2024.1: Work at your best and aim top results

The fact is, in our field, everything changes at a frantic pace. It's not just a matter of languages and technologies; even just for that, dealing with codes, browsers, and search engine algorithms, there's plenty to handle. It's also a matter of usage habits and aesthetic tastes.

So this is how we’ve reached the first new version of the year - 2024.1 - of WebSite X5. Do you want to discover what it has in store?

Speaking of speed, especially knowing how important it is to everyone now, we set out to save you quite a bit of time.

How? Firstly, by replacing the graphic engine used for image management with a new, higher-performance one. This new graphic engine offers a significant increase in performance. To mention some numbers, images are up to 45% faster loading, up to 50% faster saving, and up to 20% lighter.

Secondly, we improved the FTP engine, so that the website online export is now faster, especially if the project includes many small files. But that's not all: even creating and removing directories is up to 70% faster, resulting in a further increase in overall performance.

In short, these improvements will satisfy even the most impatient users by allowing everyone to go straight to the goal.

Moving on to the e-commerce, on the other hand,  PayPal Commerce Platform  integration offers new interesting functions.

First, you can now enable payments via Google Pay and Apple Pay on your store. For those who don't know, these two systems allow credit and debit cards to be loaded onto Android and iOS devices, respectively, and payments to be made quickly and securely both in stores and online, without relying on physical cards anymore. A great way, in short, to reduce friction and facilitate payments!

There’s another function offered by PayPal Commerce Platform that is worth mentioning: the possibility to save the payment method. Technically, this is called vaulting, and it is used to give the customers the possibility  to give customers the possibility to save payment details, so they won't have to enter them again when they come back to your store.

Finally, many of you will be happy to know that the list of Countries where PayPal Commerce Platform makes direct Credit Card payments possible, is getting more and more complete: 24 new Countries in the EMEA zone joined in fact USA, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany.        

We all know it: if there is one element that is never missing from a website, it is the Home Page. In one-page sites, the Home Page is even the one and only page that gathers all the information in successive sections.

Because of its centrality, in WebSite X5 the Home Page is set by default. What if you need to set a different page as Home Page of your website? It can happen, for example, when exporting/importing projects or when working with Templates.

Well, we have introduced a new option and now, acting directly on the Map, you can set a new Home Page with a single click: the selected page becomes the new project Home Page and all links are updated in one go. Convenient, isn't it?

When developing the project of a website, as well as when working on a document, using styles is super-beneficial: it saves time by defining the appearance of multiple elements once and, as a result, you get consistent and homogeneous pages.

In WebSite X5, it was already possible to define the style of various text elements (from plain text to headlines, from navigation paths to links) but not only that. Now, you can also complete the email template with Social Buttons and define style and format of dates.

But what if the generally set style doesn’t fit in a particular situation? Let’s consider the link style: it can be perfect for links placed within a page with a light background, but it just won’t work for those displayed on a footer with a dark background.

The only solution in this case is to manage an exception: with the new version 2024.1, text links can have a customized style according to the part of the websites they’re displayed in. In this way, they will always stay perfectly readable.

We mentioned that our goal is to create a software that is increasingly fast, complete, and enjoyable to use.

We just covered the “fast” and “complete” aspects, now we still have to explain how we made it more “fun”. Easy-peasy: by carrying on the process of constantly updating its Graphical UI.

This time, we have updated some of the most used controls, such as the Color selection window (to which we have also added Opacity and Color Code) and buttons for Text Alignment, Element Placement and Shadow management.

Moreover, we have improved the management of Optional Objects, so that they are immediately ready to be used when starting a project.

All in all, this version 2024.1 is only the first of the year, but it has already introduced quite a bit of new features.

As we said, we have no shortage of ideas on how to grow WebSite X5, so don't wait any longer: download the update and take advantage of all the improvements introduced for your projects. Then keep following us to find out what we have in store for the near future.

As usual, you will find the list of all new features of the new version 2024.1 and of the previous ones on the New Features page.

If you have an active WebSite X5 license, you can directly install the new version: start the program and follow the instructions to do it in a few clicks only.

If, on the other hand, you have a WebSite X5 license that is no longer active, you can renew it now to access the new version 2024.1.

Finally, if you haven’t tried WebSite X5 yet, take the chance and buy it now. The license includes the Hosting service, a 12-month guarantee to receive updates and new versions that will be released, as well as the possibility to use the Priority Support service.