Ghost Release: 1.6.0

TL;DR

Ghost 1.6.0 introduces Unsplash integration for easy access to beautiful free photos, enhances the {{#has}} helper with new matching capabilities, and includes several bug fixes that improve error handling and stability. This release focuses on improving the content creation experience while maintaining system performance and reliability.

Highlight of the Release

• Unsplash integration for accessing free, high-quality photos directly in the editor
• Enhanced {{#has}} helper with new matching capabilities for slug, id, number, and index
• Improved error handling with appropriate 409 status codes
• Optimized debugging and logging system

Migration Guide

No specific migration steps are required for this release. The new features like Unsplash integration and enhanced {{#has}} helper capabilities are available immediately after upgrading.

If you're a theme developer using the {{#has}} helper, you can now take advantage of the new matching capabilities without any changes to your existing code.

Upgrade Recommendations

This release includes valuable new features and bug fixes with no breaking changes, making it a recommended upgrade for all Ghost users. Content creators will particularly benefit from the Unsplash integration, while theme developers can take advantage of the enhanced {{#has}} helper capabilities.

As always, it's recommended to backup your Ghost installation before upgrading and test the upgrade in a staging environment if possible.

Bug Fixes

Error Handling Improvements

• Added 409 DisabledFeatureError for labs features, properly categorizing these as user errors rather than system errors
• Added 409 UpdateCollisionError for the editor to handle concurrent editing conflicts
• Both changes ensure these errors don't appear in logs where they shouldn't

Fixed URL Generation Issues

• Fixed duplicate subdirectories appearing in plaintext URLs
• This resolves an issue where weird URLs were being output in admin stories view due to incorrectly generated plaintext

Theme Packaging Fix

• Removed Casper's gulpfile from npmignore to ensure it's properly included when packaging Ghost to npm

Upload Order Fix

• Fixed the order of multiple upload results to ensure consistency

New Features

Unsplash Integration

Ghost now integrates with Unsplash, giving you direct access to their extensive library of beautiful, free photos right within your editor. This makes it easier than ever to add high-quality visuals to your content without leaving Ghost.

Enhanced {{#has}} Helper

The {{#has}} helper has been significantly expanded with new matching capabilities:

• Slug & ID Matching: Match content based on slugs or IDs

  {{#has slug="welcome"}}
  {{#has slug=../../slug}}
  {{#has id=post.id}}
  

• Number & Index Matching: Match based on numerical values or positions

  {{#has number="3"}}
  {{#has number="3, 6, 9"}}
  {{#has number="nth:3"}}
  {{#has index="3"}}
  {{#has index="3, 6, 9"}}
  {{#has index="nth:3"}}
  

Channel Configuration Improvements

Channel configuration is now stored in res.locals instead of req, opening the door for using channel config inside helpers. This means that ghost_head and the next_post/prev_post helpers can now be context-aware.

Security Updates

No specific security fixes were included in this release.

Performance Improvements

Debug System Optimization

• Reduced debug calls for redirects to minimize overhead
• Added start/end debug for custom redirect loading to improve traceability
• Removed duplicate request debug logs to reduce noise
• Switched to using ghost-ignition.debug throughout the codebase
• Removed the separate debug dependency, consolidating on ghost-ignition

Impact Summary

Ghost 1.6.0 delivers significant improvements to the content creation workflow with the addition of Unsplash integration, allowing creators to easily access high-quality free images directly within the editor. Theme developers gain powerful new capabilities with the enhanced {{#has}} helper, enabling more dynamic and flexible theme designs.

The release also addresses several important bugs, particularly around error handling, ensuring that user errors are properly categorized with appropriate HTTP status codes. This improves both the user experience and system maintainability by keeping logs cleaner.

Performance optimizations to the debugging system help maintain Ghost's efficiency, while the channel configuration improvements lay groundwork for more context-aware helpers in the future.

Overall, this is a well-rounded release that enhances Ghost's capabilities for both content creators and developers without introducing breaking changes.

Full Release Notes