Apostrophe 4.19.0: Batch tagging for images, keyboard shortcuts for widgets, a new user endpoint

[BoDonkey]

Hello Apostrophe Community!

Apostrophe 4.19.0 brings focused improvements to the editorial experience with batch tagging for media, new keyboard shortcuts for widget management, enhanced piece manager functionality, and expanded API capabilities for custom integrations.

apostrophecms-4.19.0.mp4

Keyboard Shortcuts for Widget Management

Content editors can now use familiar keyboard shortcuts to work more efficiently with widgets:

• Cut, Copy, and Paste: Standard shortcuts now work with widgets in content areas
• Delete and Duplicate: Quickly remove or replicate widgets without mouse clicks
• Streamlined Workflow: Reduce repetitive actions when arranging content

These shortcuts are especially helpful when working with complex layouts or frequently rearranging content elements. Access the shortcuts menu by typing ?.

Batch Tagging in Media Library

This highly upvoted feature from our Roadmap is now available! The media library now supports batch tagging operations, allowing editors to select multiple images and add or remove tags in a single action. You can even create new tags on the fly during batch operations, making media organization much more efficient when working with large collections. Check out our Roadmap to request and vote on features you'd like to see next.

Dynamic Choices in Filter Configuration

We've extended the dynamic choices functionality that's already available in schema fields to work with piece manager filters. You can now use the same dynamic choice methods in your filters() configuration that you're familiar with from select and checkboxes fields in schemas, allowing filter options to be populated programmatically based on current data or conditions. For example, you could create a category filter that only shows categories with published content, or dynamically populate filter options based on the same logic used in your schema fields.

New User API Endpoint

For developers building custom integrations, we've added a new /api/v1/@apostrophecms/login/whoami endpoint that returns details about the currently logged-in user. This makes it easier to build authentication-aware applications and custom interfaces that need to understand user permissions and roles. This route returns a JSON object containing user information based on developer configurable fields:

{
  "_id": "user123",
  "username": "john-doe",
  "title": "John Doe",
  "email": "[email protected]"
}

Rich Text Import Enhancements

Teams managing content across multiple systems can now use the import.imageTags parameter when importing rich text content, allowing you to specify image tag IDs during import operations for better control over inline image handling.

Additional Improvements

This release also includes several quality-of-life fixes:

• Enhanced empty content detection in rich text widgets now properly handles HTML blocks like figures and tables
• Added missing shortcuts to the Pages manager shortcut menu (triggered on page by?) for better discoverability
• Nested field visibility now properly considers both parent and grandparent field conditions, ensuring that deeply nested conditional fields behave as expected.

Community Contributions

We're grateful to our community contributors who help make Apostrophe better for everyone. This release cycle we received code changes for both our @apostrophecms/sitemap module and core. Your contributions, whether code, documentation, or feedback, are invaluable to the project's continued growth and improvement.

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These improvements are ready for you to explore! Update your projects with npm update and let us know what you think on our roadmap.

🚀 Happy coding!

Apostrophe 4.19.0

Adds

• Implemented GET /api/v1/@apostrophecms/login/whoami route such that it returns the details of the currently logged in user; added the route to the login module.
  Thanks to sombitganguly for this contribution.
• Adds keyboard shortcuts for manipulating widgets in areas. Includes Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, and Duplicate.
• Adds dynamic choices working with piece manager filters.
• Allow import.imageTags (array of image tag IDs) to be passed to the rich text widget when importing (see https://docs.apostrophecms.org/reference/api/rich-text.html#importing-inline-images).
• Adds a new way to make GET requests with a large query string. It can become a POST request containing the key __aposGetWithQuery in its body.
  A middleware checks for this key and converts the request back to a GET request with the right req.query property.
• Adds a new batch operation to tag images.

Fixes

• Add missing Pages manager shortcuts list helper.
• Improve the isEmpty method of the rich text widget to take into account the HTML blocks (<figure> and <table>) that are not empty but do not contain any plain text.
• (Backward compatibility break) Conditional field that depends on already hidden field is also hidden, again.

Pro Modules

@apostrophecms-pro/automatic-translation 1.4.2

This bundle allows automatic translation of documents (pages and pieces) when localizing content. It comes with two translation providers: Google Cloud Translation and DeepL, but it is also possible to configure your own providers. Explore our documentation to discover how this extension can enhance your project. Then, effortlessly integrate it through our new Apostrophe Workspaces. For further details or inquiries, feel free to contact us or visit our pricing page.

Adds

• Documented how to customize the labels used in the UI.

1.4.1 (2025-06-23)

Fixes

• Handle correctly the mapping of multiple Apostrophe language codes to a single Azure translation provider language code. Ensure automatic mapping of same Azure language codes to Apostrophe language codes.

@apostrophecms-pro/document-versions 2.5.1

This module automatically creates versions for your published documents (pages and pieces) and allows manual restore to any previously saved document version. Explore our documentation to discover how this extension can enhance your project. Then, effortlessly integrate it through our new Apostrophe Workspaces. For further details or inquiries, feel free to contact us or visit our pricing page.

Changes

• Bumps eslint-config-apostrophe to 5, fixes errors, removes unused dependencies.

@apostrophecms-pro/seo-assistant 1.2.0

The SEO Assistant module generates SEO page metadata automatically through the use of AI. It comes configured for use with the OpenAI models. It is also possible to configure your own providers, see related section. This extension requires that the project also have the @apostrophecms-pro/automatic-translation and apostrophecms/seo extensions installed. Explore our documentation to discover how this extension can enhance your project. Then, effortlessly integrate it through our new Apostrophe Workspaces. For further details or inquiries, feel free to contact us or visit our pricing page.

Adds

• You can now change the SEO assistant trigger button using the option triggerAssistantButton. It accepts label, icon, class and color. To style the button, please use .apos-button.apos-button--%class% as a CSS selector.
• You can now update the position of the seoAssistant meta label using the new option seoAssistantMetaPosition in modules/@apostrophecms/seo-assistant-doc-type/index.js. The accepted values are left (default) and right.

Apostrophe modules

@apostrophecms/form 1.5.1

Allow ApostropheCMS editors to build their own forms. They can then place any form in one or more content areas across the website.

Fixes

• Updates conditional logic for conditional addition of fields to emails to correctly handle boolean values.

@apostrophecms/passport-bridge 1.5.0

apostrophe-passport works together with passport-google-oauth20, passport-gitlab2 and similar passport strategy modules to let users log in to Apostrophe CMS sites via Google, Gitlab and other identity providers. This feature is often called federation or single sign-on.

Changes

• moves changes from 1.5.0-beta.1 to this version

1.5.0-beta.1 (2025-07-03)

Adds

• The new factory option allows developers to pass an async function that returns a fully initialized passport strategy object. This allows developers to solve many exactly problems as they see fit, in one single place: taking care of discovery before initialization, initializing strategies that won't accept a plain object of parameters, remapping verify parameters, and remapping profile properties. In particular, this change achieves compatibility with openid-client.
• Structured logging has been added, helping to debug in many situations. The debug log level is used, so by default it won't clutter the logs in production.
• Logic intended to automatically refresh access tokens is no longer invoked for non-oauth strategies that can't support it.

@apostrophecms/sitemap 1.1.1

The Apostrophe Sitemap module generates XML sitemaps for websites powered by ApostropheCMS. The sitemap includes all of the pages on your site that are visible to the public, including "piece" content, such as events and blog posts.

Fixes

• Sitemaps per locale are generated correctly. Thanks to Eduardo Correal for this change.

Changes

• Bumps eslint-config-apostrophe to 5, fixes errors, removes unused dependencies.