Introducing Kirby 3
After over two years of development and seven years after launching Kirby 1, we are back with our biggest release to date…
A new Panel
Kirby 3 comes with a beautiful new control Panel built on top of Vue that allows you to build unique custom interfaces for any kind of project, small or complex, exactly tailored to your content (if you are more the nerdy type, you can still edit text files with a text editor if you want).
Sections & Tabs
Our brand-new section system lifts blueprints to a completely different level. You become the interface designer and decide for each type of page which features you need and how to arrange them.
With native tabs you can go even further and create incredibly clean and usable editing environments for your editors.
Better user account management
Users get a huge upgrade and can have their own files, fields and the same flexible section features of pages. This is perfect when you want to build a full-featured authoring network for your platform and you need to collect all sorts of public information about your authors.
Vue.js UI Kit
The Panel is built on top of our own Vue UI kit that can be used in all Panel plugins to build incredibly feature-rich extensions with just a few lines of code.
Better fields
With the new power of our Vue application, we introduce far better fields than before. More powerful structures, related pages, files and more are available and can be combined with the first amazing field plugins from our third-party developers.
Drafts & custom publishing workflows
Customizable page states give you maximum control over your workflow, from drafts over unreviewed to published pages. Choose what you need and start creating.
A new plugin system
We've overhauled our entire plugin system and built a more reliable and consistent environment for lots of new plugin types. Basically any part of Kirby can be extended or modified to fit your project.
REST API & Headless CMS
Kirby 3 has a built in REST API. You can comfortably create and edit your content in the Panel, and then consume your content in SPAs, mobile applications or static site generators.
Virtual pages & external data sources
In Kirby 3, you can mix file-based content with content from pretty much any other data source. Databases, APIs, spreadsheets, or anything else that's somehow parsable by PHP. In fact, most parts of our reference are generated live from PHP reflections of our source code.
Asynchronous media API
All images and other media files are loaded dynamically via the new media API. With built-in image manipulation, cache busting and extensible thumbnail generators, you get the perfect environment for media-heavy sites.
Shared collections
It often happens that you need the same set of pages or files in multiple places across your site. Think of blog articles on your blog and on the home page for example. To keep things DRY, we have a new pre-defined collection feature, which you can use to make your collections of pages, files or users more accessible.
return function ($site) {
return $site->find('blog')->children()->listed()->flip();
};return function ($users) {
return $users->filterBy('role', 'admin');
};return function ($site) {
return $site
->find('projects')
->children()
->images()
->template('cover');
};Collections can afterwards be used in your templates and snippets like this:
$kirby->collection("articles");
$kirby->collection("admins");
$kirby->collection("project-covers");Easy emails
Our new email engine built on top of PHPMailer gives you a very comfortable API to send form replies, notifications and more. Add any file in Kirby as attachment and use the same template engine that you are already familiar with.
Better caching
With Kirby 3, you can make use of our page cache or add custom caching of your own data in a matter of seconds.
So much more…
This introduction could go on forever. We recommend you just give it a try and play around with all the new features yourself.
The best starting point is our brand-new Starterkit:
Support
If you need help with the new version, please visit the forum: https://forum.getkirby.com
How to upgrade Kirby 2
For those of you who want to migrate your Kirby 2 site, we've created an upgrade guide.