The Sanity Winter Release 2024 (ssr)

Written by Simen Svale

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Most likely, we are idiots

When you are pursuing one idea, but everybody else seem to be on a different course, you might be a pioneer. But statistically speaking, you are more likely just an idiot.

Let's assess:

We think content is pretty important. And we think digital content is so important it should be treated as a key strategic concern in any business, big or small.

I'm old enough to have lived through an age where we had magazine subscriptions–and one of the magazines I would subscribe to was called Computer and Video Games Magazine. It's kind of funny now, because of course we don't have to qualify video gaming any more. It is implied that games are played on consoles or computers. We just call it gaming. And if it isn't electronic, we qualify it, like if you are playing with cards or on a board.

I get that same sense when I hear someone talk about "digital transformation". That sounds so quaint now. There are no video games, there is no e-commerce, there are no online news and there is no digital transformation. There is only games, commerce, news and endless, endless transformation.

And this is where we might be idiots. Because while it seems like everyone in our industry is building increasingly tactical systems – fast and loose, low-code-drag-and-droppy things that gets you started really quick with something neat for your digital channels.

But there are no digital channels. Only channels. And content on those channels is basically how a business exist in the world. It is how anyone knows anything about you, how they discover your product, appreciate your thought leadership, play your games, or … you know: is aware that you exist at all.

And that can't be a side gig or hobby or the sole concern of a marketing department or the social team. Concern for content has to be at the heart of every business. It must be a core strategic concern.

And that is why Sanity has always been a platform to build exactly the content operations an organization needs. And that's why, as we mature, Sanity is growing even more strategic, even more developer first, even more customizable, even more of a platform to build on.

This is why we call Sanity a Content Operating System – a system to build your content operations on.

Statistically speaking, we are probably idiots. Then again, I bet we aren't.

This winter we are releasing three major features that are all focused on improving end to end content operations, from the first draft to staging major releases. Let's get into it:

Automatic Content Mapping

The idea behind Sanity Create was to give Content teams the freedom to create content in a more natural way and reduce the friction in bringing that content to life directly within their content system rather than the random doc, notepad, or whiteboard.

With this release, we introduce Automatic Content Mapping to Create. In short this means that a free form text in Create can be connected to a structured document in a Sanity Studio, and by the magic of AI, it is automatically converted into high quality structured content practically ready to be published.

Watch the demo and you'll see it's not only suitable for long form content like this, you can use it to stage landing pages and all kinds of rich content.

We saw how people were writing content in informal ways in Notion, Google Docs, Word and not only writing the content, but also adding hints and instructions for content implementers. Automatic Content Mapping understands exactly that kind of comments and stages it accordingly skipping a huge and very very boring step in modern publishing. It's available right now for you to use on all plans. Read the developer documentation here and the user guide here.

But not before you watch the demo:

Visual Editing for Structured Content

Visual Editing for Structured Content is the next stop on our Winter Release tour.

Visual Editing allows for direct editing right in the page preview, while retaining all the benefits of structured, reusable content.

By bringing authoring closer to the final experience, Visual Editing streamlines collaboration between content and development teams to iterate faster.

Visual Editing is available now. Just upgrade Presentation, add data attributes to array elements, and get started. Read the developer documentation here and the user guide here. and product walkthrough for more:

Content Releases

Content Releases is the final stop on our Winter Release tour, and it's a big one. We've been thinking about how to make publishing content updates more structured and confidence inspiring for a while now. And we think we've cracked it.

With Content Releases, your team can group multiple content changes into a single release, push it to a staging environment for review and QA, and preview exactly how the updates will look in production before hitting the big red button. You can even schedule releases for specific dates and times to line up with other initiatives. And if something goes sideways after publishing? No sweat, you can roll back with a single click.

By enabling these staged rollouts, precise scheduling, and easy rollbacks, we think Content Releases will let teams deliver content to customers more strategically and reliably than ever before. It's not quite ready for primetime yet, but it's coming soon and we can't wait to get it into your hands. The demo, though, is available right now, right here:

Developer Deep Dive

That's pretty much it, but we have one more thing for you. If you're a developer who loves diving into the "how" and "why" behind technical solutions, we have a special treat.

Join us on Thursday, Nov. 21 for an intimate technical session with the engineers who built these new features. We'll share the journey from initial prototypes to production architecture, including honest discussions, diagrams, deep-dives, and stories about the problems we solved (and the ones that stumped us).

Sign up here!