Version 4.4 (July 2019)

Last updated on Mar 23, 2022 6 min read

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 EPIC v4.4 release of Academic. There are a large number of exciting updates in this version that we hope you will like, including:

  • Generate diagrams and flowcharts from text, in a similar manner as Markdown
  • New improved look for featured images
    • Add placement option for featured image in front matter. Placement options: 1 = Full column width, 2 = Out-set, 3 = Screen-width. Defaults to 1, full column width.
    • Deprecates the split title/image style that was shown on XL displays
    • See the posts in the latest Demo for an example
  • Write math more easily
    • Add markup: mmark to the front matter of a page containing math
    • Use $$...$$ for inline and block math
    • There is no longer a need to escape inline or block math in the body to prevent it being parsed as Markdown
  • New Mr Robot theme (see below)
    • To try it out, set color_theme = "mr_robot" and font_theme = "mr_robot" in config/_default/params.toml
  • New Rose theme (see below)
    • To try it out, set color_theme = "rose" and font_theme = "rose" in config/_default/params.toml
  • New Strawberry theme (see below)
    • To try it out, set color_theme = "strawberry" and font_theme = "default" in config/_default/params.toml
  • The Page Sharer buttons can now be easily customized
    • Select which social networks to show and configure the order of the sharing buttons
  • Flexibility to write image gallery captions using Markdown and Emojis
  • Multi-day events are now supported
    • Previously, the talk layout was intended only for talks (intra-day events). Now, multi-day events are supported.
  • Click on a figure to view the full size image in a lightbox
    • Example given an image example.png in static/img/, add the following shortcode to the body of a Markdown page: {{< figure library="true" src="example.png" lightbox="true" >}}
  • Automatically highlight the active page section in the table of contents displayed in the right sidebar (for pages using the docs layout)
  • Markdown asides supported - also referred to as notices or hints
    • Add markup: mmark to the front matter of a page
    • Write an aside by prefixing a paragraph with A>
    • Easier than using the Alert shortcode
  • Allow visitors to edit pages on GitHub
    • edit_page option can be added to params.toml. Set repo_url to "" to prevent visitors editing pages.
    • For example, edit_page = {repo_url = "https://github.com/<USERNAME>/<REPO>", editable = {docs = true, page = true, post = true}}
    • Currently works for GitHub repos and pages using the page, post, or docs layouts.
  • Automatically turn on night mode if visitor prefers dark themes
    • Currently works with the Mac OS dark/light theme preferences
  • Many fixes (see Misc section below)

Improved technical content writing

Improved technical content writing.
Improved technical content writing.

Diagrams

You can generate diagrams and flowcharts from text, in a similar manner as Markdown.

Just add diagram: true to a page’s YAML front matter and insert your Mermaid diagram syntax in the Diagram shortcode and that’s it. For example,

```mermaid
graph LR;
    A[Hard edge] -->|Label| B(Round edge)
    B --> C{Decision}
    C -->|One| D[Result one]
    C -->|Two| E[Result two]
```

renders as

graph LR; A[Hard edge] -->|Label| B(Round edge) B --> C{Decision} C -->|One| D[Result one] C -->|Two| E[Result two]

Stunning new themes

Check out the stunning new Mr Robot, Rose, and Strawberry themes that have been added:

To try Mr Robot, set color_theme = "mr_robot" and font_theme = "mr_robot" in config/_default/params.toml.

To try Rose, set color_theme = "rose" and font_theme = "rose" in config/_default/params.toml.

To try Strawberry, set color_theme = "strawberry" and font_theme = "default" in config/_default/params.toml.

Note that Minimal corresponds to the Default theme (color_theme = "default"). The Default theme will be renamed to Minimal in the next release, v4.5.

Breaking changes

Here are some considerations to make when updating Academic from the previous version, v4.3:

  • Cupcake color theme and Playfair font theme have been deprecated. Check out the new Mr Robot, Rose, and Strawberry themes above.
  • If you are using head_custom.html for custom <head> HTML, it must be renamed to custom_head.html
  • If you are overriding any of Academic’s layout files, you may need to re-apply your HTML modifications to the updated layouts which inherit from a new base template
  • A Cite button for publications will only be generated when a cite.bib file is present in its folder

Publications

  • feat: Only generate Cite button when cite.bib is present
    • Enables users to place other *.bib files in the folder, to be used for other purposes such as Blogdown bibliographies.

Widgets

  • Portfolio: add Compact view
  • Portfolio: refactor List view to be consistent with the standard List views
    • Now, Portfolio’s List and Compact views are just wrappers around the standard List and Compact views
  • Portfolio: fix summary in Showcase view not falling back to use Content. Fixes #1165.

Docs

  • Automatically highlight the active page section in the table of contents displayed in the right sidebar
  • Add support for page bundles when using the docs layout
    • Enables placing course/documentation files within their own folder, e.g. courses/example/intro.md can be renamed to courses/example/intro/index.md if desired

Misc

  • for personal sites, link a superuser’s profile box to the homepage rather than their profile page
  • fix case where social sharing links are empty
  • style: make tables responsive (fixes display issues with wide tables)
  • convert archetypes from TOML to YAML
  • fix Academic’s RSS template not applied to sections or taxonomies
  • fix font-family for code snippets no longer loaded from font theme
  • fix Gallery captions not loading when using Gallery in Widget Pages
  • fix: workaround Hugo bug with non-ASCII characters
  • fix: improved HTML5 validation
  • feat: always use https scheme for assets
  • fix: if comment count enabled, show only on supported pages
  • fix: navbar active link highlighting and scrolling - Fixes #1199
    • Fixes edge case caused due to responsive navbar height. More specifically, a possible race condition between Scrollspy init and updating its offset
    • Fixes some edge cases caused due to responsive navbar height and dynamic Portfolio widget height, as well as case where offset was non-integer, requiring float to be rounded up
  • fix: CTA icon in Slider widget only works with fas icon pack (#1189)
  • fix: opening lightbox or search modal causes navbar to move
  • fix(js): Chinese TOC links not scrolling to ID on click (Fix #1178)
  • fix(search): browser back button after searching does not behave properly
  • fix(search): after dialog closes, results reappear on refresh

Languages

  • Add Romanian
  • Update German, French, Spanish, Portuguese

Thank you

Last but certainly not least, a big Thank You to all the folks that helped to make Academic even better.

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