Runway 3 is ready for take-off!
The first major new release for Runway
Today we launched both Perch and Perch Runway 3 - both a significant step forward for the platform, and a good solid foundation for the next generation of changes to come.
If you’re not aware of the history of this release, it started life as version 2.9, before we realised that the changes were significant enough to warrant a bump in major version number. As such, this is a technical evolution of the platform and not a monolithic change, so upgrading a site isn’t much more complicated than a standard routine update. There are, of course, upgrade docs.
This upgrade is also free, and Runway 2 license keys continue to work with Runway 3. There’s also a new local testing mode, where login is not restricted if using a local domain — this is particularly useful for teams.
The changes
Quite a lot has changed, but Runway 3 still has the same feel you love from Runway, and there are no changes to make to your pages or templates - it’s all backwards compatible.
The most obvious difference is the new user interface, but there a many small workflow improvements to go along with that such as better paging and sorting on all listing pages.
Headline features for Runway include the new Headless mode to be able to run your own content API for serving requests for JavaScript or mobile apps, site access controls, a content import API, and much improved APIs for extension authors.
The common Perch platform received updates such as template filters, shortcodes and more. We’ll be writing much more about these in the coming days.
Try it… for free
One of the big changes with version 3 is the ability to run Perch and Runway on a local server without needing to buy a license first. This is going to be ideal for those proof-of-concept hacks to convince a client, for bringing extra team members in on a project, for running on CI servers and so on.
We’ve put a lot of work into these updates, but this is just the beginning of the changes planned for Runway 3, so we really look forward to hearing your feedback!
