Sitefinity 5.4 - The release you've been waiting for

This is the release you’ve been waiting for

…hands down, bar-none nothing but spit and polish…lots of spit…it got messy over there.

Sitefinity 5.4 (Code Named: cheetah pants) has been released!
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Short List

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• Speed
• CDN Works
• LESS support on resourcelinks
• Detail Item SEO meta support
• Forms File Upload control
• Lists Custom sorting
• eComm, wishlist, granular taxes, more events to hook into
• Responsive per-page\template rules
• Bye bye scrollbars on widgets
• Media library sorting & other missing sortings on content
• bugs, bugs, bugs, tweaks, tweaks, tweaks, pits, pits, pits

On a low level: No major new stuff, just polish, thank you telerik :)  We’re gonna get more polish later, but I’m so happy right now.

Backstory: Why we care

It’s been a long couple years listening to people complain about speed in Sitefinity…we’ve even got special tools to help get Sitefinity from cold-ready faster (will publish it to Git so < 5.4 can grab and enhance, but going forward it’s not needed anymore).  Every release has had performance improvements, some noticeable, others, you kind-of had to trust that they were there.

Testing

However with 5.4 those tools are all a thing of the past…seriously.

Go try it out before you update.  Lets go into the backend in debug mode of a <= 5.3 instance, do a build, attach to the w3wp.exe worker process and watch and wait as the output window chugs along loading ascx after ascx until WHOOP, the site pops up.

This is just SOME from the list…

…App_Web_itemslist.ascx.1351bd86.7oagokfd.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_pager.ascx.1357b9b4.mquawhbe.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_itemstreetable.ascx.4296c685.xxruptms.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_sortwidget.ascx.2e67c004.dq1euwts.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_datefilteringwidget.ascx.b7b41375.yirbwq32.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_telerik.sitefinity.resources.sitefinitydefault.aspx.f785aa1a.fgfgxq0z.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_modulepermissionsdialog.ascx.b0505361.ajsgliyi.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_itemactionpermissionslist.ascx.5bd447e2.qfz_8dnt.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_contentvieweditdialog.ascx.4a90cfb2.vykwzftf.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_dynamiccontentdetailformview.ascx.ebcf054f.igpvrtah.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_sectioncontrol.ascx.22ef0704.ewswsoss.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_hierarchicaltaxonfield.ascx.8040ccd7.yimf2g1t.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_flattaxonfield.ascx.4864e613.tggoa1gv.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_workflowmenu.ascx.1dea132a._pwv4opm.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_assetsfield.ascx.5bf6bda9.fjown5_k.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_editorcontentmanagerdialog.ascx.dc44ba6.5myayl3f.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_providersselector.ascx.33462a84.fsgp1j-v.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_choicefield.ascx.13b68f1f.0sapijnj.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_mediacontentuploaderview.ascx.bed78c7f.fc0jsqdp.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_createlibrarycontrol.ascx.65adbdee.0qobwtnq.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_mediacontentselectorview.ascx.888e2097.mo-7vyrn.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_inserteditimageview.ascx.f794af89.nhbjb5fq.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_htmlfield.ascx.af7ebcd7.cjhzljxc.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_contentselector.ascx.c60e1b2e.nhbstoji.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_hierarchicaltaxonselector.ascx.5195f792.btxfz_rt.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_mirrortextfield.ascx.240ac15.s0-p7umz.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_dynamiccontentworkflowstatusinfofield.ascx.24638bde.zizmqegd.dll’, Symbols loaded.
…App_Web_openaccessdataprovider,6765820b276d45569921c143ff4a8a9f.ascx.f1c4ffbc.fxr2esrh.dll’, Symbols loaded.
I stopped here…there was more

Now click somewhere else in the backend and repeat the same process (as the ascx templates are compiled again on first load).  If you’re more inclined you can open your task manager on the server and see csc.exe cranking along trying to keep up with the work.  For me on a 3 year old PC, from build->backend content list->detail view of an item takes between 2-5 minutes. Just PAINFUL when you realize you left something dumb in the code that will require another Build action.

So someone over there noticed this (I’d post the name but g+ is being a turd and not letting me get to comment history that far back, sorry…Nikolay?), and PRE-compiled all the templates into a single assembly (I think around 800 of them)…so what do we have now if you repeat the steps above?  For me on that same machine 10-15 seconds before the site is responsive again, and any subsequent clicks are INSTANT :)  No more needing to pre-load anything…TAKE THAT ASP.NET.

So go, download, and enjoy

* I might have made that up