Version 4.1 (February 2019)
Release Notes tell you what’s new in Academic. As always, we welcome your feedback. You can also file a bug report. Want to update to this version? Refer to the update guide in conjunction with the parameter changes mentioned in the Breaking Changes section below.
See what’s new in Academic!
Welcome to the v4.1 release of Academic. This version is all about widgets and publications! There are a number of exciting updates in this version that we hope you will like, including:
- Publication Search
- In addition to the site search, a search box has been added to the publication archive to enable filtering publications by any attribute
- This enables visitors to more easily discover relevant content by filtering author, publication, etc.
- Hero widget makeover
- The Hero widget now supports multiple paragraphs and displaying an image (in addition to the optional background image)
- View the new hero options used to create the Demo
- Easily apply a background to any homepage section
- Choose from a range of background options including color, gradient, and image
- See the Demos section and its corresponding front matter options
- Create a Featured Blog Posts section using the new Featured widget
- The flexibility of the new Featured widget can be seen in the updated
featured.md
- The flexibility of the new Featured widget can be seen in the updated
- The Photo Gallery now generates web-friendly thumbnails
- It’s no longer necessary to use third party software to make photos web-friendly
- The Talk section can now be split into a Past Talks section and an Upcoming Talks section
- Refer to the new
exclude_past
andexclude_future
filters in the demo Talk section
- Refer to the new

Breaking changes
Here are some considerations to make when updating Academic from the previous version, v4.0.0:
- Rename
abstract_short
in publications and talks tosummary
(if used) - Rename
url_custom
tolinks
in front matter of content (if used) - Remove
[header]
from the Hero widget (if used) and replace it with the new[background]
options - The Hero Carousel widget has been renamed to Slider
- If using it, update
widget
in the front matter towidget = "slider"
- If using it, update
- Posts, Talks, and Publications widgets have been replaced with a Pages widget
- Featured Talks/Publications widgets have been replaced with a Featured widget
- Projects and Custom widgets have been replaced with the new Portfolio and Blank widgets
- Essentially, the Projects and Custom widgets have been renamed and their front matter upgraded to be consistent with the new Pages and Featured widgets (i.e. there are now many more front matter options to personalize their functionality and appearance)
- Refer to the Projects and Demo sections which use the new Portfolio and Blank widgets
- Some existing Projects and Custom widgets may possibly continue to work even without upgrading your sections to use these new widgets
- In the front matter of any talks, rename
date
,time_start
,time_end
options topublishDate
,date
, anddate_end
, respectively (See #721)
Widgets
Hero widget makeover
- Support multiple paragraphs in the body of the widget
- Add optional image (
hero_media
) which appears on the right side of the widget - Icon support for the
[cta]
call-to-action button usingicon
andicon_pack
- Add optional alternative call-to-action link,
[cta_alt]
- Add optional note (
[cta_note]
) underneath the CTA button - Like all widgets, new background options can be set for the Hero widget
- View the new hero options used to create the Demo
Users
- Add author index page to list all authors at
YOUR_URL/authors/
Talks
- Fix
all_day
option not working in list and compact views
Projects
- Fix the layout of the Project widget when using Card view
- This fully reverts the Card view from a tabular layout back to a masonry layout, similar to Pinterest
- Fix the new v4.0.0
post_view
,publication_view
,talk_view
options not working on project pages
Thank you
Last but certainly not least, a big Thank You to all the folks that helped to make Academic even better.
Has Academic helped you? Please consider supporting Academic.