What's new in Joomla 4.3?

Guided Tours

Guided Tours are step-by-step tours that guide users through various parts of the Joomla website and help them understand what the various features, buttons, links and other functional elements of the page do. This is an easier way to understand how a website works than through help pages.

Help can be found in the blue bar at the top of the admin screen. Among other things, you can choose:
How do I create an article? How do I create a category? How do I create a menu? etc.

If you choose e.g. Create an article, in 14 steps you will be guided through all the possibilities/options you will encounter when creating an article.

Besides running a manual, it is also possible to create new manuals. This is easy for your customised extensions or when you want to create specific tours for your administrator who may not be used to working with Joomla.

You can do this via system > Guided tours.

You first create a new tour and then you can add the steps.

Media manager

Other visible improvements can be found in the media manager.

SVG examples

If you use SVG images, previews are now also shown in the media manager.

Creating thumbnails

In the "FileSystem - local" plugin, you can generate thumbnails. The images in the media manager are resized to 200px and this ensures better performance when you use a lot of images. (The Create Thumbnails option is off by default, so if you want to make use of this, just turn it on).

Order of images

It is now possible to determine the order of images. You can sort images by name, file size, dimensions, creation date and modification date. In all cases, it is possible to select a reverse order.

Drag & Drop

In the media manager, it is possible to add images via drag & drop. This is not new but when you add an empty folder it is now also more clearly visible through a notification.

Workflows

To avoid confusion about workflows, transitions are now more clearly explained.

Sorting of search results

The search results of the "Smart search component" can be sorted by the visitor in Joomla 4.3.

In the "menu item" of the search results, you can set the sorting options in the "advanced" tab. You can sort the results by relevance, title and date.

Menus

New filter options in joomla menu management

In the management of your menu items, a filter option has been added to filter the items by component. If you have a lot of menu items, this is a godsend to quickly find your page.

Another filter option is the main menu item in admin menus.

Rebuilding menus after saving

We added the code to rebuild menus in com_categories and in com_tags. Without this, errors in the tree are not fixed when resaving the item.

Selecting URL type as base item

In a menu module, you can select a base item. The underlying menu items are then visible in the module. From Joomla 4.3 onwards, it is also possible to select a basic item of type "URL".

Articles / Content / SEO

Custom fields

Picture list fields

avif, webp, heic and webp2 files are now displayed in the image list fields.

Conditional fields

In Joomla 4.3, it is possible to show or hide a custom field based on a selection in another field.

In this example, I have created 2 fields.

1) "Garment" with the selection for a jumper and trousers.

2) "Colour Sweater" with red, green and blue.

The 2 field I want to show only when "Sweater" is selected in field 1.

To do this, in the created field "Colour Sweater" in the "options" tab, insert the Showon attribute the field with "garment:jumper" (field name of the dependent field : value to show the field)

The result is:

If I choose "trousers" at Garment, the field "Colour jumper" is not visible.

If I choose "jumper" under Garment, the field "Colour jumper" is visible.

So the showon attribute is "field name of the dependent field : value to show the field"
e.g. field:1

You can also make the field visible at when precisely "shoes" has not been chosen, use an exclamation mark for this.
e.g. garment!:shoes

You can also make the field visible for multiple choices, use a comma between the values.
e.g. field:1,2,3

You can also make the field visible when the correct choice is made for several fields, use [AND].
e.g. garment:shoes[AND]type:children

You can also make the field visible if the correct choice was made for 1 of several fields by using [OR]
e.g. field:1[OR]garment:jumper

Subform display

If you use a subform to repeat fields, you now have a choice of two different views.

You can select these in the options of the subform.

The options you have are Standard (Table):

Or a form view:

Auto-fill category

If you filter by category before creating a new field, the category is filled in automatically.

Tags

Several PHP modifications have been made to the single tag view.
The new Router has been applied to tag views.
In the tag view menu item, it is no longer possible to select unpublished tags.

Users

Improvements have been made for LDAP functions in user management.

API

If you use the API to retrieve articles, it is now possible to filter by tag and special-status.

This looks like this:

GET {{base_url}}/{{base_path}}/content/articles?filter[featured]=1
GET {{base_url}}/{{base_path}}/content/articles?filter[tag]=1

Quickicons

In the quickicons module, it is now possible to display even more icons. This is the complete list (mostly also possible to show with number)

Override management

In Joomla 4.3, the override management is displayed a bit more user-friendly. The differences between the original and the override file are now neatly displayed next to each other.

NEL Headers support

In the http header plugin, NEL is now supported.

The "NEL" header, which stands for "NEL: Network Error Logging", is an HTTP header that specifies an endpoint for network error logs for a website. When a browser receives this header, it can use the specified URL to log network-related errors that occur while loading the website.

This information can then be used to identify and resolve network problems, which can help improve website performance and security. The use of the "NEL" header is especially important in case of security incidents, as it can help identify network errors associated with attacks or intrusion attempts.

The "NEL" header is often used in conjunction with other security headers, such as Content-Security-Policy (CSP), Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) and Referrer-Policy, to improve the overall security of a website and prevent attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF) and clickjacking.

Installation

"If you are using an existing database with tables that have the same prefix, Joomla will rename those existing tables and add the prefix "bak_" to them. " This is something Joomla has been doing by default for years, but now this text is also shown during installation.

Command Line installation

Command Line Installation is now also possible for Joomla 4.3 and above.

The new installation method can be started by running 'php installation/joomla.php install' in the root directory of the Joomla folder. The various options are documented by running 'php installation/joomla.php help install'.

Message at login and logout

From now on, when you log in or log out as a user on the website, you will get a message.

Recaptcha

If you use recaptcha with the registration form. The recaptcha field is now shown at the bottom of the form (below the customised user fields).

Bootstrap update

Bootstrap has been updated to version 5.2

PHP improvements

Improvements have been made to support PHP version 8.2

How can I update to Joomla 4.3?

If your website was created in Joomla 4, you can update with the click of a button. If you still have a Joomla 3 version (or even older), a migration is required. You can read more about this in the article"What's new in Joomla 4.0?".