Ghost Release: 5.66.0

TL;DR

Ghost 5.66.0 introduces a major new feature: Recommendations, allowing sites to recommend and receive recommendations from other Ghost sites. This release also includes significant improvements to AdminX settings, better error handling, and fixes for subscription status display, settings management, and email styling issues. The update enhances the platform's connectivity between Ghost sites while improving the overall stability and user experience.

Highlight of the Release

• New Recommendations feature allowing Ghost sites to recommend and receive recommendations from other sites
• New {{recommendations}} theme helper for displaying recommendations in themes
• Improved AdminX settings with better error handling and UI refinements
• Fixed subscription status display for comped subscriptions
• Enhanced theme management with better error handling and preview functionality

Migration Guide

Recommendations Theme Helper

If you're a theme developer and want to implement the new recommendations feature in your theme:

1. Use the {{recommendations}} helper in your theme templates to display recommendations
2. Create a custom template at partials/recommendations.hbs to override the default HTML structure
3. Add appropriate CSS styling for the recommendation elements in your theme

Configuration Override for Labs Flags

You can now override labs flags through configuration:

{
  "labs": {
    "flagName": true|false
  }
}

This allows you to hardcode a value to true or false, regardless of the value in the database or GA flags array.

AdminX Settings

AdminX settings are now enabled by default for developers. If you need to disable them for any reason, you can use the --no-adminx flag when starting Ghost.

Upgrade Recommendations

Recommended Upgrade Path

This release includes significant new features and bug fixes but no breaking changes. All Ghost users are encouraged to upgrade to benefit from the new recommendations system and improved AdminX settings.

1. Take a backup of your Ghost installation
2. Follow the standard upgrade process for your installation method
3. If you're using a custom theme, consider implementing the new {{recommendations}} helper

Post-Upgrade Actions

• Check your theme compatibility with the new recommendations feature
• Explore the new recommendations settings in AdminX
• If you've experienced issues with comped subscriptions or staff emails, verify that these are now working correctly

Bug Fixes

Subscription and Settings Fixes

• Fixed incorrect subscription status text when a subscription is comped and a member has multiple subscriptions
• Fixed settings being incorrectly marked as dirty when visibility is changed, preventing unnecessary confirmation dialogs
• Fixed staff emails eventually having invalid styles due to global Handlebars instance reuse

AdminX Interface Fixes

• Fixed Stripe modal bottom padding in AdminX
• Fixed site icon not updating in Ember from AdminX
• Fixed feature image caption styling in dark mode
• Fixed Sentry initializing twice in Admin and AdminX
• Fixed ForceUpgrade state not working with Explore

Collection and Theme Fixes

• Fixed collection cards not re-rendering when posts were bulk-edited
• Fixed saving collection card with 'latest' collection on SQLite
• Fixed listing all themes when a theme path is invalid
• Fixed Pintura URL not handling relative config URL on import

New Features

Recommendations System

Ghost now includes a comprehensive recommendations system that allows sites to recommend and receive recommendations from other Ghost sites. This feature includes:

• A new recommendations management interface in AdminX
• Email notifications for received recommendations
• The {{recommendations}} theme helper for displaying recommendations in themes
• Character limits (200) for recommendation descriptions to ensure proper display
• Keyboard shortcuts (Enter to advance) when adding recommendations
• Support for adding recommendations via URL parameters

AdminX Improvements

The AdminX settings interface has been significantly enhanced:

• Better synchronization between Ember and React components
• Improved error handling and reporting to Sentry
• Updated links from old settings to AdminX
• AdminX is now enabled by default for developers

Theme Management Enhancements

• Added progress spinner to theme upload button for better UX
• New invalid theme modal to display detailed error information
• Fixed theme preview functionality for themes without styles
• Improved error handling for theme uploads and validation

Security Updates

No significant security fixes were included in this release.

Performance Improvements

API and Data Handling Improvements

• Refactored limit=all queries to be paginated in AdminX for better performance with large datasets
• Improved pagination behavior in AdminX
• Upgraded to the latest version of @tryghost/request which avoids using OS-level name resolution system, preventing long shutdowns

Code Refactoring

• Refactored loading of Koenig-Lexical package to reduce duplication
• Moved labs unit test to correct folder and rewrote to use assert over should
• Refactored error handling logic in AdminX to use a custom hook for consistent error reporting

Impact Summary

Ghost 5.66.0 introduces a significant new feature with the recommendations system, allowing Ghost sites to connect with each other through mutual recommendations. This creates a new network effect within the Ghost ecosystem, potentially increasing traffic and audience growth for participating sites.

The improvements to AdminX settings represent continued progress toward making AdminX the default settings interface, with better synchronization, error handling, and UI refinements. This enhances the overall user experience for site administrators.

Bug fixes for subscription status display, settings management, and email styling address specific pain points reported by users, improving the reliability of these core features.

Theme developers gain a new tool with the {{recommendations}} helper, allowing them to integrate the recommendations feature into their themes with custom styling options.

Overall, this release strengthens Ghost's position as a platform for independent publishers by adding features that facilitate cross-promotion and community building while continuing to improve the stability and usability of the core product.

Full Release Notes