It's been a while, hasn't it? We know we've been quiet on the blog front, but we've been heads-down, hard at work crafting some seriously powerful updates for Essentials 2.3 for YOOtheme Pro. And today, we're thrilled to finally unveil them!
This release is packed with features designed to elevate your dynamic content workflow, including new source integrations, form actions, and a host of improvements, all built upon a completely revamped foundation prioritizing stability, and clarity. We've even engineered it to handle edge cases we weren't sure were - and which definitely weren't - possible before. Let’s dive in.
Empowered Dynamic Content Workflow
Let's face it, as the dynamic options grow, trying to figure out which query belongs to which source, especially when they have the same name, can be a real headache. And what if a source has an error? Forget about it!
Essentials 2.3 changes all that. We've grouped queries by source, added clear descriptions, and included the full mapping path. Now, you'll always know where your data is coming from.
Multiple Items Direct Mapping
While YOOtheme Pro 4.0 introduced Nested Multiple Items Sources for advanced layouts, Essentials 2.3 simplifies common use cases like listing authors or tags. Now, you can easily display a field from all multiple items, separated by a custom delimiter, in any element field or composed source.
Nested Source Queries
Let's look at a practical example: you have queries for Albums and Album Media, and you want to present them together in a grid. Nested Multiple Items Sources seem ideal, but what if the Album query doesn't have any multiple items for nesting? Or what if you're working with an article and the photos are stored in a local folder?
Introducing Nested Source Queries. The concept and layout is similar when nesting multiple items, but instead of extending the parent source, a new source query is set that will inherit from the parent source only the data for its arguments. For example Google Photos Album Media source would inherit the Album ID, or the Files source would inherit the path to the files folder. Add to the equation composed sources and the combinations are limitless!
Social Content Sources
One of the highlights of Essentials 2.3 is the addition of new dynamic content sources. We're making it easier than ever to connect with your audience across multiple platforms:
LinkedIn Source
Connect with your professional network and showcase your LinkedIn content directly on your site.
Bluesky Source
Tap into the burgeoning Bluesky network and seamlessly integrate its content.
Mailchimp Audience Source
Make your Mailchimp integrations tailored to specific audiences.
Webhook Form Action
We have added a very basic, but versatile action, that will allow you to integrate with virtually any third-party service that supports webhooks, like zapier, make.com, zoho flow, or even your own custom web applications!
We've also added Delete Record Actions for CSV, Database, and Google Sheets that would allow you to delete records directly from a CSV file, Database, and Google Sheets, respectively.
Icon Collections
In this release we also dedicate some love to the icons by adding CoreUI, Phosphor, and Pixelarticons collections. Bootstrap, Font Awesome, Heroicons, Octicons, Remix Icon and Tabler collections were updated to its latest version and Teenyicons and Zondicons were removed as those do not seem to fit quality standards.
You will still be able to use the deprecated collections, but not install them in new sites. Make sure to back them up if needed.
Under the Hood
We've also made significant under-the-hood changes and updates:
- Chart.js used by the Chart Element has been updated to v4.4.7. Additionally is now possible to use the item.metadata shortcut for tooltip callbacks.
- Mailchimp action Interests mapping has been refactored and is now more efficient and reliable.
- The User Group (Joomla) Condition Rule no longer retrieves user groups with inheritance, providing more accurate targeting. And the counterpart User Group Rule in WordPress is now available as well relying on a 3rd-party plugin Groups.
- XML source have improved performance and reduced server load with the addition of the long-lived cache setting.
- Enable or disable Essential sources with the new Status Toggle, giving you greater flexibility.
- We've added Facebook Post Attachments source and Facebook Page Posts query Type Argument, allowing you to choose precisely which posts to fetch.
- Gain finer control over your forms with new Form Area Attributes settings and Fieldset sublayout support.
- Form action Message was updated with after show/hide hooks for greater control.
- Third-Party Form Element Support has been improved easing the integration.
- Dynamic Condition Rule is now more flexible with the case insensitive setting.
- Social Sharing Element allows now to set the platform icon with a custom SVGs as well to define custom shared URLs.
- Unresolved composed sources will be hidden from the output unless being edited. Additionally, hovering sources in the editor will highlight their resolved content in the preview.
- Last, but not least, a Layout Debug opt-in mode with real-time layout source preview has been introduced. A great tool for developers and/or advanced users.
Compatibility
YOOtheme Pro 4.5 introduced several significant changes that made it really challenging for us to support backward compatibility. However, these changes also enabled substantial improvements, therefore, Essentials 2.3 supports YOOtheme Pro 4.5 and above while Essentials 2.2 continue to support YOOtheme Pro 4.4 only, for those who are not yet ready to upgrade.
Paving the Path
Phew, writing this blog post really made us realize how much work has gone into this release! It’s the culmination of months of hard work, driven by your feedback and our passion for creating the best addons for YOOtheme Pro. And we are just paving the way for what is next!
A huge thank you to our beta testers! You went above and beyond to help us track down and fix those tricky bugs. This stable release wouldn't have been possible without your hard work. While we're confident in this version, we still recommend testing major updates in a staging environment first, just as a precaution.
As always, we appreciate your feedback and looking forward to see what you create!