OXID eShop 7.4.0

On December 18, 2025 the OXID eShop 7.4 was finally released and represents a big step for our Content & Media Bundle. Nevertheless, other improvements for customers, sellers, and developers were implemented on the way from 7.3 to OXID eShop 7.4. Now we want to highlight the most important changes.

For a short and more technical overview of the changes, please see our Release Notes.

A Big Step for Content and Media

Our Content & Media Bundle consists of three extensions that are preinstalled in the OXID eShop:

  • Media Library

  • WYSIWYG Editor

  • Visual CMS (Enterprise and Professional Edition only)

All three extensions got major updates with new features that interact between each other.

Media IDs Moving In

Media files are integrated into a webpage using their corresponding path in the file system. This works fine until you change the path by moving the file into another directory or rename it. This is why we introduced media IDs to replace the hard-coded paths.

The new ID-based media file handling can find a file by its unique identifier, which always stays the same. Therefore, you can rename and move the files as much as you want. Both the WYSIWYG Editor and the Visual CMS use the corresponding media IDs and translate them to the always up-to-date file path and name.

In addition, the only reason a media file might not be found at all is if you removed the file completely. In that case, you can now define a default media item [de] in the module settings of the Media Library. You can decide to add something that fits most of the time or simply a placeholder image that tells the media is missing at this section.

Alternative Text Ensures Inclusion

The alt text or alt attribute [de] (short for alternative text) is a very important piece of information that might be overlooked by the typical visitor. Actually, it can’t be seen directly, but it becomes important when it comes to people with visual impairment. They must use screen readers to receive all the information a website consists of. To provide the full experience, pictures and other media are described using the alternative text. This ensures inclusion of all users.

Besides the important fact of an accessible website for every user, the alt attributes can also enhance the information that crawlers are collecting. This can improve SEO related topics.

Timed Widgets for Automation

Do you want to publish a special promotion exactly at 3 o’clock in the morning when you are in bed? Or is it just that you want to set a content piece active in February 2026, but it’s three months until then and you might forget this task? No problem with the new activity feature [de] for time based widgets in Visual CMS 9.

Every widget has now a dedicated activity setting which allows for predefining its visibility. This gives you the option to publish or modify information at times of the day when you are not available to do it manually by simply setting up the start time to display the widget. Sure, you can also define an end time. Furthermore, you can invert the timeframe to remove the widget during a configured time period.

The OXID Development Team already has planned to extend this feature in future updates to provide you with an even more detailed option set to further automate your content.

Quality of Life Improvements

The Visual CMS 9 introduces some benefits for creating content:

  • The new row element allows for more complex layouts combining rows with columns and arranging the widgets inside them.

  • Rows and columns adjust their height automatically from now on. You no longer have to worry about it. Just add your widgets.

  • A dedicated button to create a new content improves your workflow.

Modernization of the Foundation

You might not see it directly, but the extensions of the Content & Media Bundle, especially Visual CMS, were updated quite far if you have a look into the source code. Our Development Team refactored several code sections and split oversized files into more maintainable pieces. The most significant change is the switch from the parse-style storage structure to the tree-style structure (see also the additional developer information). We also managed to update the administration area workspace of Visual CMS to Bootstrap 5.

All these changes increase maintainability and ensure good stability. However, we won’t stop now. The next major update, Visual CMS 10, will come with more architectural changes to complete the modernization. On one hand, this allows us to optimize and extend the feature set of Visual CMS more easily. But, on the other hand, it also improves the technical base for all the developers out there who create custom widgets and other tailored solutions.

Better User Experience

In OXID eShop 7.4, we addressed requested improvements of the user interface and the customer’s experience when visiting the shop. This means we updated some descriptions and corrected translations. In addition, we optimized notifications for users. The submission confirmation of the contact form is now displayed in a more visible way. Also, if you enter a wrong password when changing your email address, you will no longer be notified by a misleading message. One of the most important improvements is the stability of the checkout process. Now, it is no longer a problem when going back with the browser’s back button. The checkout will continue as expected afterwards.

Other sections were also updated. If you want all the details, please see the sections Tweaks & Bugfixes and Packages in our Release Notes.

Vite Throughout the Shop

Back in OXID eShop 7.3, we introduced the blazing fast frontend build tool Vite for our Visual CMS extension. Now, with OXID eShop 7.4, we take it a step further and have completely replaced Grunt with Vite in our standard theme APEX. With this change, the whole shop can now profit from Vite and we ensure a unified usage of such tools for all the developers out there.

Long-Term Support MySQL Version 8.4

Frequent updates are an essential way to be compliant with current security standards and maintain optimal stability in such a fast-pacing IT world of today. This is why we also keep track of requirements like PHP or MySQL versions to provide compatibility with our OXID eShop Platform. A good way is to focus on long-term support software versions like MySQL 8.4 (LTS).

MySQL 8.4 was tested carefully with OXID eShop 7.4 Compilation and is successfully supported by the OXID eShop as well as all extensions from OXID. A list of compatible extensions can be found in our Release Notes.

Besides MySQL 8.4, the OXID eShop 7.4 is also fully compatible with MariaDB 11.8.

Your Feedback Matters

We welcome your feedback on the new version, OXID eShop 7.4.

Whether it’s technical experiences, suggestions for improvement, or real-world use cases from your projects. Your input helps us further develop the OXID eShop Platform to better meet your needs.

Feel free to contact us directly at produktmanagement@oxid-esales.com.