Teal toolbox illustration with FreshStore improvement icons above it

Catch-up: what’s shipped since August

ByCarey Baird

As per last week’s post, we’re done with version numbers. Which leaves one big catch-up to get through before the new rhythm kicks in properly: everything that shipped between last August and now that didn’t get its own announcement.

There’s a lot, so this is a guided tour, not a feature-by-feature deep dive. The biggest un-announced pieces are each getting their own standalone post in the next few weeks.

Already covered, in case you missed them

Four things have had their own post already:

Coming in their own posts

The bigger un-announced features each need a proper walkthrough, so they’re getting one. Queued up:

  • A full REST API for your store, with an API Keys page in the admin to manage access.
  • Product Review Writer: AI-generated review articles.
  • Custom Offer Logo: swap the default Recommended badge for your own per-offer logo.
  • Image Fixer and Offer Checker, two new tools for keeping your store tidy.
  • “Recommended for my store” AI check in Product Finder.

Now the catch-up.

Store design controls you may not have noticed

A run of improvements to how your store’s hero section and images behave.

  • Hero Image Focal Point: nine preset crop positions (top-left through bottom-right). When Hero Fit is set to Cover and the image gets cropped, you pick which part stays visible.
  • Hero Image Fit, Section Height, Background Colour: three new controls for sizing and framing the hero. Live Cover/Contain preview on upload so you can see the effect before saving.
  • Responsive hero images: phones and tablets no longer download the full 2400px source. Three sizes served based on viewport. Page load is faster, especially on mobile.
  • Aspect-ratio warnings across admin uploads: upload a squashed logo or oddly shaped product image and you’ll get a non-blocking warning. Applies to logos, store icons, brand logos, hero images (both homepage and article), article listings, social images, products, categories, offers.
  • Logo sizing: small logos no longer get pixelated by being force-upscaled. Large logos stay bounded to the header height. Upload helper text tells you the recommended size.

Small features that landed quietly

  • Change main text size: store-wide typography control for owners who wanted tighter or more generous copy.
  • Create All Content button for article categories: one click generates the full set of articles.
  • Out-of-stock offers tool: update every out-of-stock offer in a single pass instead of one at a time.
  • Bot blocking updates: tighter out-of-the-box protection against scrapers and bad traffic.
  • Toast notifications: new notification system across the admin. Actions confirm without jumping around the screen.

AI refinements

  • Rejected AI image prompts no longer cost chips: if the safety system rejects your prompt, you don’t get charged. It also auto-retries once with a rephrased version.
  • AI Check for Category Populator and Fill Categories: a quality gate that runs before the bulk operation, so you see what it’s proposing before committing.

Quality-of-life

  • Dashboard “Do this next” prompt: the Launch Plan widget now shows the next incomplete step as a labelled button, so you always know what to tackle next.
  • Entire offer box clickable: the full offer card on product pages is now the affiliate link, not just the button. Came from a customer request.
  • Login links work after email changes: if you change your main account email, your existing store login links keep working. We now try your email history until we find a match.
  • Long affiliate URLs no longer truncated: tracking URLs with long click IDs or campaign params are stored in full (was capped at 250 chars).
  • Clear cache button on every page in the admin for when you need it.
  • Account page meta tags: proper titles and descriptions on login, create-account, forgot-password, and reset-password pages. Plus [STORE_NAME] placeholder now substitutes properly in /llms.txt and authenticated account page titles.

Performance and stability

Less visible, but you feel it in page load and stability.

  • Query caching for faster page loads.
  • CDN and browser cache headers so repeat visits are snappier.
  • Server timing headers in responses for performance debugging.
  • Livewire request protection + honeypot: extra protection against form spam and abuse.

Fixes worth calling out:

  • Analytics visitor sync timeout: the background job that syncs visitor data was hitting the 300-second timeout on busy stores, and was responsible for 99% of our failed background jobs. Rewrote it to bulk upsert in ~15 queries instead of ~2000 per run. Fixed.
  • Duplicate products in category listings, XML sitemap settings endpoint, and the category tree API: all fixed.

What’s next

Standalone posts for each of the bigger features over the coming weeks. Come back to the blog regularly or keep an eye on the dashboard.

Thanks for sticking with us. The pace has picked up considerably since August; the announcements are now catching up.

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