Craft CMS Rolls Out Craft 2.6 & CraftCommerce 1.1 With Eager-Loading Support

2 mins

Craft CMS 2.6 and Craft Commerce 1.1 are here, bringing about eager-loading support, along with several other refinements.

CraftCommerce was only released for the first time back in December 2015, so this marks the first semi-major update for Craft's eCommerce solution. Let's take a look at what's new.

Eager-loading & a New Charting Library

Craft say they've added eager-loading support for elements, which has the potential to drastically reduce the number of SQL queries required to render pages with nested element queries.

Eager-loading, according to Google's adopted definition, is, “the process whereby a query for one type of entity also loads related entities as part of the query.”

Users will now find that the following things are eager-loadable:

Relations via Entries, Assets, Users, Tags, Categories, and Commerce Products fields
Matrix blocks
Commerce product variants
Image transform indexes

Plus, third party element types can implement their own eager-loading support via the new getEagerLoadingMap() method, and third party field types can also add eager-loading support by implementing the new IEagerLoadingFieldType interface.

Craft CMS has also gained a new charting library. We’re using it to draw a big Revenue chart at the top of Commerce’s Orders page, as well as a new “Revenue” Dashboard widget. Craft Pro sites can also start keeping track of new user signups with the new “New Users” widget.

For more of the nitty gritty details of both releases, you can check out the official announcement, or jump striaight to the Craft CMS 2.6 release notes and Craft Commerce 1.1 release notes.

A Colorful New Look

Craft also went to the trouble of re-designing their home page.

I've always maintained the importance of a strong home page and website for a CMS vendor. I begin all of my CMS reviews by checing out the main website,before I even think about moving on to the product.

It helps you get a feel of the vendor, what they see as important, and their level of attention to detail. Plus, it's a chance to be convinced that the CMS you're about to use is going to sweep you off your digital feet. And everybody likes that feeling.

Craft's homepage does a fien job of looking modern, and also gets the job done in terms of telling visitors what Craft CMS is all about. It's bold, informative and colorful. I like it.

For more info on Craft CMS, you can check them out via our CMS Directory.

Craft CMS