Silverstripe CMS 4.5 has arrived! Improving content editing, file management, and more

We’re excited to announce our latest minor release, Silverstripe CMS 4.5, which introduces the outcomes of our Experience Debt initiative, focusing on enhancing your content management experience. We've defined 'experience debt' "the accumulation of friction points that a Content Manager experiences when performing common tasks in the CMS”.

Focusing on features that you may have expected after upgrading from CMS 3, or areas that you've found cumbersome, the CMS 4.5 release improves general content editing tasks, file management, and lifts the accessibility of the content you create.

As usual, this release follows semantic versioning, so it’s ready to be used in any current Silverstripe CMS project right now.

What's new in CMS 4.5?

With support from our community, we've introduced a number of minor features in the latest version to make sure Content Managers are getting the experience they need from Silverstripe CMS:

• Speeding up aspects of the Files area, especially for sites with a large number of assets
• Introducing new ‘tips’ to assist in creating accessible information for images
• Including a new download action for quick access to a download link in the Files area
• Adding quick size presets to choose from for images inserted in the WYSIWYG, like ‘best fit, or ‘original size’
• Including the ability to create and link to anchors in your content
• Introducing the Better Buttons functionality to user forms - allowing you to create new fields a lot faster
• Reordering a number of labels and fields, with the aim of prioritising important information to be entered first, or common things grouped
• Increasing the contrast ratio of many areas in the CMS with the aim of increasing the visibility for people with reduced or impaired vision (and those who just prefer bold colours!)
• The action to add content blocks between existing ones is now more visually accessible

In addition to our new minor features, we've made a number of notable bug fixes, such as:

• Stopping an image alt text defaulting to the filename when the field is left empty
• Preventing the accidental deletion or movement of the Home page
• Introducing functionality when archiving a content block, means it will now be unpublished from the live site at the same time
• Making accessibility improvements to the comments module, ensuring focus is sent to the submission message in order to confirm the user action

And for Developers, CMS 4.5 introduces:

• A new Silverstripe CMS login-forms module which can be added to new and existing sites
• A new Tip component that can be added to any React-based text field in the CMS that may need a longer description or ‘tip’ to complete
• The ability to set image size presets in the WYSIWYG, like ‘small fit’, ‘font size’, ‘best fit’, etc.

That's not all! Here are some more notable changes to Silverstripe CMS, which are further described in the CMS 4.5 changelog:

• Removed support for PHP 5 and PHP 7.0
• New PasswordExpirationMiddleware now proactively invalidates members with expired passwords. This may conflict with a custom password validator implemented in projects
• Introduced a markdown loader to the Component Library (Storybook). We’ll be looking to introduce more information and code snippets for individual components in the future
• Removed the Silverstripe web installer user interface into its own composer package
• Updated existing .htaccess configuration in silverstripe/assets and silverstripe/recipe-core to be inline with recent Apache syntax updates and depreciations, specifically, a change to how permissions and access to files are managed in Apache 2.4

We've included some highlights below to show you what you're getting from your experience with CMS 4.5. If you’re keen to get your upgrade underway now, we’ve got some next steps for you to get started. 

For Content Managers

For this release, we haven't focused on headline features. Instead, we've cleared the decks on some areas of Silverstripe CMS where you've been asking us to improve your user experience. This is something we’ve defined and grouped into an initiative focused on experience debt (we've written about it in a recent blog post).

Although this has and will always be a focus of our Product Development Team, this release marks a consolidated effort in this area and it’s something we hope you’re looking forward to seeing in your CMS too!

Here are some of the exciting new features you can expect from CMS 4.5:

Create and link anchors to your content

Anchor links have been a feature sorely missed in Silverstripe CMS 4. It's taken some time, but we're very happy to share that creating anchors is now available as default behaviour.

New "tips" for creating accessible information for your images

We've created a new 'tip' component to guide Content Managers through writing image alt text, ensuring images are more accessible to your audiences. However, your Developer can also add it to any custom React-based fields that may need a longer description or 'tip' on completing.

A new download action for quick assess to a download link in the Files area

Finding the download link for files in the CMS hasn't been easy in the past. Now, the actions menu for individual files includes a download link for Content Managers to quickly share the link or download the file directly.

Quick size presets to choose from for images inserted in the WYSIWIG

Silverstripe CMS makes quick work of scaling images with a high resolution down to a default resolution that fits on your website's page. However, this default setting would result in small images being scaled up which could result in a pixelated image. Now, we've made it easier to remove this default setting with a quick toggle between 'Best fit' or 'Original size'.

Adding content blocks between existing ones is now more visually accessible

Heavy users of content blocks will appreciate an improvement to a little feature that adds blocks inline of existing ones.

New Silverstripe CMS login form

A new login form is available for all new and existing sites. With the option to add a custom logo, this replaces custom login forms that have previously been embedded in a website’s theme.

For Developers

New ‘Tip’ component

We’ve introduced a new Tip component when more information on completing a form field is needed. As well as including the ‘tip’ content, you can also set an icon and different colours to imply certain levels of importance. This feature is currently exposed in React-based TextFields. More information on the component can be found in the Component Library (Storybook).

Create image size presets in the WYSIWYG

New default image size presets have been created for Content Managers to toggle between a ‘Best fit’ and 'Original' when editing an image in the WYSIWYG. Developers have the ability to extend this functionality to create other presets to match requirements such as a “Small fit” or “Match font size”. More information can be found in the Developer guides.

Important information in the changelog

Be sure to check the CMS 4.5 changelog for important information that should be reviewed before a site is updated, including depreciated PHP support and the addition of a password expiration middleware that may affect custom implementations.

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 & Framework Developer Directory or the Silverstripe Professional Partner Directory and filter by location to find a Silverstripe CMS & Framework Developer near you.

Developers, check out our documentation

Head to our Developer Docs to view the change logs and the Upgrade Guide.

Are you an agency selling Silverstripe CMS?

We’d love to hear about your customer experiences with upgrading to Silverstripe CMS 4. Your answers will help focus our efforts in facilitating upgrades. Take the 5 minute survey here.