Release 143, was one of (if not the) biggest releases we've ever done. With this release a number of banner features went out as well as more than two-dozen bug fixes.
Better Media Component
With this release, we pushed out a new version of our Media/Text component that allows for much more control over its appearance and behavior.
Spacing/Width Defaults (Desktop & Mobile)
We’re on a quest to enable sites of any width. In this release, we’ve introduced settings in the style guide that allow you to adjust the default width of sections. As a bonus, we’ve also introduced the ability to configure default padding on desktop and mobile.
Box Shadows
With this release you're now able to add shadows to any box.
Sticky Buy Button
When a page with a product component on it is viewed on mobile, an "Add to Cart" button will now follow the user as they scroll down the page.
Triple Whale Integration
For all our Triple Whale users out there, we've update our official integration to include support for add-to-cart event tracking!
PostScript Integration
We've also launched an official PostScript integration!
Product Collection Drag & Drop
With Release 143, products in a collection are now drag-and-droppable! The hope here is to make it easier to rearrange items displayed in a collection.
Recently**Used Components**
Another change that everyone will love; there's now a component category for Recently Used that shows the last ten components you've used.
Immediate sync of 5 most recent products
We changed the way that our sync job works so that as soon as you connect Unstack to your Shopify store for the first time, the five most-recently-updated products will be synced from your account. The aim here is to help more people start building more quickly and to make it a more seamless experience the first time someone loads their Unstack account.
<img> height attribute.This release is a massive one for us, but the notes on what is included are very, very short. This release was all about getting something that we've been wanting to release for quite some time - Media Micro Service (MMS).
MMS will allow us to improve the ways that Unstack handles images and unlocks a couple paths for us to do some cool stuff with media going forward. We don't have anything to share on this at the moment, but promise that we will have more to come on this at a later date.
With this release we shipped Smartlinks for products and a number of improvements to our Klaviyo integration.
Smartlinks for Products
With this feature release it's now possible to turn any link or button into an "Add to Cart" button.
Simply enter the name of the product and select it in the auto-complete menu for the link. Then choose “Add to cart” from the action dropdown.
Identifying Klaviyo Users
With this release we rolled out a series of changes that unify Klaviyo's user IDs with CX-Studio's user IDs. This makes it possible to build conditional content based on Klaviyo data which drastically expands our personalization capabilities.
<Generator>, using <Product> generator,
and for working with layouts, component properties, and plugins.Release 140 had a little bit of everything with improvements to our Klaviyo integration, margin controls, better CSS targeting, and app performance topping the list. We also managed to squash a bug where some users were getting multiple new lead email notifications.
Margin Controls
We rolled out some changes to the style guide that allow you to adjust margins on headings and text. This should give users greater control over how their site looks.
Targeting Sections and Boxes with Custom Code
We rolled out a number of changes to enable targeting of specific boxes or section with custom code. This will be particularly helpful for any of our users who want to use custom CSS or custom JavaScript.
App Performance
We also rolled out a change in the way that the Unstack app loads our JavaScript packages. This should make it much snappier when loading in the browser
Fixed issue with multiple lead notification emails!
A number of customers were reporting multiple notifications were being sent when forms were filled out. This was a persistent issue over a couple of weeks so if you're reading this and you see the issue again please let us know!
Media Upload Limit Changed to 50mb
A welcome change for video and large images, we’ve changed the upload limits to 50MB from 10MB.
Klaviyo Integration Improvements
We've added support for pushing events to Klaviyo for Viewed Page, Viewed Product and Added Product to Cart.
In release 139 we've added a number of new style guide settings and editor improvements!
Box Border Styles
We've made it easy to build round boxes and even add dotted or dashed borders to simulate coupons.
Also, check out that new fancy color picker!
Additional Headings
We're added support for additional header styles. H1, H2, H3 are configured by default, but you are now able to add H4, H5, and H6.
Toggles for product collections
We added toggles for Title & Price to the product collection component. We also made it possible to adjust the gap between products.
An exciting release! For our Shopify users we have added support for using Shopify's "liquid" header and footer with the pages you create in Unstack. At the moment this isn't yet enabled for all stores, but will be in the coming weeks once we're able to test it with some of our partners.
Shopify header, footer, and cart
As mentioned above, this feature isn't yet enabled for all stores as it's in need of some additional testing with our partners before we push it live for everyone.
That said, once it's live you'll be able to use your existing header, footer, and your cart (including upsell options!) with the pages you create with Unstack.
This was our biggest release in several weeks with many things being shipped for the start of Q2!
Improved Embedded app Start Screen
Previously, when a user first adds the Unstack App to their Shopify account they were taken a very minimalistic channel settings page that, at it's core, served as a way for users to open Unstack.
That said, we realized this page could be much more which led to the below changes; specifically the ability to access both your page templates and branding options from this page.
Our hope is here that these changes should help our users make more progress on their goals, with fewer clicks.
Product research pop up
As part of our ongoing efforts to understand the reasons our users sign up for Unstack in the first place, we have added a popup question that appears when you first install the Shopify app
Capitalization and letter-spacing
If you're a user who likes the text of their headers or buttons to always be capitalized, lowercase, or mixed case you are in luck! With this release we shipped changes to the Style Guide which allows you to make those changes at the account level.
Product Collection Component Changes
Using component properties, we added several layout options to the "Product Collection" component. Specifically the ability
DDC Import & Export
Data Driven Content, or DDC is a beta feature that we're very proud of. However, as a beta feature there is a lot of work that still needs to get done. The release of the import & export feature is one of those things that has been in the works for some time and is a huge milestone for this tool.
Look for more on DDC soon!
For this release, we continued to work through changes to the component system which will allow us to further improve functionality. More on this soon! We also pushed a number of bug fixes.
We shipped some pretty significant changes to the component system that will enable future functionality. More on that soon! We also fixed one bug.
A small release with a handful of bug fixes and tweaks. Several new features in the works including Component Properties which is a set of changes to the section/component experience which will help to reduce redundancies with our current component experience. More on this when it's released in the coming weeks.
Recategorized Components
We spent some time reorganizing renaming components to make it easier to find what you are looking for in the component selector. We also added thumbnails for some of the components that didn’t have them. There is more work to come on this to make it even better, but it’s already easier to find some things.
Template Updates
We rolled out an update to allow our backend teams to more-easily launch the templates that they've been working on. This includes changes to way we generate screenshots of these templates as well as the way that we add them to accounts.
A tiny release with a few fixes and tweaks.
Polish on product list items
We squared up the product and collection thumbnails to better accommodate stores that aren’t using portrait images ( landscape or square).
We also improved the hover effects and made some other subtle style tweaks. This impacts the product selection drawers and the index pages for products and collections.
Dark and light text toggle on boxes
Boxes now support their own light and dark background settings for text. Previously you could only set this setting on the section. Now you can do it on individual boxes.
Both sections and individual boxes have this setting. If it’s not set on a specific box, the box will inherit the setting from the section.
A smaller release, but we shipped a few features and tweaks in addition to a number of bug fixes. Tons of work on some new features and editor improvements that will both land in a future release.
Intro video for the page editor
As part of our work to improve the onboarding experience, a popup intro video for the editor will appear the first five times you enter the editor. You can also dismiss the tip permanently if you choose to.
Product images for all media
There’s a new folder in the media manager for Products where images that are imported from Shopify products will appear. This will make it easier to use product images in any Studio component.
Domain settings for Shopify
We cleaned up the domain settings for Shopify customers using the App Proxy functionality to load CX-Studio pages on their Shopify domain. When you’re using App Proxy it now shows “Point to Shopify” and you aren’t able to change it (we will probably enable people to change this in the future).
Form Width
In this release, we rolled out changes so that you can set a custom width for a form. All forms will use the style guide setting by default, but you can now set a custom width:
In the admin portal, under Forms, open the form you want to change
Click on the Settings tab
Under Max Width, select Custom...
Enter a number and save!
Text-align Right
You can now align text to the right! This is something we probably should have done a long time ago, but we’re only now getting to it along with a number of other editor improvements.
Another large release shipping a few key features and a ton of small fixes.
Shopify Free Plan
We’re now putting all new Shopify accounts on a free plan. This is a temporary change until we introduce multiple Shopify plans in Q2 of 2022.
Collapsing Product Descriptions
Stores often pack product descriptions with content that’s valuable for SEO. When rendered inside of our product component that text spills down the page creating an odd unbalanced view.
In this release, we rolled out a change that hides the text behind a “Read more” link if it is longer than 5 lines.
Resize-only for media
We’ve had a number of issues with image optimization being too aggressive so we’ve changed the default when adding media to Resize only.
Deleting users & accounts
We added functionality for our internal teams to be able to permanently delete users and accounts from our database. In the past we haven't had a good way of handling this and previous requests took longer to resolve than we'd like.
JSX Rendering Backend
We shipped the next phase of the prep work needed to support Component Properties. When we rolled out refactor NoML to be more like JSX we added a translation layer to translate from the new syntax into the old. This allowed us to use to avoid rewriting the rendering layer. In this release we rewrote the rendering layer so it’s no longer using the old syntax.
Another monster release for the engineering team packed with features, tweaks, and bug fixes! This work was delayed for a few weeks while we tested the new JSX syntax for NoML. As a consequence more issues were rolled into this release because it includes work from the past three weeks.
Showing a variant featured image
Shopify allows users to associate a single image with each variant. In this release, we added functionality to the product component that selects the variant image when the appropriate options are selected. This will zip to an image of the shirt in red when the red color is selected.
Banner Components
A reoccurring feature request, we implemented a basic banner component. That might sound kind of silly, but to date, we didn’t have a good way to build a component that had smaller buttons and padding. It’s now trivial to add a banner to any page.
JSX-Style Components
We’ve reworked the syntax of NoML to align with React’s JSX syntax. This is one of the things we needed to push out to make it easier for us to iterate on components, allows us to render dynamic changes within the section editor, and is a syntax that is familiar to a lot of developers.
Custom Code with Text Component
This behaves a lot like the Media component, but instead of an image you can add custom code. This will make it much easier to add custom embeds (for example a map) with text on the left or right.
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Following the end of the holiday season we shipped a number of quality of life improvements for components and a handful of other changes.
Better reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Our reviews component has been revamped to include better layout support as well as properties for toggling stars, avatars, and taglines.
Animated logos & more!
Our standard logos component has been updated with support for animated scrolling! We also added support for grayscale, black & white, or reversed filtering.
Content subscriptions are no more
While this is a valuable feature for people who want to require a subscription in order to access content, Stripe deprecated their payment forms entirely and is now telling users to use payment links to achieve the same functionality. We were faced with updating our code to use payment links instead of forms (which was costly) or phasing out the feature. As this is not a widely used feature we chose the latter.
Meta description is now optional!
Previously we required that users add a meta description to their page before we let them publish that page. This is no longer the case. While it can be important for SEO, people often bypass this requirement with dummy content. This is actually worse for SEO. And if you don’t need to worry about SEO for your use case it makes no sense to require it. Given this, we decided the best thing was just to make it an optional field.
We had a monster release with a number of small, but significant features added to the product and a ton of bug fixes.
Better product collection component
We just rolled out a new version of the product collection component. Not only does it look amazing compared to the old version it also allows you to automatically crop collection photos to a Portrait, Landscape, or Square aspect ratio.
Hello strike-through!
A reoccurring feature request, we finally had a chance to add a strikethrough button to the rich text editor. The needs of eCommerce customers made this a low-effort high-reward feature addition. Now customers can use strike-through to show price comparisons.
Better organization of templates
We now have more control over how templates are organized on the choose a template screen. New categories exist for Products, Collections, Lead Capture, and Other pages.
New eCommerce templates
Also new as of last week, we’ve added two additional landing page templates. Our first collection page template and a template that helps to demo our personalization features.
Much more to come on this front.
Better sync for product changes from Shopify
This won’t be fully realized until future releases, but we shipped the first work that will enable us to sync product changes on the fly from Shopify. Sync will soon occur whenever a change is made to a product and you won’t need to start the sync job manually any more.
Launch of Conditional Content! We updated the new page flow to better support product pages. We also shipped a ton of bug fixes in this release and disabled Semrush.
Conditional Content for Personalization
Rounding out Conditional Content we’ve extended the functionality to support contact properties and behavior (in addition to the previous work for DDC).
This work makes it possible to support a bunch of additional use cases that are especially important to eCommerce customers who want to build personalized content for users. For instance, it’s now possible to show different content on a page for repeat visitors.
Updates to product selection flow
We’ve streamlined the process of adding a product to a page template by building it into the landing page flow. Previously, you would be dumped straight into the editor after selecting a product page template. Now you’ll be asked to select a product. As we continue to invest in improving our onboarding experience for Shopify customers you’ll see us ship more features like this.
So long, Semrush!
Our Semrush integration stopped working recently. As we were evaluating the work required to get it working again we decided to disable the integration for now because it is not used that much in the eCommerce space.
We may re-enable this in the future if there is the right kind of demand, but for now, so long, Semrush.
This was a smaller release with mostly bug fixes and some prep work on features that will be released in January.
A simple release. A handful of fixes, and a couple new features.
Gorgias Chat Integration
More common with eCommerce customers Gorgias (pronounced Gorgeous) is a helpdesk solution for storefronts.
Icons & Images
We've tweaked the media manager so that you can now select any image or icon for any media component.
Now when you are selecting an icon the media manager will open on the "Icons" tab, but you will also be able to select " Images" to pick an icon instead.
The same is true for media which defaults to the "Images" tab but allows you to select "Icons".
We fixed a ton of bugs in this release, improved our Typekit integration, and added additional onboarding features that should make things easier for users to get started.
Typekit
It's now super easy to use Typekit with Unstack. Simply add the integration from the Integrations page with your Kit ID and add the fonts you need from a new tab in the fonts menu.
Previously, users had to use custom CSS to utilize Typekit with Unstack. Now they can adjust all of these settings from within Unstack.
We're also detecting the kit ID from their company website or Shopify store and auto-enabling the integration during onboarding.
Better onboarding
We've improved two aspects of in-app onboarding in this release:
We're now automatically importing logos and styles from Shopify storefronts as part of the "add app" flow.
We've also changed the "New page" flow so that it always presents templates to users. The template screenshots are now taller making it easier to see what you are selecting.
Several bug fixes went out this week. No banner releases.
Lots of small fixes in this release and other useful changes.
New Admin Navigation
You'll notice that a snazzy new UX complete with animations. Content has also been slightly reorganized according to new information architecture.
Tracking form landing page to checkout This is a critical part of our ability to deliver in-depth metrics to merchants and is our first step towards rolling out detailed sales metrics and more at a later date.
The banner feature for this release is conditional content for DDC. We built this feature to enable a beta user of ours to hide and show content for their pages based on content in their data tables. We're also working on conditional content for all pages to support personalization, but this will come in a future release.
We also fixed a ton of bugs in this release and rolled out better synchronization of properties across internal tools to make it easier for Marketing and Customer Success to build engage with users.
No definitive theme of this release, but many bug fixes and tweaks were released.
The theme of this release was overwhelmingly Fix Shopify Bugs.
That's right! As we worked on testing the app in preparation for submitting it to Shopify, we found numerous bugs. These were the sort of thing that would trip up the unsuspecting user and would result in a bad experience. We triaged the bugs we discovered and hit the most important ones in a week focused on Bug Bash.
In total, we fixed 18 bugs in this release and shipped 14 tweaks.
This release included a variety of things from improvements to internal tooling, new integrations, bug fixes, and more.
A small update, but significant for our Shopify customers: We've moved the buy buttons above the description on the product component. This puts it in a more prominent place, and works better for products with really long descriptions. Really long descriptions could even push the button below the fold.
We also removed FAQs from product component and fixed the sticky details section for the vertical images layout.
Several Shopify-specific improvements to the app as well as a number of bug fixes and tweaks.
Similar to the product index page the collections index will help users see the collections that have synced with Studio. This should help us debug sync issues and give users greater confidence in understanding what CX-Studio has pulled in from Shopify.
Notes for releases older than those documented in the release notes section of our knowledge base are not available for many reasons. In particular though, our development process evolved quickly to meet the needs of the business; therefore our release process has changed dramatically from what it once was.
All things considered, if you have any questions about this please reach out to our support team for further assistance.