Release Notes for the TYPO3 Cookie Opt-In

Improvements:

• Added support for Google Consent Mode
   
• Added the possibility to specify dependencies between Cookie Groups
   
• Added third party support by making it possible to disable the automatic loading of the script
  • so that other tools, like Google Tag Manager, can be used to load SG Cookie Opt-In externally
     
• Changed default value of monochrome_enabled to false

Improvements:

• Added flexibility to the CookieList plugin, allowing overriding of the templates

Bugfixes:

• Reduced the error log entries when being a target of hack attempts
   
• Added default values to the TEXT fields
   
• Changed the way the iframe whitelist setting is being handled so that an empty whitelist is being handled properly

Improvements:

• Added TYPO3 12 support
   
• Improved the accesibility features of our consent dialog
   
• Added a garbage collection integration for the user preferences database table

Bugfixes:

• Added a default value for the Service Template field and the warning fields
   
• Fixed an error that occurred on freshly installed instances
   
• Fixed a minor error when rendering the mustache templates

Improvements:

• Added a new button in the small banner that allows visitors to accept the essential only cookies

• Added a new checkbox to easily enable/disable the display of the fingerprint symbol

• The fingerprint symbol is now displayed by default

• Simplified the template fields and the external content whitelist field

• Improved the extension start page

Bugfixes:

• The fingerprint symbol now respects the dark theme

• The fingerprint symbol is not being displayed in testing mode anymore

• Added a fixed size to the dropdown arrow SVG

• Enforced an exact match on the cookie name regular expression so that the "oo" cookie doesn't delete the "facebook" cookie anymore, for example

• The fingerprint now always opens the cookie optin dialog even when the simple banner has been enabled

Improvements:

• Changes to the behavior of the external content:

  • Introduced External Content Services. This is a powerful new feature that grants websites the full flexibility to the look & feel for the distinct types of external content. For example, you can have a fully customized consent element for YouTube videos and other boxes for the rest. Make sure to check it out in our documentation as it really brings our product to the next level.

  • Added the ability to set a specific background image to the external content replacement box for each individual external content element, regardless of service.

  • Added new JavaScript API Events with regards to the external content replacement.

  • Added the option to specify a background image to the replacement – globally or individually.

• Added an optional fingerprint icon in the frontend, which allows visitors to open the cookie opt in on demand if they choose to change their preferences.

• Added a new frontend plugin element that lists all your used cookies their descriptive information.

IMPORTANT:

• Dropped the official support for TYPO3 8 and therefore PHP 7.0 and 7.1. It’s time for us to move forward.

Bugfixes:

• Improved the Google Lighthouse accessibility test results by moving the cookie consent box in the beginning of the document and adjusting the "tabindex" properly.

• Added "data-nosnippet" to the cookie box to prevent the cookie box from appearing in snippets in the search engine results page.

• Added filtering for the usage statistics so that bots don’t pollute the statistics database.

Improvements:

• Officially support PHP 8.1.

• Made the setting overwrite_baseurl translatable, so that websites can have different baseUrl’s configured for their different languages.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed bugs in PHP 8.

• Fixed bugs in PHP 7.0.

• Fixed a bug that caused the overwrite_baseurl setting to be disregarded when saving usage statistics data.

• Fixed a bug in the frontend that wrongfully determined the external contents group.

Improvements:

• Improved the external content protection by adding a new data attribute to IFRAMEs to avoid initial requests. (Documentation)

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that ignored overwrite_baseurl when loading custom JavaScript.

• Stopped explicitly setting the domain for the cookie when not needed.

• Added Symfony Commands to properly support TYPO3 10.

• Improved TYPO3 8 compatibility.

• Fixed a bug in the deleting of group cookies.

• Improved coding style.

• Fixed description text for last preferences.

• Fixed a bug that caused an uuid to be stored in local storage before consent was given.

• Fixed external-content-protection frame class in TYPO3.

• Fixed the default texts for the english language.

Improvements:

• Added a hook that enables developers to manipulate the JSON data prior to generation.

• Improved the usability of the template fields in the admin backend.

• Added a new setting that enables site owners to manually specify the frontend domain for instances where the backend and the frontend are on different domains.

• Improved multi-site, multi-language, and multi-subdomain support.

• Added the possibility to disable the usage statistics and traceability.

• Added a Command that cleans up the usage statistics database.

Bugfixes:

• Changed VARCHAR fields to TEXT where it was possible for the field to need more characters.

• License handling improvements & various minor cleanups and adjustments

Improvements:

• Added support for TYPO3 11

• Improved the responsiveness of the backend module for TYPO3 10+

Bugfixes:

• The import and export button are shown in the settings module only now.

• License handling improvements & various minor cleanups and adjustments

Improvements:

• The focus of this release was on the loading speed of our client pages, especially on mobile devices. We now tell browsers to preload our JavaScript and CSS files, which greatly improves the Largest Contentful Paint time of the website on mobile devices.
• We have added the possibility to set a certain width of the browser window up to which the smaller version of the cookie banner will be displayed. We expect that this customization will drastically improve the usability of your website and thus bounce rate, conversion rate and other important metrics.
• For more customization and a better user experience, you can now set a different description for each external content item on your web page. The value of the HTML tag attribute data-iframe-consent-description is now also displayed in the window that replaces external content, so visitors know what kind of content lies beneath it.
• The data-iframe-consent-description HTML tag attribute value now has a placeholder in the template that you can move and customize.
• We added a detailed description for each Mustache marker that we typically use in all of our HTML templates.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed CSS styles for Firefox that did not display the checkboxes correctly.

New features:

• We added the ability to load the JavaScript and CSS inline in the <head> to improve the page load time.
• Changed the SameSite policy to allow setting cookies to iframes from other domains.
• Made the consideration of the DoNotTrack browser setting optional.
• HTML templates have been added to the translation options: This allows different templates to be used in different languages, allowing a different look & feel of the OptIn for each language.
• We have added a PHP command to programmatically regenerate the script files.
• Added new Events and JavaScript API methods to improve the flexibility of the system.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed spelling in the German language.
• Improved the accessibility of the cookie optin dialog.
• Removed multiple slashes in the beginning of the footer link URLs for older TYPO3 versions.

New features:

• Added consent statistics: You can now see how many people have accepted your marketing cookies and can have proof whether a specific user has tracked it or not. We are storing only anonymous data, so this feature is still GDPR-compliant!
• Added a functionality that enables you to specify a version number to your configuration and thus make sure your visitors have accepted your latest configuration.
• We don’t mark local URLs as external resources anymore.

Changed TYPO3 Support:

• We no longer supper TYPO3 Versions prior to 8.7.

New features:

• More flexibility to the external content replacement box. You can now add additional content between the settings button and the accept button. 
• For those of you who run multiple TYPO3 instances – you can now import the configuration of one website to another. (from TYPO3 9)
• Added a new API methods to check whether a specific group has been accepted or not. For example SgCookieOptin.checkIsExternalGroupAccepted()
• You may now specify pages on which the cookie banner is not supposed to show. Very handy for the Privacy policy page itself, for example.
• You can now disable the GDPR cookie consent for specific site languages. Your Chinese or Russian customers must not be bothered with this :)
• We now show the cookie banner again after some period of time if the user hasn’t accepted all cookies. Just to remind him that he is missing on features and maybe he decided to change his preferences.
• We now show the cookie banner again if there were new cookies added since the last time the user has set his preferences.
• We took another step in helping you towards the GDPR-compliance - we now urge the website administrators to describe their essential cookies. There must be at least one essential cookie now. Our essential Opt-In cookie for example.
• And further more – if the user removes his consent for some cookie group that he previously had consented to, the cookies that may have been on his computer are now being removed.
• Improved the contrast ratio in the cookie banner
• Improved the usability in the configuration panel

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug where a blank page was showing when there was no site root.
• The “disable powered by” didn’t work in some configurations and it has now been fixed.
• Improved the handling of the URL paths when TYPO3 is in a subdirectory.
• Fixed a bug where the ‘...’ button didn’t work in the admin panel.

New features:

• The JSON with the settings is now always minified for rendering in the frontend. The non-minified version is still accessible for better debugging on the file system.
• You can now hide the “Powered by” text in the consent settings box.
• You now have much better control over the external content protection!
  • You can now easily directly specify which elements must be protected and which not. You can do that either from the TYPO 3 Backend or via HTML classes and attributes!
  • We have also added a configurable whitelist for external elements where you can specify trusted sources whose content should always be loaded like RECAPTCHA for example. You must, however, still state them in your Privacy policy page.
  • Added JavaScript events to the external content element that allow you to hook callbacks when an element has been replaced or accepted. This gives you full control over how the page should react to these events and helps you make it look better.
• Added a JavaScript API to let you programmatically influence the behavior of your rich page to remain GDPR-compliant in any case or event.
  • You can now open the GDPR box at any time.
  • You can now hook event callbacks to specific elements when they have been replaced by the external content protection.
  • You can extend and override the default functionality to better suit your needs according to your own use case.
• If you are in a subdomain, you can now set the cookie for the whole domain (not always GDPR-compliant).

Bugfixes:

• When you grant consent to an external element, it is now being replaced back properly into its original place inside a container.
• Improved the language support for page trees that excluded languages that were supported by the system.
• Removed the cHash parameters from the footer links of the consent settings box.
• Fixed an error that occurred in certain TYPO 3 versions due to problems with the AbstractViewHelper.
• Improved the recognition of external content added later via JavaScript to childNodes.