What's New in CrafterCMS v4.2: Enhanced Studio UX, OpenAI Integration, and More

We just released CrafterCMS 4.2! Here are five reasons why you should be as excited about version 4.2 release as we are:

1. A Sleek New Look

Crafter Studio got a bit of a nip and tuck. We’ve made many enhancements to the Studio interface, ranging from simple style updates to minor useability tweaks. Our goal for Crafter Studio is always to provide an easy-to-use, modern UX with a fresh look. While the changes in 4.2 are subtle, they are significant, and all work together to advance this objective. 

2. OpenAI Integration Upgrade

Leveraging OpenAI's ChatGPT in Crafter Studio to generate content for your experiences is easier than ever. We’ve added new UI support for our ChatGPT plugin, allowing you to launch the generative AI capability anywhere in Studio.

3. Improved Drag-and-Drop Experience Building

Constructing your screens, pages, and layouts by dragging and dropping components just got faster and easier! We’ve made Crafter Studio smarter so that it only offers the components that apply to active drop zones, improving creative efficiency (see Figure 1). We’ve also added visual cues to help you quickly identify which drop zones will accept the component you are actively dragging and dropping.

Figure 1. CrafterCMS v4.2 drag/drop experience building just got even better.

4. Automatic Placeholder Image Generation

Crafter Studio automatically generates placeholder images when creating new content. Authors get a smooth content creation experience that communicates the required image size, and content modelers no longer need to worry about configuring default placeholder images.

5. Upgrades to Java, Spring, Tomcat, and Opensearch

“You get an upgrade! You get an upgrade! Everybody gets an upgrade!” Along with many other minor dependency updates, CrafterCMS 4.2 upgrades Java to version 21, Spring to version 6, Tomcat to version 9.1, and OpenSearch to version 2.15. This offers developers the benefits these new versions bring and ensures your installation is up-to-date, properly secured, and maintainable across the entire dependency supply chain.

Download CrafterCMS v4.2 Now

The open source community release of CrafterCMS v4.2 is available for free download now. Enterprise customers and certified partners may access the enterprise release in our customer support portal.

What do you think? Let us know! We’re gearing up for more major UI updates on dashboards, content creation and content modeling tools, and generative AI enhancements in 2025!