The launch of CMS Hub includes several important updates for developers. Nothing needs to be done to existing sites to preserve existing functionality. The changes we're announcing make the HubSpot CMS more powerful for developers and marketers.
Themes are out of beta! Themes are a new feature on HubSpot CMS that allows developers to code websites that are highly customizable and flexible for content creators. Developers can create fields and theme specific modules that content creators can use to customize the look and feel of their website. Since theme fields work the same way as module fields it's easy to set them up and, if needed, include translations to simplify editing in other languages. Developers can give content creators a codeless experience for managing and updating global content such as headers and footers. Themes are built with coded HTML + HubL templates, letting developers stay in code, while giving content creators layout control through drag and drop areas. Our theme boilerplate offers a basic skeleton theme you can build on to get started quickly.
Additional resources:
Local Development Tools
Our CMS CLI has exited beta! The local development tools enable you to use the tools you're familiar with, your preferred code editor, version control, and build processes. The CLI enables uploading, fetching, and watching files from the developer file system. Coded templates now support template annotations, a form of structured code comment. Template annotations give you a way to configure how your template is seen and used by content creators.
Tutorial: Get started developing locally with the HubSpot CMS.
CMS Hub Enterprise's features include serverless functions, which give developers the ability to write server side code that interacts with both HubSpot and third party APIs. Using serverless functions you can now create powerful web applications on CMS Hub Enterprise. We created an event registration app using React.js, Webpack, Babel, SASS, and serverless functions to illustrate the possibilities.
Tutorial: Getting started with serverless functions.
For developers and IT managers using CMS Hub Enterprise, Code Alerts gives an overview of issues affecting pages in your account. Fixing issues identified by Code Alerts, can help optimize your website's performance.
As a developer, having high-quality documentation is critical for doing your job effectively. We've heard your feedback, as you may have noticed, our CMS developer documentation has undergone a revamp. This isn't just a redesign, there is a lot of new and updated content. We have also unified the layout of our CMS and API documentation, and will continue to make improvements over time to provide the best experience we can for developers.
For new CMS developers, we now have a quick start tutorial that throws you right into building a theme with the boilerplate, CLI, and publishing your first page on the CMS.
CMS Hub, and all of the noted updates are now live. No changes are required to preserve the existing experience for content creators, however, developers will need to add additional functionality to enable themes and drag and drop areas before they can be used.
To learn more about these changes check out our developer documentation (linked throughout this post) and see what CMS Hub means for developers.
If you have questions or comments please join the discussion in our CMS Developer forums.