Ghost Release: 1.21.4

TL;DR

Ghost 1.21.4 brings several important bug fixes and improvements to the reading experience. The update enhances the reading time helper by accounting for images in content, fixes issues with image property handling after deletion, and resolves several UI and error handling problems. This maintenance release improves stability and user experience without introducing breaking changes.

Highlight of the Release

• Improved reading time calculation that now accounts for images in content
• Fixed image property handling to properly reset to null after removal
• Improved error handling for resource permissions
• Fixed UI issues with error message colors and broken documentation links

Migration Guide

No migration steps are required for this release. This is a maintenance release with bug fixes and minor improvements that should not affect existing functionality.

Upgrade Recommendations

This release contains important bug fixes and improvements without introducing breaking changes. All Ghost users are recommended to upgrade to version 1.21.4, especially those who:

• Use the {{reading_time}} helper in their themes
• Work with image uploads and deletions
• Have experienced issues with error message visibility when uploading themes or images

The upgrade process should be straightforward with no special steps required.

Bug Fixes

Image Property Handling

Fixed an issue where image properties were being set to empty strings ("") after image deletion, instead of being properly set to null. This caused problems with query filters. The fix ensures proper handling for:

• Posts: feature_image, og_image, twitter_image
• Users: profile_image, cover_image
• Tags: feature_image

UI and Documentation Fixes

• Fixed unreadable error message colors when uploading themes or images
• Fixed broken i18n documentation link on the general settings screen

Internal Fixes

• Improved error handling for permissible implementations to avoid unnecessary duplicate model queries
• Fixed incorrect test in functional routes for posts that was using invalid author IDs
• Fixed default mobiledoc handling in the data generator
• Fixed authentication test that had been failing since early March
• Consistent function naming in test utilities for better clarity

New Features

Enhanced Reading Time Helper

The {{reading_time}} helper has been significantly improved to account for images within content. Previously, only the feature image was considered in the reading time calculation. Now, the helper counts all images in the content and adds time based on a sophisticated algorithm:

• First image adds 12 seconds to reading time
• Second image adds 11 seconds
• Third image adds 10 seconds
• And so on, with images from the tenth onwards adding 3 seconds each

This enhancement provides more accurate reading time estimates for image-heavy content, following Medium's reading time algorithm.

Security Updates

No specific security fixes were included in this release.

Performance Improvements

Performance Optimizations

• Switched Travis CI to Node v8 for linting and coverage, which is significantly faster than Node v6
• Improved error handling to avoid unnecessary duplicate model queries
• Extended test mocks for express and knex with improved functionality, including SQL statement parsing and in-memory data serving

Impact Summary

Ghost 1.21.4 is a maintenance release that focuses on bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements. The most notable enhancement is the improved reading time calculation that now accounts for images in content, providing more accurate estimates for readers.

The release also addresses several important bugs, particularly around image handling when deleting images from posts, users, and tags. Previously, these properties were set to empty strings instead of null values, causing issues with query filters.

For developers, there are several improvements to the testing infrastructure, including more consistent function naming in test utilities, extended test mocks, and fixed authentication tests.

The UI improvements fix issues with error message visibility and broken documentation links, enhancing the overall user experience for administrators.

Overall, this release improves stability and user experience without introducing breaking changes, making it a recommended upgrade for all Ghost users.

Full Release Notes