2023 November Product Updates

Welcome to our November 2023 product update showcase, where innovation takes center stage to enhance your Joomla journey. Our commitment to excellence brings myriad enhancements across our product suite this month. As we delve into the details, discover how EngageBox ensures bug-free interactions, Convert Forms introduces dynamic value copying for Joomla contact forms, Google Structured Data seamlessly integrates with JReviews for potent schema enhancements, and Advanced Custom Fields redefines your mapping experience. And if you've missed our September and October updates, catch up on the evolution of our products to stay abreast of the latest advancements.

Advanced Custom Fields 2.7.3 - Redefining Mapping Experience

We are thrilled to announce the latest updates to our Joomla extension, Advanced Custom Fields. This release brings significant enhancements, including a redesigned map editor, improved Articles Custom Field with Automatic Discovery, and YooTheme Pro Dynamic Content updates.

Map Field Editor Redesigned: Elevating Your Mapping Experience

In this update, we unveil a transformative redesign of the map editor in the Map Custom Field, enhancing your ability to manage markers with a new user-friendly interface. The ACF Map Field now boasts a modern and intuitive UI, ensuring a seamless and professional experience when managing markers.

The redesign focuses on:

• Interactive OpenStreetMap: Experience an interactive map based on OpenStreetMap, providing a visually appealing and dynamic platform for marker management.
• Effortless Marker Addition: Easily add markers by entering an address or coordinates (latitude/longitude), catering to both novice users and seasoned developers.
• Enhanced Marker Management: Edit the label and description for each marker directly from the map, providing a more visual and intuitive editing process.
• Search Functionality: Find specific markers quickly using the search feature, saving time and improving overall efficiency.
• Bulk Actions Made Easy: Delete all markers simultaneously with a single click, streamlining marker management for large-scale projects.
• Sidebar Controls: Manage multiple markers efficiently from the sidebar, ensuring a centralized and organized approach to marker handling.
• Import and Export: Transfer markers effortlessly between different Map Fields and sites, facilitating collaboration and data synchronization.

This redesigned is more than just a visual upgrade; it's a complete enhancement of your mapping workflow. Whether you are a developer crafting intricate geographic features or a content manager simplifying location-based data, this redesign ensures a user-friendly and professional mapping experience. This redesign is a testament to our belief in Joomla custom fields and their potential to shape the future of Joomla. We are committed to continuous improvement, actively seeking ways to make our custom fields collection even more user-friendly for our valued users. To learn more about this great new feature, visit the ACF Map Field help page.

Articles Automatic Discovery: Unlocking Bidirectional Relationships

In this latest update, we are also happy to introduce another great feature, the Automatic Discovery option for Articles Custom Field, which transforms how you establish connections between Joomla articles. Now, managing bidirectional relationships becomes seamless and dynamic.

Imagine you have a Joomla site showcasing movies and actors. Traditionally, you create an Articles Field labeled "Actors" to link actors to movies manually. However, this manual connection has limitations. When you visit a movie page, you can see the list of actors, but what about when you're on an actor's page? Is it fantastic if the page automatically displays a list of all the movies the actor has played in?

Introducing Automatic Discovery

With the Automatic Discovery option, we've addressed this challenge. When configuring the Articles Custom Field, you'll find two potent connection options. 

The Manual Selection which is the traditional method of manually selecting related articles. A tried-and-true approach that provides users with control over content relationships.

The Automatic Discovery, is the revolutionary feature we're introducing in this release. This option automatically identifies related articles by checking if the current article is linked to other ACF Articles fields that use the Manual Selection option. Here's how it enhances your Joomla experience:

• Bidirectional Connections: Enjoy a seamless flow of information. The field automatically reveals related articles whether you're on a movie page or an actor's page.
• Effortless Setup: No need for manual adjustments on both ends. The field intelligently identifies and showcases connections.
• Dynamic Content Relationships: Articles linked using Automatic Discovery respond to changes dynamically, ensuring your content remains up-to-date.

To learn more about this great new feature, visit the ACF Articles Field help page.

YooTheme Pro Dynamic Content Updates

This version brings comprehensive updates, making our fields compatible with YooTheme Pro Dynamic Content. Specific improvements include:

• Gallery Field: Support for thumbnails, full images, source images, and captions.
• Address Field: Inclusion of all address properties.
• Chained Fields: Subform support.
• FAQ Field: Subform support.
• Map Field: Subform support.
• Upload Field: Support for file URL, title, description, and subform.
• URL Field: Support for label, URL, target, and subforms.
• Address Field: Addition of the missing city property.

To learn how to use our Joomla custom fields with YooTheme Pro, visit our help page.

Google Structured Data 5.5.0 - Integrate Seamlessly with JReviews

We're excited to announce a significant enhancement to Google Structured Data with our latest update – seamless integration with the popular JReviews component. JReviews empowers Joomla site owners to create directories enriched with reviews and ratings, covering diverse categories such as real estate, movies, and business listings.

This addon opens up possibilities by allowing you to map schema properties to both basic JReviews fields and custom fields. You can now leverage any of our supported schema types to enrich JReviews pages with structured data. Whether it's Local Business schema, Product Schema, Services Schema, Event Schema, or many more, the integration provides a robust framework to enhance the visibility and presentation of your content.

This integration marks a significant milestone as the 23rd addition to our extensive collection of integrations. Visit our documentation page to learn how to add structured data to JReviews.

Convert Forms 4.2.4 - Revolutionize Forms with Field Copy Value

Transform your Joomla contact form with the latest updates from Convert Forms! Our commitment to enhancing user experience brings powerful features that redefine how you create and manage forms on your Joomla site.

Copy Value From One Field to Another

In response to user feedback, Convert Forms introduces the groundbreaking "Copy Field Value" feature to enhance your form-building experience. This innovative addition not only streamlines data entry by minimizing errors and enhancing data accuracy but also saves users valuable time by eliminating the need for manual retyping of form fields.

This powerful addition empowers you to:

• Copy One Field to Another: Easily transfer the value of one field to another, streamlining data entry.
• Copy Multiple Field Values Conditionally: Set conditions to copy multiple field values based on specific criteria, ensuring dynamic and responsive form behavior.
• Copy Field Value with Custom Formulas: Apply custom formulas to copied fields, offering advanced control over your form's logic.
• Concatenate Multiple Field Values: Combine multiple values into a single field, enhancing data organization.
• Append or Prepend Text: Customize field values by adding text at the beginning or end, providing flexibility in form responses.

This feature seamlessly integrates with the Conditional Fields section, offering a comprehensive solution for tailored and dynamic form interactions. To learn how to copy field values in Joomla, visit the documentation page here.

Front-end Submissions Search

Convert Forms now supports a highly-requested feature – letting users search for specific submissions directly on the front end using a dedicated search bar.

Visit the documentation page to learn how to display form submissions on the front-end.

EngageBox 6.1.4 - Bug-Free Engagement

In our latest EngageBox update, we bring you a set of bug fixes that address various issues, ensuring a seamless and hassle-free experience for your Joomla popups. Here's what fixed:

• Resolved an issue where the on-click popup may not trigger due to an invalid CSS Selector.
• Addressed an issue where the floating button fails to trigger the popup immediately.
• Fixed the box duplication issue, ensuring it works smoothly in Joomla 5.
• Resolved a PHP error ("Detection\MobileDetect::__construct(): Argument #2 ($config) must be of type array, null given").

What's Next: Embracing the Future with You

We are deeply entrenched in the Joomla CMS community; we find immense joy in crafting solutions that empower your digital endeavors. Our active development is fueled by the passion to support you for many years to come. We stand by your side as you embark on the journey to Joomla 5, the new major version of Joomla. Looking ahead, our sights are set on 2024. As we start the year with fresh ideas and enhanced capabilities, brace yourself for a new Joomla product. Stay tuned as we continue our commitment to innovation and dedicated support for your Joomla experience!

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