Text & Media module: what’s new in Client Portal 5.11

The template gallery was a big project, so I wanted to use this release to get lots of small but important requests into the product. When I use software myself, it's often the smaller changes that make the biggest difference to my workflow. Hopefully there's something in here that's been on your wish list.

I've recorded a quick video going through the main changes, and they're outlined below too.

A new Text & Media module

A few people who like the lightbox design on modules like URLs, files, and the image slider asked for a module for simple content: formatted text, images, maybe a video embed. Content pages already handle longer content, but they're a lot for a short note.

I thought that was a great idea, and it was pretty easy to do, so we built it. The Text & Media module takes formatted text, images, and YouTube or Vimeo videos, and clients see it in a lightbox without leaving the portal dashboard. You can set it to Standard, Wide, or Full width.

A built-in registration page

Client Portal comes with a login page and a portal archive page, plus Login and Register blocks you can put on your own pages. What it hasn't had until now is a built-in registration page, and that's been requested on and off for a while.

It's here now. Use the built-in page, which matches your login page and portals, or keep using the block on your own page. The new page is created as a draft, so nothing changes on your site until you publish it.

The login page has had a refresh too, so the two match.

An editable "Your portals" page

When a client has more than one portal, they see an archive page listing all of them. Until now you couldn't change anything on it.

Now you can add some introduction text, change the title, and set the order each client sees their portals in. The title and text can use {first_name}, {last_name}, or {organization}, and the order is set from each client's user profile. Editing the page needs the Five design.

Single links that open in a lightbox

If a Links module has several URLs, they open in a lightbox. If it has just one, it opens the web page straight away. Now you can choose either behavior, as a default in Settings or per module.

A redesigned file block

When you insert a file into a content page, it now matches the rest of the portal.

The Classic editor is retiring next year

This one is for people who've been with Client Portal for a long time. If you bought after April 2024, it probably won't apply to you.

We're officially retiring the Classic editor next year. I've written a separate post with all the details.

The big thing we wanted in this release was a migration tool, so you can now move your Classic portals and templates to the block editor quickly. Make a block editor copy, check it, then move your clients over. They don't get any emails, their portal link stays the same, and you can move them back if you need to.

You've got plenty of time, and we'll send reminders before support ends. A notice on your dashboard shows how many Classic portals and templates you have left.

I know a lot of you have been keen to try the block editor version of Client Portal with your existing portals, so I'd love to hear how you get on.

Other improvements

• Clients who are already logged in and land on the registration page are told they already have a portal, with a link to it
• Draft portals no longer count at login, so a client with one published portal goes straight to it
• The All Projects page uses the Five design on Five sites
• The header logo loads with the page instead of appearing a moment later
• Lightboxes have more space around tall content on desktop and narrower padding on phones
• Pages that make several background requests at once, such as embedded file browsers, load faster
• New client-facing text is translated in all included languages
• Various security improvements

What's next for Client Portal

We're continuing to work on foundational improvements, and the next release is about making Client Portal easier to live with once you have a lot of portals and a lot of clients.

1. Backend organization. You'll be able to add users to a company, group portals by company, and filter content pages. Lists that work fine at ten items and less well at a hundred are the main target.
2. Performance at scale. Making sure sites with lots of portals and clients stay fast as you grow.

Further out, this is groundwork for things like an API, webhooks, and MCP, so Client Portal can talk to the other tools you use (AI assistants included). No dates yet. If that's something you'd use, I'd like to hear what for.

You can see what's coming, and add your own requests, on the roadmap.