Welcome to Core CMS v0.5.8! This release marks the completion of Phase 5.1 (Luxury Admin Experience), introducing a suite of dashboard usability enhancements and visual refinements designed to provide administrators with a premium, high-fidelity content management workspace.
From customizable visual layouts to personalized sidebar controls and slate-based dark mode, here is a detailed breakdown of what is new in v0.5.8:
🗂️ JSON Page Layout Template System
Creating consistent content structures across different pages should be effortless. We have built a block-based layout template manager directly into our visual builder:
- Save & Reuse: Administrators can now save their active Editor.js visual block layouts as named templates.
- Load & Append: Select a template from your library and append it instantly to your workspace, allowing you to combine different section structures.
- REST API Endpoint: All template management operations are powered by a lightweight backend API (
admin/api/templates.php) and serialized securely inside the database options store.
🌓 Slate-Based Admin Dark Mode
Working late hours just got much easier on the eyes. Core CMS now includes native support for a sleek, high-contrast dark theme:
- Intelligent Activation: The theme automatically respects your system's OS preferences (
prefers-color-scheme: dark) by default. - Manual Toggle: Instantly switch between Light and Dark mode using the Sun/Moon toggle links inside the sidebar navigation.
- Site-Wide Override: Administrators can force dark mode for all users under Site Settings.
- Zero-Flicker Rendering: Utilizing an inline blocking script in the header, the theme is resolved and applied before rendering, eliminating bright white background flashes.
📐 Collapsible Sidebar Navigation
For power users who need maximum visual focus on content writing, we have optimized the admin layout with collapsible navigation:
- Desktop Toggle: Collapse the sidebar width from
240pxto a compact70pxby clicking the collapse arrow next to the site logo. - Brand Abbreviation: The sidebar automatically collapses long site titles into a single-character brand logo, utilizing CSS ellipsis text-overflow to prevent UI collisions.
- Local Persistence: Sidebar preferences are saved using browser
localStorage, ensuring the menu retains your preferred state across pages. - Responsive Handling: The layout collapse is reserved for desktop screens, while mobile viewports automatically transition the sidebar into a slide-out navigation drawer.
🔌 Contact Form Documentation
To help administrators fully leverage our modular plugins, we have completed the integration documentation:
- Step-by-Step Guides: Added Section 12 to the Admin Manual covering block placement, field configurations (Name, Phone, Subject), submission logs, and database purging.
— Jason Brain