Blog

Since January we have been working on changing the core template engine from our proprietary Branch Code to the popular Twig engine. We are about 95% done and figured that it was time to let everyone know about it. For those that don't know, Branch Code (and now Twig) is the code that is used in templates to build your site and display your content. Why Twig? Because it has an awesome name that…

Sometimes when you are redesigning a website you don't want to copy over all of the files from the old website to the new website. Often there is a lot of content and structure changes and it's undesirable to have to deal with legacy files. However, sometimes you are copying existing content over from the old site to the new site and you want to have an easy way to retrieve only the files that you…

The Calendar app in BranchCMS has only supported events that occurred on one day. For events that happened for multiple days in a row we recommended that the the repeat functionality was used to repeat the event for a few days. That worked but there were some cases where it doesn't work.  What if you have an conference that happens for a few days in a row but you only want to show it once in…

We're pleased to announce that the navigation within the new interface for BranchCMS is now responsive and mobile friendly. While the entire administration isn't fully mobile friendly yet, this is a big step towards that goal.  Click on the menu button in the upper right to reveal the primary navigation. You will notice that on smaller screens the left sidebar is completely hidden when it's…

We just added a new way that you can contact BranchCMS support while working on your website. In the bottom right corner of your screen you will see a floating chat icon. If you click that you can start a support chat with us right away.  Hovering over the icon shows a message box were you can start the conversation. Chat is currently available between 8 am and 5 pm EST. If you want to contact…

We recently pushed out a big update that brings a fresh, modern look to BranchCMS.  Right now the user interface (UI) change is optional. We plan to switch everyone over in October.   Over the last few weeks we have had a few select companies try out the new UI and so far feedback has been very positive. The goals for the new UI included: Move the navigation to a more traditional place at…

It has long been a request to be able to add a link to a site's navigation at the same time that a new page is being created. Today we pushed out an update that makes that possible.  We also redesigned the form for adding a new page and fixed some long-standing bugs. In addition to adding a navigation link you can also set the meta description and whether or not a page is hidden from search…

The process of setting up app layouts in BranchCMS has always been a multi-step process. It finally got on our nerves enough that we've spent the last few days streamlining that process.  For those of you who may not know what layouts are, they are how the different pages of an app are defined. They specify what site template to use and they specify where the content for each content block in…

Form spam is a real pain and we're trying to make it easier to block it on your website. We've had support for image-based CAPTCHA for a while now, but it's not always the prettiest thing and bots are getting smarter. To give you another option in the fight against spam we recently integrated Google's reCAPTCHA service into all forms in BranchCMS. Quoting Google's developer page: "reCAPTCHA is a…

We just pushed out a small update that could have a big impact. Previously when you wanted to edit something you would click the blue pencil edit icon in the Actions column. With other types of content like Forms, you wouldn't necessarily edit something directly as it may be a bit more complicated. On the form list page you would click the blue details icon to first view the form details. There…