What you need to know about Contao 4.13 LTS

The Contao 4 journey

On June 9, 2015, the journey of Contao 4.0 started, but we had to avoid some pitfalls because with the switch to Symfony and Composer package management, we clearly were ahead of our time.

A lot of work found its way into in the later releases, and we became the first CMS to get a graphical interface - the Contao Manager - to install Contao 4 and manage the Composer packages. With the arrival of the Contao Manager in June 2016, more and more developers got involved with Contao 4. At least since the first LTS release of the Contao 4-series, Contao 4.4, our favorite CMS was able to gain momentum and was also celebrated by the general public again.

The release cycle of Contao provides us with a new, best-ever version every six months. On February 18, 2020, Contao 4.4 was followed by the latest LTS version 4.9. Due to the switch to Symfony at the beginning of the journey, it feels like a rocket full of new features is ignited in every new version.

Contao 4.9 was and is a fantastic piece of software and will stay with us until February 2024. Along with the evolution of Contao, we did also benefit from the numerous improvements of Composer. The performance problem of our package management has been degraded to a tiny hiccup. Also thanks to our help.

Now, with the imminent release of the highly recommended version 4.13 with extended support period, we reach the pinnacle of the Contao 4 series. This best of all versions will help us build our projects until February 2026 and again ships with a beautiful assemblage of new features. You're going to be delighted!

But the journey does not end here, our developers are already working on the continuation of this success story with Contao 5.

Contao 4.13 in figures

To start with, I would like you to join me into the world of numbers around Contao 4.13.

There were 268 pull requests and 49 tickets closed.

Furthermore, 1'593 files were modified and 49'335 new characters were added, while 42'910 characters were removed.

We hope you enjoy this excellent piece of software. Have fun!

All articles about Contao 4.13 from the worldwide web

• Official Contao announcement
• Keynote at the release party (YouTube)
• The most important new features (YouTube)
• Contributions to the new version:
  • pdir
  • Redmind
  • Fast & Media

For LTS lovers

If you are switching directly from 4.9 to 4.13, you might also be interested in the new features of the versions that were released in between:

• Official Contao 4.10 announcement
• Video about the new features in Contao 4.10
• Official Contao 4.11 announcement
• Video about the new features in Contao 4.11
• Official Contao 4.12 announcement
• Video about the new features in Contao 4.12

How does Contao 4.13 work?

The official Contao manual explains the new features.

For users

• Page layout inheritance
• Preview links
• Maintenance mode
• Two pages with the same alias
• Link to the News/Blog overview page
• Link to overview page Calendar
• Canonical URLs in frontend
• Preview images for documents
• Custom template
• Root page dependent modules
• Delete home directory
• Image sizes in RSS feeds News/Blog
• Image sizes in RSS feeds Calendar
• Image dimensions in upload widget
• Create nested folders
• Database backup on command line
• Parameters for insert tag links

For developers

• Maker Bundle
• SendNewsletterEvent
• Constants for DCA flags
• Insert tag service
• Service annotations
• DC_Table::toggle()
• Logger service
• Cache tag service
• Custom Backend Controller
• Insert tag Twig functions
• Virtual file system

Contao Themes & Templates

• The extensions and themes by RockSolid are already compatible with Contao 4.13 and also run on PHP 8.1.
• Also the themes by pdir are already compatible with Contao 4.13.
• Themes from Erdmann & Freunde are ready for the next LTS version.
• Cliff has made sure that the Official Demo can also be used under Contao 4.13.

A look into the near future

Update from Contao 4.9 to Contao 4.13

Christian is already writing a blog post to help you migrate from Contao 4.9 to Contao 4.13. He dives into the different steps of the update, gets rid of possible stumbling blocks and shares his experiences with you.