Spinal update for March: improved Content Type settings (and a peek into the upcoming new dashboard)

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Welcome to March! February was an exciting month at Spinal HQ (as far as a remote company has a HQ 😅). And am happy to say “hello and welcome” to a great new bunch of you. 👋

What will you find in this month’s newsletter:

what’s new at Spinal;
reads from the blog;
sneak peek into something new.

✨ What’s new at Spinal! #

Let’s go over some of the various cool, new features launched in February.

⚙️ An all-new Content Type settings layout #

The settings were getting out of hand. More settings were added and it got unwieldy. The new settings layout has clear tabs at the top. Much better, right?

🌈 Add a dash of colour #

While on the topic of Content Type settings. There’s now the option to choose a colour for your Content Type. A small change that really makes a difference when you have many Content Types in your navigation panel. Just check above preview. 😊

🖼️ Add an alt-attribute to your images #

You can now easily add an alt attribute (also: image caption) to the images you upload. Find the “alt” button in the bottom-left of each image. Generally good practice for SEO, but also for a11y.

♻️ Two-way sync for existing content #

When you update content outside of Spinal (for whatever reason; not recommended), this content is now synced back to Spinal upon load. This is early stage still and only supported for content already in Spinal.

🐥 Other smaller improvements #

New actions in the Global Command Menu, for example: “Set up a new Content Type”
Ton of UI improvements (getting ready for Spring 🌷)
Override the automagic published date field

From the blog 👓 #

Static Love - It was Valentines Day, so I wrote a love letter to Static Site Generators (ICYM)
How does link building help you grow your SaaS? - Link building is an important part of a content marketing strategy for SaaS companies as it can lead to more website traffic and potential customers. Who doesn’t want that?
How to find great topics for your SaaS blog - Sometimes it can be hard to find topics to write about on your SaaS blog. This guide explores some ideas, so you will rather have too many topics to write about.

🤫 Sneak preview: Improved dashboard #

The dashboard is getting an overhaul. Here’s a sneak peek into how it’s going to look. Initially a dozen customers gradually get access in the following weeks and following any feedback I slowly roll it out to all customers. 🐌

The most obvious change is the calendar. See at a glance all the content you have published and scheduled. With more bigger teams, publishing more content, across more Content types, having a clear overview of all your upcoming content is a big win.

In the above example you can see at one day there’s a new changelog, documentation and a blog scheduled.

Also your Activities will be in one column (instead of two separate ones). This will make way for more activity types coming soon.

There you have it. A pretty packed month it was! What new thing is your favourite? What do you think of the upcoming dashboard changes? Let me know!

—Eelco, founder Spinal

Ps. If you are a Content Marketing Team customer and want to get in on the Improved Dashboard beta, reply and I’ll add you.