# December 2021 (v1.85)

Hi everyone! Welcome to the December 2021 release of SEO Studio. This is a huge platform update which introduces new
content management options and a revamped admin panel.

- [✨&nbsp;New admin panel design](#admin-panel) – A simplified sidebar and new navigation flow!
- [📄&nbsp;New page editing](#page-editing) – Manage page titles, content, meta tags, and more!
- [🚀&nbsp;New tool management](#tool-management) – Change tool icons & names, and edit their pages!

There will be another update in the second half of January 2022 to continue on some of the improvements in this release.
As always, if you have any suggestions or feature requests, please [✉️ send them my way](send-feedback.php).

---

## Admin panel {#admin-panel}

### New design {#admin-new-design}

With this update, several pages have been grouped together into a smaller number of sidebar items, instead using
horizontal tabs at the top of the page to navigate between related pages.

I hope this change will bring some relief to those who have had trouble navigating around the admin panel. More
pages will transition to the new design system soon!

![Admin redesign](/release/admin-design.jpg)

### Responsive design {#admin-responsive-design}

The admin panel has been transitioned to Bootstrap 5. It's not quite finished yet, I have begun reworking older pages
to support small screens, and a mobile-friendly sidebar has been added.

---

## Content management {#content-management}

### Page editing {#page-editing}

You can now edit a selection of standard pages from one convenient dashboard. In addition, you can set custom titles,
descriptions, and other meta tags for these pages, as well as add custom content.

![Page editing](/release/page-editing.jpg)

### Revamped tools page editor {#revamped-tools-page}

The internals of the tools page have been reworked to make it easier to manage categories, tool placement, and
translations. You can also now add descriptions to your tool categories – these will show beneath the category names on
the tools list.

![Editing the tools page](/release/tools-page.jpg)

### New tool management {#tool-management}

There is a new dedicated page for managing tools. You can now disable tools and change their icons. You can also set
titles, meta tags, and custom content on each tool's landing page.

I've added 3 new icon sets to the script – black, blue, and flat. You can choose between these sets easily when
managing tools. Have fun!

![Editing individual tool pages](/release/tool-editing.jpg)

### Revamped advertising {#revamped-advertising}

The advertising system has been reworked from the ground up with additional slot sizes and more thoughtful placements.
You can now disable ads for specific user groups, and there's a new option that you can use to preview available
slots throughout the website.

![New advertising management](/release/revamped-ads.jpg)

### Auto translation for new languages {#auto-translate}

When creating a new language, there is now an option to automatically translate all of the script's text into the
language of choice. This is powered by Google Translate and may not be totally accurate, but it should help you get
up and running much quicker.

---

## Other new features {#other-features}

### Asset management {#assets}

You can now upload a favicon from the admin panel. Both the logo and favicon have been moved to a single page for
customizing branding assets. Also, you can increase the logo size now.

![New branding asset management](/release/asset-management.jpg)

### Cookie-free browsing {#cookie-free}

The script uses cookies by default to track the current selected website when using tools. There is now an option to
disable this behavior and instead track the selected website using query parameters. It's not as reliable, but it's
there for those who need it.

---

## Miscellaneous {#misc}

### Performance improvements {#performance-improvements}

This release includes some great performance improvements for end users.

- Front-end scripts have been reworked with object caching to improve browser performance
- Database options are now cached, leading to massive performance gains in some cases
- Keyword lookup performance has been greatly improved

### Other improvements {#other-improvements}

- Updated the script to support PHP 8.1+
- Added an automatic cache reload when changing the site's logo and favicon
- Added options to make custom nav links open in new tabs
- Changed the default tool embed width to "100%"

### Bug fixes {#bug-fixes}

- Fixed the quick start utility sometimes not seeing the backlinks extension
- Fixed cache not working on the keyword research tool
- Fixed tool categories showing none of their tools are enabled
- Fixed some deprecated notices in the WebRequest library
- Fixed broken redirections when permalinks are enabled in a subdirectory
- Fixed directories not being accessible without trailing slashes when permalinks are enabled
- Fixed links to directories without their 'index.php' file not being replaced with their permalinks
- Fixed the header navigation arrows not always sticking to the bottom
- Fixed tiles on the tools page aligning incorrectly when there is a long tool name
- Fixed a cache error in the keyword research tool
- Fixed broken keyword data in the top search queries tool
- Fixed cache being read even when disabled
- Fixed content shift from tool icons when the page is loading
- Fixed extra slashes in account links on the admin sidebar
- Fixed over-sanitized links on some pages
- Fixed language switcher not opening
- Fixed database timeouts on slow tools which led to fatal errors
- Fixed an undefined offset warning in the Apache Composer
- Fixed non-numeric exceptions in the Top Search Queries tool
- Fixed permalinks being registered in cron job mode
- Fixed a broken spinner image path in the color editor
- Fixed various errors in the subscriptions plugin
- Fixed extra margins around tool embed sections
- Fixed generated tool embed codes not using permalinks
- Fixed spaces in permalinks causing a server error
- Fixed tools getting duplicated in some cases
- Fixed invalid tool state when dragging a new tool onto the tools page
- Fixed a deprecation notice from the DOM parsers in PHP 8.1
- Fixed a missing field error when saving ad banner codes
