Release Notes

July 2019 – released Sitecore Experience Accelerator 1.9.0

Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA) enables parallel work streams (content, creative design, UX, coding) that not only reduce the time required to produce a website, but also improve quality by allowing contributors to validate each other's contributions. SXA provides reusable user experience layouts and components that are fully integrated into the Sitecore editing experience.

Highlights

Sitecore Experience accelerator 1.9 includes:

  • You can now add background images to any component.
  • You can now define a rule in the Sitecore Rules Engine that assigns a page design to a page when it is rendered.
  • ​​StyleLabs is now integrated with SXA Responsive images and allows you to use StyleLabs transformations to render the most appropriate images for different screen sizes.
  • SXA is now integrated with JSS.
  • ​A Component Wizard has been added to facilitate the creation of custom components assembled from SXA features.

New feature/improvements

Description Customer ticket ID (or other) TFS no.
​A new pipeline have been introduced to extend the rendering of search results with injected models.​​ 312358
When you create a Tenant and a Site, a matching folder structure is created under the Forms root item. 512325 242100
​​​The SXA Razor Views are now precompiled to improve server warm-up time​. 521442 247369
SXA check boxes are no longer shown in the Experience Editor if you are editíng a non-SXA site page.​​ 247710
You can now add background images to any component by adding the Background Image data template to your datasource template inheritance list. 247727
You can now configure Rendering variants so that they are available in Partial Designs and Composites.​​​​ 247754
The SXA Site Manager now contains a button for refreshing the site list.​ 247785
​​​​You can now define a rule in the Sitecore Rules Engine that assigns a page design to a page when it is rendered. 311081
​​StyleLabs is now integrated with SXA Responsive images and allows you to use StyleLabs transformations to render the most appropriate images for different screen sizes. 300489
In Experience Editor, the SXA component toolbox now allows you to filter the component list by some text​. 289028
If a media item is not found or if an item layout is not defined​, you can now show a custom error page.​​​ 286695
The Pagination component now uses 1 based indexing rather than 0 based indexing and this gives more user-friendly URLs.​​ 517256, 518345, 524256, 530520 257567
You can now use the Sitemap Index and the Structure Sitemap simultaneously on a single site​. 516115 257372
The Image component no longer renders a link around an image if the link was not specified in the data source.​​​ 516127 255497
SXA is now integrated with JSS and you can create tenants and sites that can be consumed by JSS​. 252753
​​​ECMAScript 6 support has been introduced by adding a Sources folder to a theme. It can be down-compiled to ECMAScript 5 with the tools that are provided. 250859
​​Canonical URL meta rendering has been added that allows you to add canonical URLs for pages that can appear on multiple sites. 250729
​A Component Wizard has been added to facilitate the creation of custom components assembled from SXA features. 247849

Resolved issues

The following issues have been fixed:

Description Customer ticket ID (or other) TFS no.
In the robots.txt file, Allow and Disallow entries are not updated correctly based on user input. ​​ 517065, 517907 257288
The Link List renders an empty tag when the Title field is empty​. CS0158095, CS0168099, CS0164922 328501, 349511
The Illegal recursion detected: GetModel message may appear after a server is restart​​ed. 519978, 512321, 521645, 523168, 526210, 526213, 529755 247244
If the Enable Preview setting disabled on a website, the website does not appear on a content delivery server.​​​ 518435 287750
In the Wireframe theme​ on Bootstrap 4, if you place rich text in a nested placeholder, it is aligned incorrectly. 290172
​​​If the Asset Optimizer is disabled and the current theme contains over 100 CSS files, only some of the theme CSS file links are rendered on a page. 291496
SXA does not respect the RequestErrors.UseServerSideRedirect setting in the Sitecore.config file.​​ 518917 292799
In a paused YouTube video, if you click the Share icon, the video resumes playback. 520375 296541
The Publishing Service does not publish in SXA. ​​517665, 519554, 524074, 524313 286762
Data sources that are set in the Final Renderings field of composite sections are rendered incorrectly.​​​ 515779 296704
​​An invalid email address causes content ​to be displayed rather than the validation message. 520025, 527928 296726
Sitecore forms cannot be embedded in SXA overlays. 520188, 525335 296772
If the Maps theme is not added to the inheritance structure of the site theme, a JavaScript error is displayed for the SXA search components.​​​ 520151 297240
If you add local promo renderings to the main placeholder, the Field control has failed to render: Guid should contain 32 digits... exception is displayed. 520474, 521822 297944
If the search phrase contains an ampersand character, the search box does not work.​​​ 521209 299324
​​Creative Exchange exports HTML with optimized rather than expanded CSS and JS. 522375, 522410, 522511, 523269, 528468 301730
SXA data source tokens don't work with the Component variant renderer. 522622 302117
​​​The SXA taxonomy TagTokenBase.BuildModel() method uses the tag name instead of the configured field value. 522846 303709
​​SXA search results use the default link provider rather than the SXA link provider. 522596 304251
SxaItemCrawler does not remove deleted documents from the sitecore_sxa_web_index during publishing operations. 521125, 522988, 523114, 527263, 528197, 529819 304700
​​​If Show predictions is selected in the Search Box properties, a NullReferenceException is thrown. 525769 305143
When you use Azure Search, the Facet service fails if there are more than 50 items in the result. 522975, 528274 305246
​​​The name of the XA.Foundation.Search.SolrCloud.SwitchOnRebuild configuration file does not match the content of the file. 523360 305546
​​The SXA Creative Exchange Protected Theme checkbox may not work if folder names at the same level are substrings of each other. 522923 305902
The Responsive image variant component creates invalid HTML markup that contains an additional </img> tag. 523342 306103
Users are unable to edit multiple snippets on a page.​​​ 523372 306223
​​The Carousel shows an error if you change the rendering variant of the embedded Page Content rendering. 532519 306382
The $sharedSites token does not show the correct root location for the DropTree field. 523445 306406
If two composites of the same type are placed on a page, changing the data source in the composite rendering causes the embedded renderings to disappear.​​​ 524802 309589
If an SXAContent computed index field contains aggregated page content, it creates an unnecessary performance overhead. 309722
​​​Bing map does not work on a website that is configured to use the HTTPS protocol because of a Mixed Content error. 525268 309922
​​Creative Exchange export operations are interrupted if links contain invalid Href attributes. 524464 309955
The performance of the Page rendering process is poor due to excessive calls to the Template Engine. 521442 310071
​​​The performance of the Page rendering process is poor because the Asset Links Generator makes excessive use of the assetService pipeline. 521442 310089
​​If you enter a question mark in the value of the Data attributes for a rendering variant, it breaks the HTML markup. 825403 311853
If the name of a site contains a dash, rendering variants with query elements that are used in a Partial Design fail to render data. 312574
​​​Trying to add composite data source sub-items produces a dialog with the incorrect tree item selected. 525618 313329
The data source of a snippet disappears when you add the snippet to the 10th dynamic placeholder. 525812 315409
The enumeration of the Link Wrapper Options field is empty.​​​ 529336, 530386 326111
​​If a page has an empty __Renderings field, the upgrade script fails. 528248 324153
When you export a site through Creative Exchange, language names are incorrectly cut from the URLs. 528470 323170
​​​Nested snippets do not have the correct data source value when the parent snippet is automatically copied using the data source behaviour functionality. 526502 318089
If you install SXA, the Content Testing functionality cannot be disabled.​​ 524776, 526398 316998
If you define a rendering variant field and use it on a mobile device, an infinite recursion can occur when the page is loaded. 526602, 537373, 536173, 534593, 532436, 530186, 527534 315324