September 02, 2024
Over the last two weeks, we have been working on improvements to the platform. In this blog post, you can see a simple list of what has been changed, updated, and/or what bugs have been fixed. Read more about the release notes here.
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Improvements & fixes
Box component with public file backgrounds
Value: The Box component has been upgraded to include the use of public files from your application as background images. Previously, only static or dynamic URLs linked to a model property could be used.
This improvement allows you to leverage sandbox-specific asset URLs, ensuring that each environment (development, staging, production) uses its own file paths. This eliminates the need to manually update static file URLs when moving between sandboxes, streamlining your workflow and reducing the risk of errors.
Impact: This improvement is included in the latest version of the box component within the default Betty Blocks component set. Existing box components already in use on pages will not automatically receive this update.
Translations browser
Value: The Translations browser in the Pages IDE has been enhanced to resolve an issue with the search input. Previously, due to a debouncing error, only the last character of your search query was processed, making it difficult to find specific translations. This issue has now been resolved by migrating the entire Translations browser to a new implementation setup, ensuring accurate and responsive search functionality.
Impact: Users do not need to take any additional steps to benefit from this.
Conditional component display logic
Value: The display logic option within Conditional components has been updated to address an issue with relative date values. Previously, when selecting a date or date-time property, the options for relative date values were not displayed, preventing the creation of filter rules based on relative dates. This issue has now been resolved, ensuring that all relative date options appear as expected.
Impact: Users do not need to take any additional steps to benefit from this.
Up next
Saving a Wrapper as a widget
Value: As a business technologist I can save a wrapper as a widget or component.
Impact: When this is released the wrapper component will contain a 'Save as' option that allows builders to save their wrapper as a widget or component. After saving, the new widget or component is visible in its respective category. That also means a new category 'widgets' is added next to components and partials in the sidebar.
Timeframe: September/October
Commitment to quality improvement
Value: As a leading platform vendor, we prioritize delivering a high-quality product. To ensure this, we continuously monitor our defined quality key performance indicators (KPIs). Recently, some KPIs for the page builder have shown a trend that falls short of our targets. We are actively addressing this.
Impact: Users do not need to take any additional steps to benefit from these improvements.
Data 
New features
Nested schema models structure in the Data and Actions
Value: As a builder, I can create a nested schema model structure by creating many (array) and has one (object) relations between schema models and use this in Actions.
Impact: Previously you were not able to use a nested schema model structure where this was required to build your use case. With this new feature, you are able to build this yourself within the Data IDE. Thereafter, you will now be able, next to the text output, to select a schema model and its nested properties if available. This enables less advanced configuration for business technologists.
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The release of this feature will not have an impact on your current setup.
Timeframe: This feature will be released at the beginning of week 34.
Up next
Replacing the current cloud storage
Value: We will be replacing our current cloud storage provider with Wasabi Technologies as our subprocessor for cloud storage. This change is part of our continuous efforts to optimize our services and ensure we leverage the most efficient and secure solutions available.
Impact: No action is required nor expected from our users. This transition will be seamless, and we are doing everything to minimize the impact on our services and are expecting no downtime during the migration. Customers will be notified when the migration of their applications is scheduled.
Timeframe: Mid-September
Actions 
New features
See the previous data segment for the 'Nested schema models structure' update.
New GraphQL playground
Value: Due to the deprecation of the playground by the GraphQL playground developers, we will switch to a new GraphQL playground with lots of new features and future support.
Impact: With the release of the new playground, all the tabs will be gone. If you want to keep your tabs you can save them in a text file and create tabs in the new playground.
The documentation of this feature will be updated as soon as possible.
Up next
Commitment to quality improvement
Currently, we are improving the quality of the actions segment by improving our internal processes and code bases. All to service the builders on the platform better and give them a better builder experience.
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New features
Content supporting the widget release
The new widget feature is expected to be released soon, to enable a smooth launch with sufficient information, the education team created 2 documents that should help you learn all about the widgets and how to use them
Support the onboarding of developers
We have created a guide and are working on high-level technical content that will allow builders with a technical background to skip the regular onboarding material.
Introduction to the platform admin persona
Value: Introduce companies to the platform admin persona described in our platform, the platform admin manages the Betty Blocks environment, organisations and its users.
More on the platform admin, what their main goal is and how to enable them can be found here.
Improvements & fixes
Using page variables
Creating a master detail page using page variables, updated from using data containers.
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Page variables will be a bigger and broader supported feature in the future of the platform, therefore we will move our best practices from data containers to page variables.
Refined expressions and phrasing
Added information on using conditional regex in your expressions, and updated phrasing to make certain expressions more readable. We will continue to work on the expression document in the future.
Up next
Using data sources
Value: Providing a new use case for creating custom data sources so that technical partner developers.
We are focussing on enabling technical users to set up connections between Betty Blocks applications and external data sources.
Timeframe: Till Friday, 7th of September
Platform copywriting quality
Value: Improve the copywriting used within the Betty Blocks platform resulting in easier navigation on the platform.
The education team has researched our language usage and is going to work on improving the grammatical inconsistencies and ensuring unified phrasing and key term use within the Betty Blocks platform.
Learning management system
Value: as a Betty Blocks platform trainee, I can test my skills, follow my courses and read my documentation all in one environment.
Working with all content in one dedicated LMS has proven to be a successful strategy, and is something the education team is working towards providing for our learners.
Platform roadmap
Want to know more about the upcoming features and functionalities of the Betty Blocks platform? Visit the platform roadmap of our community where you can find most of the topics that we are currently working on and are planning to work on. Let us know your thoughts by upvoting the topics you believe are the most valuable!
That was all for now. Your feedback allows us to continuously improve the Product. So please, let us know what