Ghost Release: 5.45.0

TL;DR

Ghost 5.45.0: Post History, Announcement Bar, and Image Editing

Ghost 5.45.0 introduces three major features: Post History for tracking and restoring previous versions of your content, an Announcement Bar for site-wide messaging to specific audience segments, and integrated image editing capabilities. This release also adds support for Lexical snippets, enhancing the content editing experience with more flexible formatting options.

Highlight of the Release

• Post History feature for tracking, comparing, and restoring previous versions of content
• Announcement Bar for displaying targeted site-wide messages to specific audience segments
• Image editing capabilities with Pintura integration
• Support for Lexical snippets alongside Mobiledoc format
• Improved revision management with status tracking and metadata

Migration Guide

Post History Feature

If you're using the post history feature, be aware that:

• Revisions are now created on explicit saves, publishing, and when navigating away from the editor
• Autosaves no longer create revisions by default
• The feature is behind the postHistory feature flag

Announcement Bar

To use the announcement bar:

1. Enable the announcementBar feature flag in Labs
2. Configure the announcement content, visibility, and background in the dedicated settings page
3. The announcement will appear on your site according to your visibility settings

Image Editing

To enable image editing:

1. Enable the imageEditing feature flag in Labs
2. Upload Pintura JS and CSS files in the new Pintura integration page
3. Configure the integration settings as needed

API Changes

• Post revisions can now be included in API responses with ?include=post_revisions
• New announcement settings are available in the Content API

Upgrade Recommendations

This is a feature-rich update that adds significant new capabilities to Ghost without introducing breaking changes. We recommend all users upgrade to take advantage of the new post history, announcement bar, and image editing features.

For developers and site administrators, this update provides valuable new tools for content management and site communication. The post history feature is particularly valuable for teams working on content collaboratively.

As always, make a backup of your Ghost installation before upgrading.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed unit test coverage issues with blank files
• Fixed member count for limit checks when publishing sometimes being incorrect
• Fixed crashing resource search in Admin UI by adding a 10k search limit
• Fixed CORS error for image editor when fetching images from cache
• Fixed announcement bar close button state to show the bar again when content is updated
• Fixed announcement visibility filtering for paid members
• Fixed post revision restoration edge cases
• Fixed duplicate announcement bar insertion

New Features

Post History

• Added a comprehensive post history system that tracks revisions of posts
• Implemented a modal interface to view, compare, and restore previous versions
• Added diffing capabilities to visualize changes between revisions
• Stored metadata including author, title, feature image, and post status with each revision
• Created intelligent revision creation logic that saves revisions on explicit saves rather than every autosave

Announcement Bar

• Added a configurable site-wide announcement bar feature
• Implemented audience targeting options (public, visitors, members, paid members)
• Added customizable styling with accent, dark, and light background options
• Created a dedicated settings page in the admin interface
• Implemented session-based dismissal with reset on content updates

Image Editing

• Added Pintura image editor integration for enhanced image editing
• Created a dedicated integration page for configuring the image editor
• Implemented feature image editing capabilities
• Added support for image editing in Lexical editor cards

Lexical Editor Enhancements

• Added support for filtering snippets to Mobiledoc/Lexical formats
• Implemented a minimal Lexical editor input component
• Added autocompletion for button URLs
• Enhanced the editor with bookmark card improvements

Security Updates

No significant security fixes were included in this release.

Performance Improvements

• Updated limit service to only request a single member instead of all members, preventing database connection issues
• Implemented more efficient post revision storage with FIFO (First In, First Out) logic when limits are reached
• Added debounce for announcement content editor to reduce unnecessary API calls
• Optimized card diffing by treating cards atomically rather than diffing their internal content

Impact Summary

Ghost 5.45.0 significantly enhances the content management capabilities of the platform with three major new features. The post history system provides a robust way to track, compare, and restore previous versions of content, which is invaluable for editorial workflows and content governance. The announcement bar feature enables site-wide messaging with sophisticated audience targeting, improving communication with visitors and members. The image editing integration adds powerful image manipulation capabilities directly within the Ghost editor.

These features collectively improve the content creation experience, provide better tools for site administrators to communicate with their audience, and enhance the overall flexibility of the platform. The addition of Lexical snippets alongside existing Mobiledoc support also demonstrates Ghost's commitment to providing modern, flexible editing experiences.

For developers, the new API endpoints and include options provide more ways to interact with Ghost programmatically, while the feature flags allow for controlled rollout of the new capabilities.

Full Release Notes