Release notes: Book & Press platform (2026)

A versioning function has been added to the Press CMS page builder, so that it is now possible to:

1. Create new versions of a page in advance, without the new content being made immediately available on the public website. Page versions can be saved and edited again in the future.
2. Revert back to older versions of the page content.

This function is intended to help presses redesign their press content without having to complete the task in one go, as well as to audit prior content.

The Press CMS guidelines have been updated to reflect these changes.

Contact forms have been enhanced so that an increased level of complexity can be added to the form. The Contact Form block in the CMS page builder now allows the form to include:

• Short answer text
• with email, URL, or phone number subtypes
• Paragraph text area
• Multiple choice radio buttons
• Checkboxes
• Dropdown lists

The contact form can include multiple questions, including any of the elements listed above, allowing a Press to gather more detailed information from its users.

The Press CMS guidelines have been updated to reflect these changes.

The Press CMS now includes a 'Link Grid' block, allowing a press to add a table of logos and short text that can be linked to external content. The ordering of the table can either be manually set or ordered alphabetically, making updating the content very simple. This block is especially suited for displaying a grid of partners or associated organisations. The press can quickly add logos, names and links and the display will automatically structure the table in an organised format.

The Press CMS Guidelines have been updated to include the new block settings.

The Announcements function has undergone a major revision, allowing:

• Announcements to be displayed either as a list or as 'cards'.
• Thumbnail images to be assigned to specific announcements.
• The creation and assignment of category labels so that announcements can be thematically identified.
• Filter options to show only selected categories.
• All announcements to be displayed on their own page.

The Press CMS Guide has been updated.

A 'Crawlers & AI' menu item has been added to the Press CMS, allowing a press to customize which web crawlers and AI bots it wishes to permit or deny access to the press site. This gives the press full control over which external platforms are allowed to scrape data from the site.

A complete TDM user guide has been created.

The settings dedicated to creating the navigation and/or footer content have been updated, making it easier to link buttons to existing pages within the press website. Instead of manually entering the path of the page link, the CMS now presents the user with all available pages on the press. The user can then simply select one, and the navigation/footer button will automatically point to that page. Adding custom links or linking to external pages is still possible.

The Press CMS Guide has been updated.

The Press CMS has a new block added. The Aggregated Metrics block allows a press to display a visual summary of their publication output in an automated and structured way. The block allows the press to display the total number of:

• articles published
• books published
• articles views & downloads
• book views & downloads
• citations received

The block is fully customisable, so that the displayed metrics can be individually enabled/disabled and associated icons and display settings changed.

The Press CMS Guidelines have been updated to include the new settings.

The 'Leader Box' block in the press CMS has been upgraded to give a lot more customisation options, allowing for the press site to appear more unique. These include:

• Dictating the number of rows that the boxes appear on
• Adding frontend scrolling functionality, so users can scroll arcoss the row (similar to Featured Books/Journals)
• Ordering functionality, so that it is easy to re-order the boxes
• Width editor, so that boxes can now be set with custom widths
• Spacing editor, so that boxes can have custom spacing between columns and rows
• Text font size editor, so that the content of the boxes doesn't have to match the default fonts
• Border options, allowing the boxes to enable/disable a border
• Banner options, allowing a background grey banner to be added, to match the 'Featured' blocks

The Leader Box instructions have been updated in the Press CMS user guides

The AI Semantic Search will now also surface results for articles from journals associated with the publisher. See https://www.ubiquitypress.com/search?type=semantic&q= for an example.

The Semantic search will, by default, search for results from both journals and books. The user can then refine the search by filtering to only show results from one format rather than both.

Article thumbnail images have also been added so that their visual identity is retained.

A refinement of the Semantic search results was also conducted to ensure that the most relevant results are surfaced above others.

This work complements the addition of semantic search on each individual journal site.

The Press CMS 'Wrapper' block now includes a field to set the background colour for that section of the page. This allows a page on the press website to appear more unique and colourful, removing the requirement that all pages have the same background colour. As each page may have multiple Wrapper blocks, a page may also have multiple blocks of colour on the page.

See CMS guidelines for more information

The BISAC and Thema codes on a book publication page have been updated so that:

• hovering over the code will display the text name so that it is more understandable to a human reader
• the code can be clicked, which will result in the page loading an advanced search to show all other books that have been published with the same code

The Advanced Search on the press site has also been updated so that BISAC and Thema are identifiable Fields to choose, allowing readers the ability to target specific research topics.

The press CMS now supports nesting tables within existing cells. For example, the column block may contain tables or additional columns within the cell. This feature enhances the capability to customize the page design.

This enhancement allows for a greater degree of customization in page layout.