Migration of GUI extensions from Tridion 2013 SP1 to Web 8.5. Is it fully backwards compatible?

Question

I can't find a lot in Tridion Docs regarding GUI extensions. Are there any known issues migrating from 2013 SP1 to Web 8.5? Thank you in adavance

Answer 1

There is a very extensive topic in the SDL Web 8.5 documentation regarding GUI extensions: http://docs.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL%20Web-v5/GUID-44562CE1-5D81-4E64-B65B-C8BFA0BAA53D, including a SDL Web 8.5 GUI API reference.

With regards to API changes, there are the following topics:

• GUI API delta compared to SDL Web 8 - http://docs.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL%20Web-v5/GUID-A79A03DF-48C2-484C-B0D4-C41FF894E827
• Backwards compatibility in Content Manager Explorer - http://docs.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL%20Web-v5/GUID-9A4F45A5-E933-4AD0-9C3A-486E80135F54
• Deprecated GUI API utilities (SDL Web 8) - http://docs.sdl.com/LiveContent/content/en-US/SDL%20Web-v1/GUID-6F63CD65-5C0E-4B06-AD66-48E9B6D9A946

Answer 2

Yes, some of the Tridion Controls namespaces has been changed in SDL Web 8.5 like below,

so, in C# we need to recompile the UI Extension dll's

using Tridion.Web.UI.Core.Controls; (Used to be Tridion.Controls earlier)

using Tridion.Web.UI.Editors.SiteEdit.Pages.PropertiesBox;

as well as in the UI Extension javascript namespace references,

1. Tridion.Web.UI.Editors.SiteEdit.Pages.PropertiesBox.DrillDownListPropertyPanel

2. initialize event has been renamed to _initialize

So, recompilation and namespace adjustments are required to get the UI Extensions working with SDL Web 8.5