If you haven’t been tuning in to Webflow’s product updates, we’ve been busy! This past quarter has seen a slew of smaller updates, alongside a handful of large ones. Here’s a look at what we’ve changed, grouped roughly by product area.
Designer updates
Navigator enhancements
Released May 14th and June 5th
One of the more visible updates we’ve made in the Designer began in May, when we started rolling out the new Navigator location on the left side of the Designer.
We also made it easier to find elements set to display: none in the navigator by adding a little icon indicating it as such. It’s a hidden eye, get it? An “eye-con” if you will. Thanks for reading.
CSS grid: release 2.0
Released May 21st
Following up on our initial release of CSS grid support back in October 2018, in May we released some powerful updates that make designing responsive grid layouts even easier.
Most notably, CSS grid’s 2.0 release introduced a new, default mode for grid child positioning: autoflow. When a grid child is set to autoflow positioning, it will automatically be placed into the next available grid cell when added to a grid.
For a full look at the update and some cloneable resources, check out our release blog post.
CMS and Ecommerce updates
Custom label and help text for the “name” field in collections
Released April 11th
Believe it or not, people use the “name” field in CMS Collections for all sorts of things, including things that aren’t strictly “names.” This can cause confusion if you’re working with an editor who’s adding content, or if you’re building a site that’s not in English. So we made it possible to rename that name field and add some help text, just like every other collection field.
Password protect CMS collection pages
Released April 23rd
Say you want to create a set of case studies on your portfolio about your confidential client work, but want to make those visible only to a select few.
Well: now you can password protect every blog post on there by setting a password in that collection page’s settings. Change that password anytime you want to revoke access And boom: confidential case studies.
Reorder the display of CMS collections
Released May 14th
Before this update, CMS collections displayed in the Designer and Editor in the order they were created, which could make it hard to find the collections that matter most. And so, to make life easier, now you can drag and drop your collections into whatever order you'd like.
Quickly find and delete CMS collection connections
Released May 22nd
Sometimes when you’re working with a large, complex site with lots of CMS content, deleting individual collections or collection fields can be a pain. You can only delete them once you’ve tracked down exactly where these collections and fields are being used in your design.
To make this process less painful, we built a “connections manager” that lets you see every instance where a collection is connected to your designs. It also gives you the option to disconnect any instance of that collection in one click.
Filter collection lists by multi-reference fields
Released May 22nd
Now you can sort collection lists on template pages by multi-reference fields (think: tags, categories, etc.) to create “related posts” or related products sections on your sites.
Introducing The Freelancer’s Journey: a free course that teaches you how to succeed as a freelance web designer — from getting clients to launching their websites.
Collaboration improvements
Project sharing improvements
Released April 5th and June 13th
We pushed a couple of updates this past quarter that should make sharing your project with colleagues and clients easier.
First, we added a unique parameter to the end of the URL when you’re on a specific page in the Designer, which lets you copy/paste that URL to link a teammate to that exact page you’re working on.
Second, we made it even easier to share a read-only link with colleagues or clients by enabling and copying that link right from the Designer.
Open current page from the Designer publish modal
Released April 5th
We also made a slight UX change in the Designer publish modal based on some feedback: now when you open your site from the publish modal, you’ll be directed to the exact page you’re working on — no need to find your way there on your own.
Include project settings when duplicating sites
Released April 10th
Continuing in the realm of things that make your life easier, we added new options when duplicating a site that let you carry over important project settings, which can be a lifesaver if you’re duplicating a site to transfer it between accounts.
Protect projects in Team accounts from deletion
Released June 6th
We also gave Team account owners some extra power: now you can protect projects from deletion in the new permissions tab of your project settings.
Coming soon
Multi-image field
We’ll be adding a new collection field type soon: the multi-image field. Among other uses, this will allow you to create galleries of images on CMS and ecommerce template pages, even when each collection item has a different number of associated images. So cool!
CMS-driven image and video lightboxes
We’re also pushing an update to your friendly neighborhood lightbox element that will let you connect to CMS and Ecommerce images and videos — or connect to multi-image fields on CMS and Ecommerce template pages.
Grid template areas
We’ll be coming out with another update to grid soon: namely grid template areas, which make it easier to reuse grid layouts across your site and make sweeping layout changes across your site in far fewer clicks. More on this soon!
After Effects animations integration
A big one coming this summer is our new After Effects integration, which — with some help from Lottie — lets you upload JSON files of your After Effects animations (exported with the Bodymovin plugin) and then add those directly to your site.
The integration will offer quite a lot of power, letting you control the playback of these animations based on Webflow’s existing interactions triggers like click, hover, and appear in view, along with more advanced triggers like scroll and mouse position.
Look out for a beta this summer!
Improvements to teams and collaboration
Following on after some of the collaboration improvements listed above, we’re making headway on some long-awaited features and requests around teams and collaboration, including:
- Annotations and feedback. Collect feedback on your designs from teammates, colleagues, and clients right in Webflow.
- Multiple people in the Designer. We’ve got a multi-phase plan in place to allow multiple people to work in the same project at the same time.
You’ll see gradual improvements on both of these fronts in the coming months, so stay tuned for more here.
PayPal support
If you’re keeping an eye on this question, don’t worry — we’re still on it. We’re steadily continuing work on PayPal checkout support for ecommerce and will keep you updated as we get closer to launch.
For a closer look at everything we’ve been up to at Webflow, check out our End of Q2 Live Q&A with CEO Vlad Magdalin.
Remember, you can always check our updates page for a log of the newest features, enhancements, and updates coming to Webflow. And if you have new features you’d like to see built, we encourage you to submit and vote on ideas in our wishlist.
