Ghost Release: 5.42.0

TL;DR

Ghost v5.42.0 brings significant improvements to analytics, internationalization, and user experience. The release introduces post analytics export functionality, adds support for multiple new languages (Czech, Polish, Spanish, and Dutch), enhances newsletter customization options, and fixes several UI and functionality bugs. This update focuses on making Ghost more accessible globally while improving the admin experience for publishers managing newsletters and member communications.

Highlight of the Release

• New post analytics export functionality for deeper data analysis
• Added support for Czech, Polish, Spanish, and updated Dutch translations
• Improved newsletter customization with enhanced color picker and auto border colors
• Fixed Portal account page redirection after sign-in
• Added Portal signup terms settings and customization options

Migration Guide

Portal Signup Terms Migration

The release includes a migration for the new portal signup terms settings. This adds:

• portal_signup_terms_html setting for customizing signup terms text
• portal_signup_checkbox_required setting to control whether terms acceptance is required

No manual migration steps are required as these will be automatically added to your database schema.

Upgrade Recommendations

This is a standard feature release with several enhancements and bug fixes. It's recommended for all Ghost users to upgrade to v5.42.0, especially if you:

• Need post analytics export functionality
• Want to take advantage of the new language translations
• Use Portal for member signups and want to customize signup terms
• Have experienced issues with newsletter recipient selection or email formatting

The upgrade should be straightforward with no breaking changes reported. As always, it's recommended to backup your database before upgrading.

Bug Fixes

UI and Functionality Fixes

• Fixed UI bug when selecting specific recipients by label (when removing all selected labels/newsletters, the UI would incorrectly uncheck the Specific People checkbox)
• Fixed member signup emails being sent with escaped subject lines
• Fixed Public Preview Card in Lexical editor
• Fixed redirecting back to account home after sign in in Portal
• Fixed FirstPromoter integration to ignore old referrals (prevents false attribution for existing members)
• Fixed exporting email-only posts in analytics
• Fixed spacing issue in email preview
• Fixed typo in German translation for Portal

Email Template Improvements

• Fixed duplicate images in Outlook for dark/light mode
• Updated images in email templates to work properly with light/dark mode using CSS to show/hide appropriate versions
• Fixed email width and dark mode images in email templates

New Features

Post Analytics Export

• Added comprehensive post analytics export functionality
• Moved posts export to the analytics settings page for better organization
• Created a new filename format for exports (post-analytics instead of posts)
• Included post ID column in analytics exports

Internationalization Support

• Added Czech translations for Ghost admin and Portal
• Added Polish locale for Portal
• Added Spanish locale for Portal
• Updated Dutch translations throughout the platform

Portal Enhancements

• Added new portal_signup_terms_html setting for customizing signup terms
• Added portal_signup_checkbox_required setting to control terms acceptance requirement
• Created UI for updating Portal signup term settings (behind feature flag)

Newsletter Customization

• Added newsletter auto border color based on background color
• Implemented dynamic color picker that changes based on background color
• Updated newsletter color picker in admin to maintain consistent color order
• Enhanced email preview in Newsletter settings

Security Updates

No significant security fixes were included in this release.

Performance Improvements

Performance Optimizations

• Improved scrollbar appearance in dark mode for better user experience
• Reduced color picker delay for more responsive UI interaction
• Removed heavy dependency within @tryghost/errors by using smaller @stdlib/copy package instead of @stdlib/utils, saving 140+MB of dependencies
• Enabled --prefer-offline in CI to reduce network requests and speed up dependency installation
• Added yarn resolution for @tryghost/errors to prevent multiple versions causing comparison issues

Impact Summary

Ghost v5.42.0 significantly enhances the platform's analytics capabilities, internationalization support, and user experience. The addition of post analytics export provides publishers with deeper insights into content performance, while support for Czech, Polish, and Spanish languages makes Ghost more accessible to international users.

Newsletter and email improvements give publishers more control over design with auto border colors and dynamic color pickers, while fixing issues with email templates in different email clients and display modes. The new Portal signup terms settings allow for more customized member onboarding experiences.

Several quality-of-life improvements have been made, including fixing UI bugs in recipient selection, improving scrollbar appearance in dark mode, and ensuring proper redirection after Portal sign-in. Performance optimizations reduce dependency sizes and improve build processes.

Overall, this release focuses on making Ghost more globally accessible, providing better analytics tools, and refining the newsletter and member management experience.

Full Release Notes