Earlier next month, Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 will be available -March 8th, 2022. It will leverage PHP 8.1 and other essential framework updates. You’ll gain a slew of advantages for your eCommerce projects when you upgrade to Magento 2.4.4, but the transition might be a bit difficult.
Is it frightening? Don’t be!
To manage this, Adobe has prepared a longer beta period to assist you in getting your technology and vendors ready for the upgrade. Besides, you even hire Magento developers and handle this process yourself. But, what can you expect in the upgrade?
The official announcement will release four beta versions, starting beta one release on October 18th, 2021.
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2.4.4 Beta2: November 22nd, 2021
2.4.4 Beta3: December 14th, 2021
2.4.4 Beta4: January 10th, 2022
2.4.4 General Availability: March 8th, 2022
With the 2.4.4 beta programs, you’ll learn where changes are made in the platform and begin preparing five months before General Availability.
Furthermore, as mentioned, this upgrade will bring a few changes with it, so we have created a list of the most important ones for your convenience:
Let’s Take a Peek At What’s New In Magento 2.4.4.
Added Support For PHP 8.1:
Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 now supports PHP 8.1, an upgrade from the previous version’s PHP 7 support. Most project libraries and dependencies have been updated to function with PHP 8.1.
The latest version of PHPUnit (9.5.x) has been installed. Tests and test frameworks have been modified to work with the new version. All of the older Laminas dependencies have been updated to the most recent versions compatible with PHP 8.1. Besides, three Laminas components were removed from the codebase to minimize the number of dependencies.
Platform Enhancements:
Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 now supports Elasticsearch 7.16 and OpenSearch 1.2, which is excellent news for developers who need to create a search function using the Document Object Model from the ground up or add new functionality to an existing site.
Moreover, OpenSearch is now the default search engine for Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 cloud-based deployments. Customers who upgrade from cloud versions before version 2.4.4 must use OpenSearch.
1. The JQuery library has been updated to version 3.6, with the jQuery-UI library having been updated to 1.13.0. Other JavaScript libraries have been upgraded to their most recent versions.
2. TinyMCE 5.8.1 has been added to the list of supported versions. The codebase for TinyMCE 4 has been removed.
The RequireJS library has been upgraded to the most recent version (v2.3.6). GitHub-33672.
3. The Enable Inventory Check On Cart Load option (Admin > Stores > Configuration > Catalog, Stock Options) enables configurable inventory checks on quote load. It is enabled by default. When this setting is off, Adobe Commerce does not conduct an inventory check when the quotation loads because it speeds up checkout for carts with many goods.
4. The latest multiple processes feature enables you to run parallel consumers in separate processes. To allow this function, modify the app/etc/env.php file with the multiple_processes setting.
5. The max_input_vars memory limit in the php.ini file has been increased to support input variables volume for more complex cart operations involving carts with over 750 configurable items.
6. They modified the validation procedure for orders affected by a cart price rule during asynchronous order placement.
Security Enhancements:
This version includes three security improvements, platform security enhancements, and three bug fixes. After the release, several of these security patches have been backported to Adobe Commerce 2.4.3-p2 and Adobe Commerce 2.3.7-p3.
Besides, as of now, there have been no confirmed assaults linked to these concerns. On the other hand, some flaws might be used to steal customer information or take over administrator sessions.
1. The database no longer keeps track of session IDs.
2. Uploads of non-alpha-numeric file extensions have been improved to ensure safer data upload.
3. Support for reCAPTCHA has been added to coupon codes.
4. Swagger is now switched off by default when Adobe Commerce runs in production mode.
GraphQL
All elements for complete GraphQL coverage of negotiate-able quotations are now accessible. Users of B2B businesses can now use the GraphQL API to finish all tasks involved with negotiable quotes. This API previously allowed negotiation flows but not checkout.
1. GraphQL cart operations’ performance has improved. The collectQuoteTotals() method is only called once during a GraphQL request, resulting in less latency in the response.
2. GraphQL requests are now cached using the Storefront API, which improves the performance of your storefront. GraphQL requests sent with authentication tokens are now cached by Fastly and Varnish.
3. The GraphQL library has been updated to the latest version. The webonyx library, which enables core GraphQL to function, has been upgraded to v14.9.
4. With multi-site and multi-language stores, we resolved numerous translation issues. As expected, the GraphQL resolver now returns translated messages depending on the store’s scope.
5. New Relic now gives descriptive transaction names to GraphQL, which may be beneficial in debugging. GitHub-30915
PayPal Payment Enhancements
1. Now you can use Venmo to pay.
2. Customers may now choose to pay later based on their location, not the merchants.
3. The shopper’s country can now be specified when conducting a consumer survey in their native country. The test was previously confined to testing only for the nation where the merchant is based. This change only applies in sandbox mode.
4. Pay Later messaging on the checkout page now delivers accurate information about how much and in how many increments consumers will be charged when utilizing Pay Later.
Page Builder Update:
To improve content accessibility, merchants can now add alternative text (alt-text) to images (Image, Banner, Slide). GitHub-746
Accessibility Updates
This version adds more conformance to industry-standard accessibility standards. Enhanced tooltips, accessible naming and tagging of screen elements, and redesigned icons and buttons are among the improvements included. Users Without Vision or Limited Vision had a better shopping experience due to over 80% of these fixes.
1. Navigational accessibility issues on the cart and checkout pages have been resolved. GitHub-34483
2. Screen readers can now read all relevant form elements on product pages.
3. The contrast for image delete has been enhanced to improve readability for low vision users, and icon buttons have been moved throughout the storefront.
4. The magnifying glass icon used to perform searches throughout the product interface has a textual alternative and an accessible name.
5. The Tab key is now used to access the rich text editor toolbar.
6. On the Catalog > Product details page, the This item has weight select input now has visible labels and an accessible name.
Cart and Checkout Update:
1. The advertised minimum price What exactly is this? The link on the cart page is now clickable and, as expected, opens the information popup. Clicking on this link had previously had no effect.
2. Customers can now place orders without errors in deployments with a persistent shopping cart enabled after a session timeout. Previously, after a session timeout, Adobe Commerce displayed a payment error.
3. Assigning a high order value to a customer address attribute degrades checkout page performance.
4. If the updated quantity is invalid, Adobe Commerce reverts the shopping cart product quantity to the previous value.
Import/export Update:
1. Adobe Commerce now converts the timestamp in the export filename to the user’s timezone following a scheduled export. Previously, these values were not converted, and Adobe Commerce displayed the UTC timestamp.
2. When the same CSV file is imported multiple times, Adobe Commerce no longer creates duplicate images in remote storage.
Pricing Update:
Price sorting now works as expected when product prices are close to or equal to zero and shares catalogs are enabled. Prior to this change, zero-tier costs were ignored during price re-indexing.
Product Video Update:
When you enter an incomplete URL while adding a video (Admin Catalog > Products > Add Video), Adobe Commerce activates the Save button and autocompletes fields. Previously, the Save button was disabled, and no fields were filled in.
Search
1. Price range layered navigation options now work as expected with custom price attributes. When filtering custom price attributes, Adobe Commerce uses the configuration of the price navigation step. Adobe Commerce previously used the manual step configuration.
2. Regardless of the number of categories available in the catalog, the storefront now displays all sub-categories of the current category in layered navigation.
3. Catalog searches in Elasticsearch are now diacritic-insensitive. Previously, searches for terms without accents yielded different results than searches for the same terms with accents.
What Next?
Well, here is the table that provides the schedule for releases (dates are subject to change):
However, these are some of the highlights of Magento 2.4.4, the next release from the Magento 2.4 family. See the Magento 2.4.4 release notes on their official websites for a complete list of details. We hope you found this article helpful.
Moreover, if you plan to upgrade your Magento 2 store and need expert help, feel free to reach out to Magento Development Company like PixelCrayons. We have an expert Magento team to provide reliable and secure ecommerce development services.
