reference the correct distribution.

Sandboxes and distributions are located in your users home directory within the .enonic/ folder. Also, relationships between a project and a sandbox is stored in the .enonic file in your project root.

If you don’t want to do this manually, run this command from your project:

enonic project shell

Happy hacking!

3. Schema changes

CMS projects make extensive use of schemas. If relevant, update your project based on the following changes:

Form element

The schema definition syntax has been modified in order to harmonize all schema definitions.

As a consequence, the <form> element replaces <config> in the following schema types:

  • site

  • layout

  • page

  • part

  • id-provider

  • task

  • mixin

  • x-data

Example of how to update the site schema

Old site.xml
<site>
  <config>schema goes here...</config>
</site>
New site.xml
<site>
  <form>schema goes here...</form>
</site>

Descriptions

You can now declare description in the <description> field of the following schema types:

  • content-type

  • page

  • layout

  • part

Description of a content type will be shown in the "New Content" dialog, while for pages, layouts or parts it will be shown inside the "Page Components" tree in the Content editor.

content-type.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<content-type>
  <display-name>Article</display-name>
  <description>Content type for articles, blogs etc.</description>
  ...
</content-type>

FieldSet

FieldSets used to require name attribute. The name attribute has no particular use-case and is now deprecated. Update schemas using fieldsets by removing the name attribute.

Old fieldset in schema
<form>
  <field-set name="myname">schema goes here...</field-set>
</form>
New fieldset in schema
<form>
  <field-set>schema goes here...</field-set>
</form>

Content scope

For all schemas in XP 6, the input types contentSelectors and tag defaulted to selecting content across the entire repository. The default scope is now reduced to the parent site.

mediaSelectors and contentSelector in rich text area still allows selection of content across the entire repository

This change is made to reduce confusion (too much to select), and prevent users from erroneously linking to content outside the site. If you are fine with the new default behavior, no changes need to be made. If not, simply customize the allowPath for your input types.

Mixins

As part of the consolidated schema format, the <items> element of mixins has been replaced by <form>. Upgrade your mixin definitions to match the new format:

Old mixin using <items>
<mixin>
  <items>schema goes here...</items>
</mixin>
New mixin using <form>
<mixin>
  <form>schema goes here...</form>
</mixin>

Inline

With XP 7, the <inline> concept is directly replaced by <mixin>.

Update any schemas using <inline> to match the new format:

Old schema using inline
<form>
  <inline mixin="mymixin"/>
</form>
New schema using mixin
<form>
  <mixin name="mymixin"/>
</form>

Display name script

The display name script is used to generate the display name from other content type text inputs. The old <content-display-name-script> field is deprecated, and replaced by a new field <display-name-expression> that supports ES 6 template literals which means that you can now combine field values with static text.

Old contenttype.xml
  <content-display-name-script>$('firstName', 'middleName', 'lastName')</content-display-name-script>
New contenttype.xml
  <display-name-expression>My name is ${firstName} ${middleName} ${lastName}</display-name-expression>

CustomSelector update

If your application implements a CustomSelector, a small change has been made to simplify code.

The ids parameter in the request has changed from JSON string to regular string. Update your code to support the new format:

Old customSelector format
getParams(): Object {
    return {
        ids: JSON.stringify(this.ids),
        query: this.query || null,
        start: this.start || null,
        count: this.count || null
    };
}
New customSelector format
getParams(): Object {
    return {
        ids: this.ids.toString(),
        query: this.query || null,
        start: this.start || null,
        count: this.count || null
    };
}

4. X-data

In XP 7, X-data no longer refers to mixins, but are rather created as specific x-data definitions instead. If your application uses X-data, make the following changes to your project:

x-data folder

Identify all mixins referenced by X-data entries in your project (site.xml or content types) Move these mixins into a new folder structure, where each x-data entry gets its own folder:

Old folder structure
resources/
  sites/
    mixins/
      address.xml
      shipping.xml
      not-used-as-xdata.xml
New folder structure
resources/
  sites/
    mixins/
      not-used-as-xdata.xml
    x-data/
      address/
        address.xml
      shipping/
        shipping.xml
For mixins used as both <mixin> and <x-data>, a copy of the mixin must remain in the mixins/ folder. Simply reference the mixin from the new x-data definition instead.

X-data format

The following changes are made to the format:

  • <allowContentType> config has been replaced by attribute of the same name on x-data reference in site.xml

  • Root element is changed from <mixin> to <x-data>

  • x-data reference attribute is renamed from "mixin" to "name"

Upgrade your X-data references as follows:

Old mixins/my-sample.xml
<mixin>
  <allowContentType>*:folder</allowContentType>
  <items>Schema goes here..</items>
</mixin>
Old site.xml
<site>
  <x-data mixin="my-sample">
</site>
New /x-data/my-sample/my-sample.xml
<x-data>
  <form>Schema goes here..</form>
</x-data>
New site.xml
<site>
  <x-data name="my-sample" allowContentTypes=".*:folder" optional="true">
</site>
Multiple allow entries can be added, separated by |

5. Rich text editor

Image styles

For projects using the rich text editor, XP 7 introduces a new feature called Image styles. XP 6 provided editors with a dropdown option list for image "styles" when inserting images in the rich text editor. However, this list was hardcoded. With XP 7, developers are now able to customize this list with their own styles.

By default the only available styles are:

  • None (uncropped, but optimized image, no client-side processing)

  • Original (unprocessed original image file, CSS style .editor-style-original)

Editors of existing sites are likely to have used one or more of the XP 6 hardcoded styles. Migrated images will still keep the cropping from XP 6. However, to support inserting new images with the same style formats, add this file to your project:

/site/styles.xml
<styles xmlns="urn:enonic:xp:model:1.0">
  <image name="editor-image-cinema">
    <display-name>Cinema</display-name>
    <aspect-ratio>21:9</aspect-ratio>
  </image>
  <image name="editor-image-widescreen">
    <display-name>Widescreen</display-name>
    <aspect-ratio>16:9</aspect-ratio>
  </image>
  <image name="editor-image-regular">
    <display-name>Regular</display-name>
    <aspect-ratio>4:3</aspect-ratio>
  </image>
  <image name="editor-image-square">
    <display-name>Square</display-name>
    <aspect-ratio>1:1</aspect-ratio>
  </image>
  <image name="editor-image-portrait">
    <display-name>Portrait</display-name>
    <aspect-ratio>3:4</aspect-ratio>
  </image>
  <image name="editor-image-tall">
    <display-name>Tall</display-name>
    <aspect-ratio>9:16</aspect-ratio>
  </image>
  <image name="editor-image-skyscraper">
    <display-name>Skyscraper</display-name>
    <aspect-ratio>9:21</aspect-ratio>
  </image>
</styles>

Image styles also introduce the ability to use image service filters, and client side CSS styles that are used by the editor.

Read more about Image styles here

Editor XSS

The XP 6 html editor allows users to add <script> and <iframe> tags to the source code.

New version of Content Studio shipped XP 7 automatically removes any <script> and <iframe> tags from the source code. This measurement effectively reduces the attack surface of Enonic XP. This also removes any scripts from documents migrated from XP 6 on first save.

Iframes can still be added through the use of the iframe macro.

Re-enable support for <script> in html fields at own risk by following receipt below:

Add a content studio config file (com.enonic.app.contentstudio.cfg) to XP_HOME/config folder , with the following settings:

com.enonic.app.contentstudio.cfg
htmlinput.allowScripts = true

Standard Classes

XP 7 renames the standard editor classes for alignment and images.

Changing some properties of an image might result in applying specific built-in CSS styles to the <figure> element:

Table 1. Built-in editor CSS styles
Property Style

"Justify" alignment

.editor-align-justify

"Left" alignment

.editor-align-left

"Center" alignment

.editor-align-center

"Right" alignment

.editor-align-right

Custom width

.editor-width-custom

"Original" image style

.editor-style-original

6. Site engine

The site rendering engine and content model has been updated and may impact your project.

Flattened page components

XP 6 persisted the component tree structure (domain model) on a 1 to 1 basis. In XP 7, the page structure is now persisted as a flat structure in the underlying node API. The motivation behind this change is to simplify searching for component specific data.

For instance, one may now easily search for items using a specific part, or layout.

For most projects, the rendering functionality is fully backward compatible. However, if you have implemented specific code that deals with the page domain, you may need to update your code.

The changes to the JSON data model are as follows:

  • Page (root component) now includes the path field also

  • Page controller field is renamed to "descriptor" for consistency

  • Component "name" fields are removed from the structure

  • Fragment, Text and Image components no longer have an empty config field

  • A page referring to a template can no longer include region and other page data

Response filters

XP 7 introduces generic site filters. To avoid confusion, the XP 6 response filters for pages have been renamed to response processors. If your project uses response filters, you must perform the following updates of your project:

Move files

Update your project structure by renaming the filters folder from /src/main/resources/site/filters to `/src/main/resources/site/processors

Update site.xml

The schema definitions have also changed:

Old site.xml
<site>
  ...
  <filters>
    <response-filter name="bgcolor" order="10"/>
    <response-filter name="app-header" order="10"/>
  </filters>
  ...
</site>
New site.xml
<site>
  ...
  <processors>
    <response-processor name="bgcolor" order="10"/>
    <response-processor name="app-header" order="10"/>
  </processors>
  ...
</site>

Update controllers

Finally, the JS controllers must now export a responseProcessor, rather than a responseFilter

Old filter.js
exports.responseFilter = function (req, res) {
// code goes here...
}
New processor.js
exports.responseProcessor = function (req, res) {
// code goes here...
}

Render mode

When the site engine is rendering pages, a so-called render mode is part of the request object. Until now, the render modes have been: PREVIEW, EDIT and LIVE

With XP 7, the INLINE render mode is introduced. INLINE mode is exclusively used when a preview is rendered in the context of Content Studio browse view. Previously, this rendering would be using mode PREVIEW.

PREVIEWis now exclusively used in the standalone fullscreen preview summoned by the user clicking btn:[Preview].

This change allows developers to be able to treat rendering differently when rendered inline vs a full preview.

If your application has implemented specific behavior for PREVIEW mode, consider doing the same for INLINE modes to keep current functionality.

7. JS Controllers

If your project contains Javascript controllers, the following issues must be checked:

Userstores and IDproviders

For better consistency, userstores are now called IDproviders. If your project makes use of lib-auth, lib-context or lib-portal, or otherwise refers to "userStore" by name, you will need to upate your code:

  • For usage of Lib-auth, Lib-context and Lib-portal

  • search and replace the text "userStore" with "idProvider" in your code.

Content Library

The branch parameter has also been removed from the content library. To connect to a different branch, simply use context library instead

New CMS repo

With XP 7, the default CMS repo is renamed from cms-repo to com.enonic.cms.default. This is done to prepare for use of multiple repos, where all CMS repos will be prefixed with com.enonic.cms

If your project connects directly to a CMS repo, i.e. through the node API, ensure that you are still connecting to the right repository.

Main.js

If you project contains a /src/main/resources/main.js file, you might need to update it.

With XP 7, a dedicated web app controller /src/main/resources/webapp/webapp.js is introduced. If your current project was a webapp, you will find that your main.js file exports one or more HTTP methods, like GET`or `POST.

Split your main.js file in two:

  • All HTTP require statements must be moved to the webapp.js

  • Only life cycle related code should remain in main.js.

Require() resolving

Enonic XP has used the same require() script resolving patterns since the release of XP 5. Strategies for resolving scripts have since been simplified, and with 7.0 breaking changes have been implemented.

The change specifically affects relative paths, the resolver was automatically scanning for files in /site and /lib folders. This is now changed, and the resolver will only look for relative files in current directory.

Verify that that your require statements are referring to absolute paths, or that the specific files are located in the current directory.

Also, please check out the documentation of the require function.

8. Assets and services

Assets and services must now exclusively be placed on the resources/ level. If your projects have assets/ and services/ folders within resources/site/ - their content must be moved/merged into respective folders on the resource/ level.

Old sample project structure
src/
  main/
    resources/
      assets/
        animation.gif
      services/
        coolservice/
          coolservice.xml
          coolservice.js
      site/
        assets/
          mystyles.css
          myscript.js
        services/
          myservice/
            myservice.js
            myservice.xml
        other/
New sample project structure
src/
  main/
    resources/
      assets/
        animation.gif
        mystyles.css
        myscript.js
      services/
        coolservice/
          coolservice.xml
          coolservice.js
        myservice/
          myservice.js
          myservice.xml
      site/
        other/

10. Widgets

The "Detail panel" of XP 6 Content Studio has been refactored, and is now called the "Context panel". With XP 7, this panel is now available in both Content Studio tree view, and in the content editor.

If your application implements a detail panel widget (located in src/main/resources/admin/widgets/), you will need to upgrade it as follows:

Widget HTML

Root element of widget HTML template has changed from <body> to <widget>. Make sure that <link> element injecting widget’s stylesheets is inside the <widget></widget> element.

Old widget.html
<link rel="stylesheet" th:href="${widgetCssUrl}" type="text/css"/>
<body>
    <p>Hello World!</p>
</body>
New widget.html
<widget>
    <link rel="stylesheet" th:href="${widgetCssUrl}" type="text/css"/>
    <p>Hello World!</p>
</widget>

Implements

Widget interface (in the widget’s XML schema) is to be renamed from com.enonic.xp.content-manager.context-widget (old version) or contentstudio.detailpanel (XP 6.x version) to contentstudio.contextpanel.

mywidget.xml
<widget>
  <display-name>My Widget</display-name>
  <description>Awesome widget that does nothing</description>
  <interfaces>
    <interface>contentstudio.contextpanel</interface>
  </interfaces>
</widget>

Widget icon and description

XP 7 supports widget icon and description that will be shown inside the widget selector inside Content Studio. To enable a description, add <description></description> field to the widget schema as shown in the example above. To enable an icon place the image file (SVG or PNG) called by the same name as the widget inside the widget’s folder.

src/
  main/
    resources/
      admin/
        widgets/
            mywidget/
                mywidget.html
                mywidget.js
                mywidget.svg
                mywidget.xml

No context

Starting from XP 7, contents of the selected widget will be displayed in the Content Studio’s context panel even when no content is selected in the content tree. Developer of the widget must take care of that and implement necessary validation/feedback if the widget requires contentId (by checking value in params.contentId in the request object).

mywidget.js
function handleGet(req) {

    var contentId = req.params.contentId;

    if (!contentId && portalLib.getContent()) {
        contentId = portalLib.getContent()._id;
    }

    if (!contentId) {
        return {
            contentType: 'text/html',
            body: '<widget class="error">No content selected</widget>'
        };
    }

    // Further processing
    ...
}

Widget in the DOM

Parameter uuid will no longer be sent to the widget from Content Studio. Before XP 7 several instances of the same widget element could technically be present in the DOM and uuid could be used to locate the correct element. Consider the following way to locate widget element in the DOM:

mywidget.html
    <widget data-th-id="${'widget-' + widgetId}">
      ... widget body...
    </widget>

    <script data-th-inline="javascript">
        /*<![CDATA[*/
        var CONFIG = {
            widgetId: [[${widgetId}]]
        };

        /*]]>*/
    </script>
mywidget.js
    var view = resolve('mywidget.html');
    var params = {
        widgetId: app.name
    };

    return {
        contentType: 'text/html',
        body: thymeleaf.render(view, params)
    };
}
asset.js
    window['HTMLImports'].whenReady(function() {
        const widgetId = CONFIG.widgetId;
        const widgetContainer = document.getElementById(`widget-${widgetId}`);

        if (widgetContainer) {
            ...
        }
    });

Repo context

XP 7 is prepared for using multiple CMS repositories. As such, a widget must be able to determine which repository it should connect to and which branch (master or draft) the content is in. This info is now available in the request parameter.

mywidget.js
function handleGet(req) {

    var contentId = req.params.contentId;

    if (!contentId && portalLib.getContent()) {
        contentId = portalLib.getContent()._id;
    }

    if (!contentId) {
        return {
            contentType: 'text/html',
            body: '<widget class="error">No content selected</widget>'
        };
    }

    var repo = req.params.repository;
    var branch = req.params.branch;

    var nodeLib = require('/lib/xp/node');

    // Connect to repo
    var repo = nodeLib.connect({
        repoId: repo,
        branch: branch
    });

    // Work with the repo
    ...
}

11. Java

Where XP 6.x depends on Java 8 to be installed, XP 7 bundles Java 11 in the distro package.

The first time you use Enonic CLI to create a new XP project you will be asked to create a sandbox for a specific version of XP. The new sandbox will have Java 11 bundled inside the package and you don’t have to worry about whether you have Java installed or not.

12. Testing API

If you are using Enonic testing API (com.enonic.xp:testing), you need to change imports.

In Javascript test class:
var assert = require('/lib/xp/assert');

to

var assert = require('/lib/xp/testing');
In Java test class:
import com.enonic.xp.testing.script.ScriptRunnerSupport;

to

import com.enonic.xp.testing.ScriptRunnerSupport;

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