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Web Platforms and Documentation

NC State Web Platform Release 3.12

April 26, 2023
Student with other graduates in regalia looking to side

This release includes changes to the link component, which will allow users to set a link to open in new window, as well as the migration of the Thumbnail Gallery previously in NC State Stories to the NC State Theme. In addition to these and other features are a large number of bug fixes and quality of life enhancements.

Key Feature Updates

  • Exportable sitemap CSV: As part of the theme’s content audit tools, there is now a way to export a spreadsheet with a listing of the titles and URLs of each page on the site. This can be helpful in managing content audits and refreshes. The spreadsheet can then be imported into a tool such as Google Sheets to keep track of the status of content updates on each page and assign updates to specific individuals.
  • Thumbnail Gallery: The Thumbnail Gallery block is now available within pages. It was previously only an option within posts. It now joins the Photo Gallery block to provide another way to show a collection of photographs.
  • Auto-configuration of 404 page links: Most sites were not making use of a helpful feature that allows site administrators to provide lists of top searched pages and helpful resources on a site’s 404 page. The 404 page is what appears when a user tries to access a URL that doesn’t exist. Content is now auto-populated by default. Site administrators can adjust the links that appear by going to Appearance -> Menus in the Dashboard of their site.

Developer Release Notes

The release notes below go into deeper detail. The links below connect to pull requests and commits in GitHub for those who would like to see code changes. If you do not have access to the GitHub repository, please submit a request to gain access.

Features

  • The Link components have been updated to the new wordpress version, this change gives the ability to set a link to open in a new window. (#124 & #165)
  • The Thumbnail Gallery block has been moved from NCState-Stories to the main Theme, and has been set to be available on pages and posts. (#125)
  • Editors now have access to the basic administrative side of Gravity Forms. (#143)
  • The “Top Searches” and “Additional Resources” Menus will now be automatically populated if not already created. If these locations have not already been set the automatically created menus will be assigned and displayed on the 404 pages. (#155)
  • The reusuable blocks have been added as an allowed block in accordion items. (#158)
  • The Content Audit dashboard widget now has a button to download a csv file with all published pages. (#167)

Bug Fixes

  • The Link Lists block preview was not showing the Arrow Decorator, this should no longer be the case. (#127)
  • Setting the start value for a list was working incorrectly, the list always starting at one, this has been corrected. (#129)
  • ACF blocks were being unregistered in the block editor unintentionally, this has been fixed. (#131)
  • The Arrow Decorator was being duplicated in some places due to a change to the way it was being added, this should be fixed. (#133)
  • The retrieval of events via the new tribe_get_events function was causing errors when the plugin was not active/installed, it now checks for the events calendar plugin prior to running that function. (#135)
  • The left and right arrows for navigating in a photoswipe lightbox were not showing up, an svg version was added and they should be showing up again. (#139)
  • The submit button of the Email Signup Form was incorrectly aligning under certain circumstances, this should be aligning correctly now. (#140)
  • In the Automated Posts block too few posts were showing up due to the new filtering, this should be fixed. (#141)
  • An unusual shaking effect when setting the background color of the contact details block that occurred on some browsers has been fixed. (#144)
  • Changing the background color of the giving form was not being saved, this has been fixed. (#146)
  • Duplicating an accordion block would cause the new accordion to still be linked to the old accordion, this should no longer be the case. (#149)
  • Bold link block would error for some old versions that had not been deprecated, a deprecation has been added and this should no longer happen. (#152)
  • Automated Posts were sometimes showing an incorrect number of potential posts in the inspector controls, it should be showing the correct number of potential posts now. (#153)
  • A previous change caused issues with whitelisting of blocks, this should be fixed. (#163)
  • Since WP 6.2 Existing Split Headers were unable to switch to images that had alt text. (#168)

Quality of Life Enhancements

  • Change action hook used to include HTML tag to actually be after the opens to meet GTM’s recommendation. (#132)
  • The composer and NPM packages have been updated. (#147 & #151)
  • DS_Store has been added to the .gitignore file.(#148)
  • Added a fallback for the thumbnail gallery if the thumbnail sizes array was not populated when the image was uploaded. (#164)
  • Removed redundant roots/sage-installer npm install, this package now comes from an updated ncstate repo since PHP 8. (#166)
  • Theme Resources now pulls from the master branch, previously v1.1.0, this will be the default branch for production going forward. (fbfb83a)