Feature

One new feature and one improvement were released today.

Custom email text

You are now able to have a custom email text that is used when notifying subscribers about updates via email.

When you add custom email text, it will be visible directly within the email—no need to click the "Read article" button to visit the changelog. The previous option remains the default, so entering custom email text is optional.

Due to the nature of email apps displaying content, you are not able to use embedded elements or code blocks in the email text. Even if you paste them into the text, they will look bad in the email. We have no desire to fight Outlook and co. on this.

Custom copyright notice

You are now able to change the copyright notice that is used when viewing the changelog and within emails. By default, a copyright sign, the current year and the name of the workspace are used. You can change this now within the workspace settings.

Today, we released post reactions. Post reactions allow your readers to express their feelings about an entry using emoji expressions: happy, neutral, and sad.

The main navigation now features a new item, "Reactions." There, you can see a list of all reactions, with the newest shown at the top. Within the "Published" view, any entries having at least one reaction will show a default emoji that displays the count of all given reactions.

To enable reactions, head over to the workspace settings and enable "Post reactions". Reactions will be visible in the standalone changelog, and within widgets. Reactions can be changed, and also removed by the reader.

Consider this a v1. We do plan to extend this by optional comments, notifications and a chart in the dashboard.

Today, we released a maintenance update and also added an option to send emails via your own domain.

Custom email sender

We're pleased to announce that, due to popular demand, we are now offering the option to send emails using a custom domain. This is a paid add-on, requiring a one-time payment, and it is valid for all workspaces within an account.

After unlocking the add-on within the workspace settings, you will need to add a TXT and CNAME record to your domain. Simply follow the setup instructions. Once everything is verified, emails will be automatically sent from your own email address.

Maintenance and bug fixes

We updated all underlying software to their latest versions, fixed several bugs, and optimized a few database queries for better performance.

Today we fixed a couple of smaller bugs and also added support for password-protected changelogs.

To restrict a workspace with a global password, head over to the workspace settings and scroll to the "Access" section.

Today we launched the possibility to add custom scripts to workspaces. So if you want to integrate a third-party analytics tool, or a chat widget you can do this now within the workspace settings. Find the new nav item "Third-party scripts".

Please note that we are monitoring added scripts. If you add any kind of malicious scripts, we reserve the right to remove those and may also restrict your account.

We also added an option to set tooltips in the editor, like this one. It's a small addition that was requested 4 times already so... there you go. :)

Having the possibility to add files to entries was a common request from our customers, and we're happy that v1 of this feature is now live.

File uploads for releases

Files can now be added to entries. There is currently no limit how many files can be added, but the file size is limited to 30 MB per file (that should be enough for most cases). We may increase this limit at some point.

You may also add an external url if your file is already hosted elsewhere.

If you have feedback regarding file uploads, feel free to get in touch via the in-product chat.

Hide subscribe button

Another common request was to have a way to hide / disable the "Subscribe" button. That's now a new setting within the global workspace settings (look for "Enable subscription"). It's enabled by default, so if you don't want people to subscribe to changelog updates, just disable this.

We also fixed a couple of bugs and updated the underlying software to their latest versions.

It is now possible to hide the workspace name from the "Commit" theme. This option is visible when you select the "Commit" theme in the appearance settings. 

Multiple teams for accounts

It is now possible to belong to more than one team. Prior to this update, an account could not be part of multiple teams, only one team.

This one has been requested a couple of times and we're happy to finally introduce the possibility to add subscribers via CSV import. Import via API was already possible since we launched our API last September but a more convenient way was to directly upload them via the backend.

It is now possible to update system texts that appear within themes and emails.

You can now also change the default locale per workspace. The correct locale is important for many aspects, such as SEO. Search engines use language metadata to index and display search results in the appropriate language, enhancing discoverability and relevance.

To update or translate our default texts, go to your workspace settings (releasesapp.com/settings) and find the section called "Custom texts / translations". So changelogs can be fully translated into any language.

Removing the "Powered by" backlink

Having a backlink to Releases is important for us to spread the word about our platform. But we understand that some customers don't want this "Powered by Releases" visible on their changelog and widget. And that is totally fine, of course.

We made a change today that would lock the possibility to disable the backlink freely. Starting today, the backlink can be removed for a small one-time fee. While we understand that this may frustrate some customers, we made the decision to keep this at a one-time fee. It is common practice that a "Powered by" can be removed on higher-priced plans (we don't have any) or via a monthly payment.

We hope you understand this change. If you have any questions, you may contact us directly within the platform now.

Today we implemented a small feature that many of our early customers asked for: Tag filter.

It is now possible to click on a tag and see all entries with that specific tag. It is currently not possible (and not planned) to combine multiple tags to filter, only one tag at a time.

Want to keep track of subscribers and team signups via webhook? Well now you can. Today we added the possibility to get a POST webhook notification whenever someone subscribes or unsubscribes to your changelog. You will also be notified when someone joins your team, in addition to an email notification.

Email notifications for team signups can now optionally be disabled, but we suggest to keep them enabled.

Webhook notifications are automatically enabled once you add a valid endpoint to your workspace settings. To learn more about handling webhook requests, check out our help article.

"I need multiple workspaces" was something we heard a few times the past couple of weeks – mostly from our beta testers. Fair enough. This was something we had planned to build anyway, so we moved it up the todo list.

Additional workspaces are now available. Each account (except team member accounts) can create up to 3 workspaces by default. If more than 3 workspaces are needed, additional ones are available via a one-time payment of €5 (~ $5.30).

Workspace logo in backend

We also added the custom workspace logo to the backend view, if one was uploaded. This will replace our default "Releases" logo with the one from your own changelog. Dark mode and light mode versions are respected, if both were uploaded.