Release Notes

In the near future, we will migrate our FirstSpirit web applications to Spring Boot 4. This migration requires the use of Tomcat 11.

Please check now whether your web applications, modules, or components are compatible with Tomcat 11 and Servlet API 6.1.

In September 2025, Java 25 has been released. JDK 21 is offered by most providers as a Long-Term-Support (LTS) version. It follows Java 17, which is also an LTS release.

The latest FirstSpirit release includes the official release for the use of Java 25 with FirstSpirit. Java 21 continues to apply as reference.

Note: To ensure compatibility with Java 25, the current backend version 3.1.5 is required.

Starting with FirstSpirit version 2026.5, operation with Java 17 will no longer be possible, as the bytecode level will be changed to Java 21.

For further documentation, see https://docs.e-spirit.com/odfs/edocs/admi/technical-requi/index.html.

In this release, PostgreSQL 18.x (reference) is officially supported for use with FirstSpirit.

Within data sources in ContentCreator, columns that reference another dataset via a foreign key relationship can now also be sorted. For this purpose, a new element <VIEWORDER> has been created for the form definitions <FS_DATASET> and <CMS_INCLUDE_OPTIONS type="database">, allowing sorting criteria to be defined for a column.

Example definition for a <FS_DATASET> input component:

<FS_DATASET name="contact">
   <SOURCES>
     <CONTENT name="contact"/>
   </SOURCES>
   <VIEWORDER>
     <QUERY name="schema.contact_order"/>
   </VIEWORDER>
</FS_DATASET>

Example definition for the use of <CMS_INCLUDE_OPTIONS type="database"> in the input components CMS_INPUT_COMBOBOX or CMS_INPUT_RADIOBUTTON:

<CMS_INCLUDE_OPTIONS type="database">
   <LABELS>
     <LABEL lang="*">#item.firstname + " " + #item.lastname</LABEL>
   </LABELS>
   <TABLE>schema.contact</TABLE>
   <VIEWORDER>
     <QUERY name="schema.contact_order"/>
   </VIEWORDER>
</CMS_INCLUDE_OPTIONS>

The referenced query can optionally be based on either the source or the target table. The defined sorting criteria are read from the definition and evaluated in the context of the displayed data source. All other definitions within the query are ignored in this case, allowing existing database queries to be used as well.

Example of a query based on the target table:

<QUERY entityType="contact">
   <ORDERCRITERIA attribute="firstname"/>
   <ORDERCRITERIA attribute="lastname"/>
</QUERY>

Example of a query based on the source table:

<QUERY entityType="news">
 <ORDERCRITERIA attribute="contact.firstname"/>
 <ORDERCRITERIA attribute="contact.lastname"/>
</QUERY>

Example of a query with a language-dependent column:

<QUERY entityType="category">
 <ORDERCRITERIA attribute="name_%lang%"/>
</QUERY>

FirstSpirit 2026.3 supports the following module versions for FirstSpirit Content Experience Tools.

The FirstSpirit REST Service provides the new FirstSpirit REST API as a web application.

The module is currently in an active development phase and provides developers with access to a variety of core functions of FirstSpirit.

We look forward to your feedback on the endpoints and JSON data to jointly ensure the quality and functionality of the interfaces from the very beginning.

More information on installation and configuration can be found in the Zendesk article.

As of the current release, the following internally used software has been updated:

• Google Guava
  Update from version 33.0.0 to version 33.5.0 (FirstSpirit Server)