Hey there everyone! I’m excited to show off some new goodness for Alloy today –
(cross-posted from the Elixir blog)
I’ve been hard at work since the last Alloy update, at the end of January, working on some major improvements for Alloy’s Editor. I’m super excited about these new additions as I think they will make everyone’s life so much easier. So, no more dilly-dallying, let’s just dive in to what’s new…
Image Uploads
The first thing that really stands out in the v2.2.0 update for Alloy is its newly added ability to upload images directly into your blog posts without needing to upload them to your FTP server on your own. This means that while writing your post you can use the new Image Upload button in the toolbar to upload an image to your post.
You’l find the small cloud icon in the toolbar, as seen below, which allows you to upload JPG or PNG images directly to your posts:
After uploading your image via the Image Upload button the Alloy Editor will then create and insert the correct markdown to insert your image into the post. In addition to the Image Upload feature for your blog post’s content I’ve also change the way the Topper Image works.
If we’re going to have this awesome image upload capability for the blog posts, then we need it for the Topper Image, too. This update changes the Topper Image from a text field to an image upload field (with a nice preview of the image as well). This means you can upload your Topper Images directly in the Editor now as well:
We think these two additions to the Editor will speed up everyone’s workflow and make life much easier.
Here’s a quick video about the new Image Upload features:
Topper Plus
I didn’t stop at these features though. In fact I added several other new features, including a new stack that ties into both the new Topper Image upload capability as well as the existing Conditionals stack. This new Alloy stack is called the Topper Plus stack, and it will allow us to create big, bold, banner-like toppers for our individual, full blog posts.
This feature is best shown off in a video, I think. I encourage you to take a look to see just how fun, and powerful this new stack can be:
What else is new?
LEAD PARAGRAPH. Also includes in this update is a Lead Paragraph feature for the Full Post view. This new toggle will transform the first paragraph of your Full Post view into a Lead Paragraph. This will take on the same properties as is seen in the Foundry Paragraph stack when you enable its Lead Paragraph option. This gives a bit of design style to your Full Post view and it looks particularly good in conjunction with the Topper Plus design.
HIDDEN TOPPER IMAGES. This new feature, which is found in the Blog Entries stack, allows you to hide the Topper Images for your blog posts in the Summaries view. This provides a simpler, streamlined view of your summaries while still retaining the Topper Image for each individual blog post, in the Full Post view.
OTHER. I’ve also worked through several minor bug fixes and improvements under the hood, so to speak.
This is a paid upgrade, right?!
Nope. This is again another free update for Alloy, adding a great deal of new functionality and improvements at no added cost. As always, while this version of Alloy is good for an unlimited number of domains, we ask a small donation of just $10 for each domain past 3 that you will be using Alloy on. This will help us with developing Alloy even further and adding more functionality and features. You can find the Extra Domain button on the Alloy Purchase page if you’d like to help out with development.
The update is available right in the Stacks plugin in RapidWeaver. Just do the normal Check For Updates and you should be presented with v2.2.0.