Ghost Release: 5.69.0

TL;DR

Ghost v5.69.0: Admin Settings Redesign & Editor Improvements

This release introduces a completely redesigned Admin settings interface, making site management more intuitive and user-friendly. The update also includes significant editor improvements, fixing multiple issues with text formatting, pasting content from external sources (particularly in Firefox and Microsoft Word), and theme demo functionality. Additional enhancements include support for Twitter embeds using x.com domains, improved recommendations management, and several UI/UX refinements throughout the platform.

Highlight of the Release

• Completely redesigned Admin settings interface
• Fixed multiple editor issues with pasting content from Firefox and Word
• Enhanced theme demo functionality for all themes with variants
• Added support for Twitter embeds using x.com domain
• Improved recommendations management with better sorting and display

Migration Guide

Recommendations API Change

The release includes a breaking change in the Recommendations API before making the feature generally available:

• The reason field in the recommendations table has been renamed to description
• This allows for more flexible descriptions instead of predefined reasons
• If you have custom code interacting with the recommendations API, update any references from reason to description

Admin Settings Navigation

• The Admin settings interface has been completely redesigned
• The access route has been renamed to members route
• If you have bookmarks or documentation referring to specific settings URLs, these may need to be updated

No other migration steps are required for this release.

Upgrade Recommendations

This release contains significant UI improvements to the Admin settings interface and important bug fixes for the editor, particularly for Firefox users and those who paste content from Microsoft Word.

Recommended for: All Ghost installations, especially those where:

• Editors frequently paste content from external sources like Word or web pages
• Admins manage multiple themes with variants
• Sites use Twitter/X embeds
• Newsletter functionality is heavily used

The upgrade process follows the standard Ghost update procedure and should be straightforward with no special considerations required.

Bug Fixes

Editor Fixes

• Fixed double-insert when pasting plain text in Firefox
• Fixed URL paste over selected text removing text rather than converting to link in Firefox
• Fixed copy/paste from Word missing headings and text formats
• Fixed editor sometimes getting into a state that resulted in unexpected render output

Admin Interface Fixes

• Fixed confirmation modals on Integrations in Admin X
• Fixed toasts not disappearing after settings reload
• Fixed subscription access route in Admin settings
• Fixed popover "right" position in AdminX
• Fixed tiers resetting in Ember when created in AdminX

Theme Fixes

• Fixed theme demo functionality when multiple themes with variants are present

Other Fixes

• Fixed splitting string into characters in code injection test case
• Fixed MySQL database tests
• Fixed #bulkDestroy from calling bulkDestroy recursively

New Features

Redesigned Admin Settings

• Complete overhaul of the Admin settings interface for improved usability and navigation
• Removed Admin X labs flags as the feature is now ready for general release
• Added an "About" modal to the new Admin X settings

Editor Enhancements

• Added keyboard shortcuts for text highlighting (Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+H) and pasting without formatting
• Swapped feature image caption input from mobiledoc to lexical editor for better editing experience

Theme Improvements

• Refactored theme demo functionality to work with any theme, not just hard-coded ones
• Fixed theme demo when multiple themes have variants

New Template Helper

• Added {{readable_url}} helper for displaying URLs in a more user-friendly format (e.g., google.com instead of https://www.google.com?query=1#section)

Social Media Support

• Added support for Twitter embeds using x.com as host

Security Updates

No specific security fixes were mentioned in this release.

Performance Improvements

• Refactored theme demo selector functionality for better performance
• Simplified staff URL generation for emails by removing unused feature flags and code
• Updated dependency versions for better performance:
  • Updated @tanstack/react-query to v4.36.1
  • Updated ember-cli-babel to v8.2.0
  • Updated vite-plugin-commonjs to v0.10.0
  • Updated @types/express to v4.17.19
  • Updated React monorepo dependencies

Impact Summary

Ghost v5.69.0 delivers a significant upgrade to the admin experience with a completely redesigned settings interface. This modernized UI makes site management more intuitive and streamlined. Content creators will benefit from numerous editor improvements, particularly around pasting content from external sources like Microsoft Word and fixing Firefox-specific issues.

The theme demo functionality has been enhanced to work with all themes and their variants, making theme selection and preview more reliable. Newsletter managers will appreciate the restored email verification flow and improved settings navigation.

For developers, the new {{readable_url}} helper provides a cleaner way to display URLs in templates, and the refactored theme demo code offers better extensibility. The renaming of the reason field to description in the recommendations table provides more flexibility but requires attention if you've built custom integrations with this API.

Overall, this release focuses on polishing the user experience across the platform while fixing several long-standing issues with the editor and admin interface.

Full Release Notes