Even though we don’t keep track of release numbers, this one would definitely be a v2.0, and rightly so. The entire frontend has been rebuilt and lots of the backend code has been refactored and partially completely rewritten and modernised.
Let’s dig in …
The most obvious change is the updated frontend, which has been completely rewritten from scratch. We used Tailwind CSS for this update and removed every line of CSS we had before.
Note: This is a breaking change for people who added custom CSS to themes. More on that later.
As with every design change, no matter how big or small, some people will hate it, some will love it. We can’t make everyone happy, and that’s totally fine.
We wanted to stick somewhat close to what the look and feel was before and went through four different UI iterations. In the end, we scratched almost everything, reduced a lot of clutter and the result is now available to all users. That being said, please refrain from “change it back” mails, not going to happen. We did not just spend a good amount of time building this new version just to reverse it again. So instead, we’d rather get feedback on what to improve.
The whole backend (where you manage your workspace) is now much snappier, more fluid and easier to navigate. The new navigation-bar to the left allowed us to free up some space at the top, which gives the editor and pages more breathing room.
We’re also introducing a new notification system, improved the way related articles are handled, simplified the integration settings, added an option to add an OG image and so much more. Also, dark mode is now available for both the backend and also for the themes.
The plan was to ship a new editor to improve the writing experience and add new functionality. We tried many available options but were not really happy with either one. So we checked out TipTap and built a good first version of a new editor. Unfortunately, migrating the old syntax to the new syntax was something we underestimated and what stopped us from continuing to work on the new editor, for now.
One idea was to introduce a new editor for new articles and leave the old editor for all current articles. Or perhaps let people decide which one to use on a per-article basis. But we decided against that.
It is still planned to ship a new and improved editor with more flexibility at some point, but we’re sticking with our current solution for now.
Both the “Default” and the “Docs” themes have been rewritten with Tailwind CSS. Making them nicer to look at with a more modern touch.
Because Tailwind CSS uses utility classes, we got rid of all custom class names that were used before. So stuff like `.header_nav` or `.home__wrapper` simply don’t exist anymore and if you used custom CSS to change those classes, this won’t have any effect anymore. The custom CSS feature is not used that much, so we really hope it does not have too much of a negative impact.
Nonetheless, it is still possible to use your own CSS. In the next days we’ll release a help-article on classes you can use to modify the appearance of the themes.
Nah, just kidding. Everything stays the same.
Starting with this update, we also introduce our “open source or non-profit” campaign. So as you can probably guess, if you are using eniston for open source or non-profit projects, you might be eligible to use our “Business” plan for free.
Check out this article to learn more about it.
We received many feature requests and suggestions that we will go through next. But despite our best intentions, we simply cannot implement everything and will probably reject a few of them.
Just don’t take it personally if we reject one of your suggestions. It doesn’t mean the idea / request was bad, but in the end, we want to build and maintain a system that does not feel bloated and that means that sometimes we have to say no.
But still, feel free to request a feature, suggest an idea or upvote other suggestions at https://feedback.eniston.io. We will carefully consider every submission.
That’s it for now, thanks for reading.
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