This Week in Wagtail

10 February 2023

It's time to shake your tail feathers because the newest version of Wagtail has arrived! We're thrilled to bring this release to you because it includes many key improvements to the editor interface and useful new tools for developers.

A few reasons to be excited about Wagtail 4.2

This is a screenshot of the new toolbar that can be pinned to the admin

  • You can now pin the formatting toolbar in place
  • The new accessibility checker can help you catch common errors in your content
  • You can lock snippets and add them to workflows
  • You can make bulk-selecting easier for editors
  • A new {% fullpageurl %} template tag

For a full rundown of the feature highlights (and at least one clever meme reference), check out our release blog post.

Read the post HERE

5 things to remember when you upgrade

We promised tips in this newsletter, so here's a quick recap of some key things to remember when you're doing a Wagtail upgrade.

  1. This should go without saying (but it bears repeating), back everything up before upgrading just in case something goes sideways. Your database, your media files, your random notes on server settings — everything should be backed up.
  2. Check your dependencies. Make sure you have compatible versions of Django and Python installed before you upgrade Wagtail. If you need a reminder of which versions are compatible, here's a handy table.
  3. Plan on upgrading one feature release at a time. For example, if you have a blog running on Wagtail 2.14, you're not going to want to immediately upgrade to Wagtail 4.2. Go from 2.14 to 2.15 to 2.16 and then jump to 3.0, and so on until you reach the newest version.
  4. Read the "Upgrade considerations" section of the Wagtail documentation for each version you are going to upgrade to. Pay special attention to any breaking changes that are mentioned in the documentation.
  5. If you get stuck during your upgrade, the Issues queue or StackOverflow are two good places to search and see if someone has encountered the same problem. If you're still stuck, here are a couple other options for getting help.

More upgrade tips can be found in the Wagtail upgrade guide.

Read the full upgrade guide HERE

Latest chirps

Package releases

There may be a slightly longer gap between sends because our newsletter wrangler is going on a short medical leave. Please don't worry (it's not a major thing). Regular sends will resume at the beginning of March.

Until next time, thank you for reading! If you have a news item to contribute or a package release to report, please reach out to us through our Slack community or email us.


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