What's new in Joomla 4.3?

Guided Tours

Guided Tours are step-by-step tours that take users through different parts of the Joomla website and help them understand what the different features, buttons, links and other functional elements of the page do. This is an easier way to understand how a Web site 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, then in 14 steps you will be guided through all the possibilities / options you will encounter when creating an article.

Besides running a tutorial it is also possible to create new tutorials. This is easy for your custom 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 through 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, the examples are now also shown in the media manager.

Creating thumbnails

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

Order of images

It is now possible to determine the order of images. You can sort the 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" in Joomla 4.3 can be sorted by the visitor.

In the search results "menu item" 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 then 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 will not be 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 it is also possible to select a base 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 sweater and pants.

2) "Sweater Color" 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 "Color Sweater" in the tab "options" insert the Showon attribute the field with "garment:sweater" (field name of the dependent field : value to show the field)

The result is:

If I choose "pants" at Garment, the field "Color sweater" is not visible.

If I choose "sweater" under Garment, the field "Color sweater" 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 when the choice "shoes" is not made, use an exclamation mark.
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 multiple fields have the correct choice, use [AND] to do this.
e.g. garment:shoes[AND]type:children

You can also make the field visible when the correct choice is made for 1 of more fields, use [OR]
e.g. field:1[OR]garment:sweater

Subform display

If you use a subform to repeat fields, you now have the choice of 2 different views.

You can select these in the options of the subform.

The options you have are Standard (Table):

Or a form view:

Fill in category automatically

If you filter on category before creating a new field then the category will be filled in automatically.

Tags

Several PHP modifications have been made to the single tag view.
The new Router has been applied to the 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 a bit more user-friendly displayed. The differences between the original and the override file are now neatly side by side.

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 Web site. When a browser receives this header, it can use the specified URL to log network-related errors that occur while loading the Web site.

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 the case of security incidents because it can help identify network errors associated with attacks or attempted intrusions.

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 Web site and prevent attacks such as cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF) and clickjacking.

Installation

"If you use 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 done 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 folder of the Joomla directory. The different 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 will now be displayed at the bottom of the form (below the custom 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) then a migration is required. You can read more about this in the article"What's new in Joomla 4.0?"

Need help updating to Joomla 4?

Joomla upgrade service