Sitefinity Release Notes: May 29, 2024
Tarah Dykeman May 29, 2024Greetings Web Community!
We are pleased to share the following updates for our May 29 Sitefinity release, along with an announcement about Google Analytics and a reminder about upcoming web accessibility law requirements:
Updates to Strategic Projects
- Google Translate Embed: A new widget has been released to support website translation needs. You can add the Google Translate Embed widget to a page to allow site visitors to select their preferred language. Check out this AtWeb page about the new Google Translate Embed widget.
- Siteimprove Plugin: A Siteimprove plugin has been added to Sitefinity. This means that you will be able to review accessibility and other Siteimprove issues directly from Sitefinity as you’re editing pages. Check out this AtWeb page to learn more about the Siteimprove plugin.
Enhancements to Current Functionality
- Google Tag Manager IDs: In page title & properties, the Google Tag Manager container IDs for your domain will automatically populate if this field is left blank or if the ID is missing from a parent page.
- Web Bios: The website link field in web bios will open in a new tab/window (as opposed to the same one) to support user experience best practices.
Accessibility Improvements
- Captcha: Captcha utilization on some forms/pages has been updated with aria to improve the accessibility experience for assistive technologies. A Siteimprove flag with captcha image alt text has also been addressed.
- Colorado School of Public Health logo: The Colorado School of Public Health website logo has been updated to align with color contrast requirements.
- Document Links/Lists: Font sizes for document icons (PDF, DOCX, etc.) have been slightly increased and backgrounds have been darkened to meet web accessibility requirements.
- Highlight Box: Links in the highlight box widget templates have been updated to blue to resolve color contrast issues.
- Image Alt Text: When uploading images to Sitefinity, you will now be required to add alternative text (or alt text) to images so that they meet web accessibility requirements. Learn more about alternative text and decorative images.
- Image Gallery: A title has been added to the fullscreen button to resolve a Siteimprove issue.
- Interactive Elements: Size and spacing has been updated for interactive elements to resolve a Siteimprove issue.
- Link Spacing: Line heights for links have been increased to resolve a Siteimprove issue.
- Link Underlines: CU Denver’s CE Diploma page now has underlined links to align with web accessibility requirements.
- Research Lifecycle Widget: Tab roles were updated to address a Siteimprove flag.
- Side Navigation: Empty header fix has been implemented to resolve a Siteimprove flag.
- Video Captions: You can now upload caption files when uploading videos to Sitefinity. Please keep in mind that our recommendation is to host videos outside of Sitefinity (for example, in YouTube which provides automatic captioning) and then embed the video on your Sitefinity page. Check out this AtWeb page about video captions!
- Web Bio Widget: An issue has been fixed where an empty <ul> would appear if there was no department content filled out. This will resolve a Siteimprove flag.
Noteworthy Bug Fixes
- Breadcrumb Navigation: There was an additional caret displayed in the breadcrumb navigation for individual pages. This additional caret has been removed.
- Events, Research and Creative Projects: An issue has been fixed with Google indexing automatically generated detail page URLs that shouldn’t exist given filters applied to the widget. Now, when a user or Google visits a detail page that doesn’t meet the filtering criteria, it will redirect to /404.
Additional Announcements
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) turns 1 year old!
As of May 1, we now have a full year’s worth of GA4 data from May 1, 2023 to 2024. For historical reporting, your GA3 Looker Studio dashboards will continue to work until June 30, 2024, when they will be retired. Going forward, please consult your GA4 Looker Studio dashboards for your department’s web analytics. If you have any questions, please submit a ticket to our Web Analytics Support Specialist, Scarlet Bowen, at websitehelp@ucdenver.edu. You can visit this page to learn more about our Web Analytics Services.
Reminder: Action Required for Web Accessibility Compliance
The new Colorado accessibility law, HB21-1110, affects university websites and will go into effect July 1, 2024. This means that university website owners/content managers must ensure your website content meets the minimum web accessibility standards before July 1. Learn how to meet accessibility standards.