New in Craft CMS 2.4
Six months after Craft 2.3, Craft 2.4 is here with more than 60 improvements. There isn't one big headline feature this time. Instead, this release focuses on feedback and fine-tuning the details.
SVG support
Craft 2.4 now supports SVG thumbnails and transforms if you have ImageMagick installed. Not every CMS offers native SVG support, so it's great to see Craft include this feature.
So today we've released Craft 2.4, which brings over 60 additions and improvements, including SVG thumbnail support, redesigned user permissions, and two new Control Panel translations.
Customizable selection buttons
You can now set custom labels for selection buttons on assets, categories, entries, tags, and user fields. For example, a file field named "Photo" can have a button labeled "Add Photo" instead of a generic label. This small change makes the control panel easier to use.
Redesigned user permissions
User permission management has been completely redesigned. Now, you can assign multiple permissions at once instead of clicking through them one by one. If you've managed ten or more user groups before, you'll really appreciate this update.
Emails in the right language
Emails are now sent in the recipient's preferred language, not the language of the current session. Before, a German-speaking user could get an activation email in English if the admin happened to be working in English at the time. For multilingual sites, that was an embarrassing edge case.
Matrix performance
On larger sites, Matrix performance has been a known pain point. Looping through fields with multiple block types now requires fewer database queries per loop, and saving entries and categories with many descendants is faster as well.
New config settings
There are also several helpful new settings:
- enableTemplateCaching – disables template caching system-wide, useful during debugging
- convertFilenamesToAscii – automatically converts non-ASCII characters in uploaded filenames
- defaultCpLanguage – sets the default control panel language for users before they choose their own
- pageTrigger – now supports query string-based pagination, e.g. /articles?page=2 instead of /articles/p2
More additions
Rich Text fields now have a "Link to a category" option, so you can link directly to categories. Before, you could only link to entries and assets.
Asset index pages now have a "Search in subfolders" checkbox. This lets you search in subfolders within the current folder.
Two new languages
The control panel is now available in Czech and Slovak, so there are now 18 supported languages in total.
My take
Craft 2.4 isn't a release you can sum up with just one feature. SVG support, the new permissions interface, faster Matrix fields, and emails in the right language all respond to real feedback. After the big workflow update in 2.3, Craft 2.4 shows the team listened and delivered.
Web Developer