Release schedule
The release of Pangea CMS 8.22 is scheduled for March 23rd 2023 at the times specified below:
- Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.: 06:00 - 07:30 Prague time / 00:00 - 01:30 DC time
- LibertyNet: 07:30 - 08:30 Prague time / 01:30 - 02:30 DC time
- Voice of America: 08:30 - 10:00 Prague time / 02:30 - 04:00 DC time
- Office of Cuba Broadcasting: 10:00 - 11:00 Prague time / 04:00 - 05:00 DC time
What's new?
- Features to CMS 8:
- Other CMS improvements:
- SEO improvements:
- Bug fixes:
CMS 8 HTML widget BETA
Pangea CMS 8.22 includes the new HTML (Beta) edit screen for creating HTML widgets.
To access the new edit screen via the Editor for any website item:
- Drag and drop the HTML (Beta) box from the Widgets list to create a new widget.
- Hit ≡ (three lines) > Edit (Beta) to edit an existing HTML widget.
For detailed information about HTML widgets and using HTML (Beta), see the following article:
CMS 8 Poll widget
Pangea CMS 8.22 includes an improved workflow for creating Poll widgets.
The new Poll widget edit screen uses the latest CMS 8 design.
To access the new edit screen via the Editor for any website item:
- Drag and drop the Poll box from the Widgets list to create a new widget.
- Hit ≡ (three lines) > Edit to edit an existing Poll widget.
For detailed information about Polls and creating a Poll widget, see the following article:
CMS 8 FactCheck widget
Pangea CMS 8.22 includes an improved workflow for creating FactCheck widgets.
The new FactCheck widget edit screen uses the latest CMS 8 design.
To access the new edit screen via the Editor for any website item:
- Drag and drop the FactCheck box from the Widgets list to create a new widget.
- Hit ≡ (three lines) > Edit to edit an existing FactCheck widget.
For detailed information about FactChecks and creating a FactCheck widget, see the following article:
CMS 8 User account BETA edit screen
Pangea CMS 8.22 includes the new User account BETA edit screen, which offers improved usability and performance in the latest CMS 8 design.
Access your personal User account by hitting the person icon in the top-right corner of CMS and selecting My account BETA.
Most settings in your personal User account are read-only. However, certain settings are editable for all CMS users. More information is available here:
Widget preview
You can now preview a widget before publishing it on the public site. This applies for the following widgets:
When you create a new widget, the Preview screen appears after you complete the required settings. You can check how the widget will look on desktop, tablet, and mobile before saving it.
Preview is also available when you edit an existing widget. It is not necessary to save edits before previewing the widget.
Please be aware of the following:
- Preview shows the full website item, so you can see how the widget fits on the page. For now, you might need to scroll to find the widget you are editing. We will improve the preview in a future release by ensuring it focuses automatically on the relevant widget.
- When you preview a Trends widget, the preview might take a few seconds to load. This is because the data needs to be transferred from Adobe Analytics.
CMS search optimizations
We've made the following optimizations for search on all CMS 8 lists:
- If you immediately start typing, the query will appear in the Search box (it is no longer necessary to manually click inside the box before typing).
- Run a search by hitting the Enter key on your keyboard (it is no longer necessary to click the Search button).
These improvements apply on the following CMS 8 lists:
- Categories (Zones) list
- Slide-in widget list
- Users list
- Widget library
- Widget list
- You Might Also Like Widget list
The additional optimization below applies on all CMS 8 lists except the Categories (Zones) list:
Filters and search terms are not cleared when you return to the list after editing an item. For example, if you start editing a widget from the Widget list, then close the widget edit screen, the previous filters / search terms are still applied on the Widget list.
'Site' column on Users list
Based on user feedback, we've added the Site column on the Users list. The aim is to improve usability when reviewing users from all sites. If multiple entries exist for a single user (because the user has access to multiple sites), it is now clear which site each entry is linked to.
Optimizations for search engine results pages
We've been improving how certain pages are promoted on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
The 8.22 release includes optimizations for the following pages:
Improvements have focused on:
- Ensuring each page has a unique meta title and meta description (removing duplicated metadata)
- Ensuring the meta title and meta description for each page is generated from the most appropriate source
We recommend editors pay close attention to the following fields:
- META Title and META Description for Multimedia / Category archive pages
- Title and Introduction for Video and Audio clip pages
- Short Description for Author pages
Data from these fields will be provided to search engines as the recommended text for the headline / description on SERPs.
New SEO configuration keys
The following configuration keys are now listed via Settings > SEO (Search Engine Optimization):
- Responsive.PageDescription.Podcast
- Responsive.PageDescription.Rss
These keys are used as follows:
- Responsive.PageDescription.Podcast: Applied as the meta description for the Podcasts tab on the RSS / Podcasts page. The value will be provided to search engines as the recommended text for the description on SERPs.
- Responsive.PageDescription.Rss: Applied as the meta description for the RSS tab on the RSS / Podcasts page. The value will be provided to search engines as the recommended text for the description on SERPs.
It is not required to provide a localized value for these keys. If the keys are not localized, the text visible directly under the RSS / Podcast tab is applied as the meta description.
The new keys are provided to let site admins customize the meta description if necessary.
Bug fix: Categories drop-down menu does not work
We received reports that the Categories drop-down menu was not working for attaching items to a Related content widget. This issue should be fixed in the 8.22 release.