Announcing Silverstripe CMS 5.3.0 with image rendering improvements, better validation, and more

The latest release of Silverstripe CMS is here! This release has a strong focus on improving existing features to empower developers to build the content authoring experience and sculpt your front-end to be exactly how you want it.

Improvements to rendering files

In Silverstripe CMS 5.2.0 we made it possible to convert files from one format to another, but developers had to implement all of the logic themselves and there was no clear API to guide developers.

This functionality has now been expanded with a specific convert() method and a file converter API which means developers can make reusable file converters in modules for use across multiple projects.

The potential use cases for this range from providing more efficient images for fast page loads, to converting word documents to PDF before downloading them, to generating thumbnails for videos.

Validation for inline-editable elemental blocks

Elemental content blocks are a powerful way to compose your content, and the ability to edit them inline with the rest of the page makes it very easy to understand the context of the content you’re editing.

For a long time now, if you wanted to validate content in those content blocks you’d have to disable inline-editing. Starting from this release, you can edit your content inline and eat validate it too.

Fix for WYSIWYG sanitisation

The WYSIWYG editor in the CMS allows developers to declare exactly what kind of content it should allow. There has been a subtle problem in the way this content was sanitised which meant those settings weren’t always being respected.

In this update we’ve made changes to the way WYSIWYG content is sanitised, so that it correctly respects those settings. We strongly recommend double checking this is working as expected after upgrading to Silverstripe CMS 5.3.0.

More customisable form field scaffolding

In Silverstripe CMS, the forms used to edit content are usually initially generated dynamically based on the database schema in a process called “scaffolding”. It’s common to need to update the form fields, even replacing fields completely, in order to provide the best content authoring experience.

In Silverstripe CMS 5.3.0 we’ve added a way to customise how the form fields are scaffolded. Developers can now get a lot closer to their desired result through configuration.

Bug fixes galore

There are a lot of small bug fixes in this update which add up to a good reason to upgrade on their own! Aside from fixes to the validation and WYSIWYG sanitisation mentioned above, this update fixes a long-standing issue with re-ordering elemental content blocks, allows “alt” attributes for images even when its empty, added back highlighting of tabs which have validation errors, and a bunch more! Even if you don’t intend to use any of the new functionality in the near future, upgrading to Silverstripe CMS 5.3.0 will result in a better content authoring experience.

Keen to get your upgrade underway?

Talk to your Digital Agency or Developer about upgrading

Haven’t got a Developer or Agency? No problem! Browse the Silverstripe CMS Developer Network and filter by location to find a Silverstripe CMS Developer near you.
Or reach out to Silverstripe directly to upgrade your project.

Developers, check out our documentation

This release announcement does not cover the full details of what is included in the release. Be sure to review the full changelog before planning your next site upgrade.
Head to our Developer Docs to view the CMS 5.3 changelog.