The Archbee team has worked on some pretty neat stuff this month! 

new feature Rolled out the new editor to everyone!

The new editor was released to all Archbee users. It brings a lot of cool new stuff, including performance, improved copy-paste from different sources, integration to Grammarly-like plugins, and more! And more improvements to come to the editing experience.

new feature Zapier integration

Archbee is now integrated with Zapier, and you can include Archbee in your automated flows. See more about this here: https://docs.archbee.com/zapier

new feature Export a whole Space to markdown

Until now you could export a single document or an entire organization to markdown. You can also export a single Space to markdown with the new update. See how to do it here: https://docs.archbee.com/exporting-documents

new feature Logout from all devices

For security reasons, you can now log out from all devices. You can do this from the profile page https://app.archbee.com/settings/teams

improvement Document revision history

We have improved the revision history, and now entries in the revisions list are compressed, allowing users to better identify changes and who made those changes. See more about this here: https://docs.archbee.com/document-history

improvement Github integration - custom CSS can now be defined in separate files

You can now define your custom CSS in separate files in your repo, declare them, and we will import your custom CSS in Archbee. More about Github integration and custom CSS files here: https://docs.archbee.com/KCSO-custom-code

improvement Changelog and Dynamic Links improvements

Changelog - you can now re-order items in a changelog with drag&drop item

Dynamic Links - You can now add a custom name to your Dynamic Link. Even if you rename your dynamic link, we will keep track of your referenced page so you can move it and rename it without impacting the link.

fix We also dedicated time to fixing many small things and improving our infrastructure overall.

Subscribe to the changelog to get the new updates and if you want to provide product feedback, get in touch with us at support@archbee.com or check the https://roadmap.archbee.com/

The Archbee team started 2023 with great energy and positive vibes. We're ready to announce amazing things. Check them out below!

New Features:

1. Editor V2 - we have updated our core editor technology. The new editor brings an improved user experience and speed.

Highlights of V2:

- improved performance for all documents, and larger documents in particular
- improved compatibility on different browsers and OSes
- improved copy & paste from different sources
- improved integration to Grammarly-like plugins
- reduced download size by ~80% down to ~200kb
- improved infrastructure for our dev team to continue to improve the experience around the editor
- And more!

We will gradually roll it out, so stay tuned!

2. Freemium - we introduce our new free STARTER plan. The new FREE plan allows users to write and publish documentation on their custom domains using the power of Archbee's editor. It's perfect for small teams with minimalistic documentation needs and is limited to 3 users and 3 spaces.

Improvements:

1. Github integration - we have improved our GitHub integration and we have added some cool new features:
- sync OpenAPI files from your GitHub repo
- sync Custom CSS code from your GitHub repo
- add code snippets(from your GitHub code base) in Archbee docs

See more about it here: https://docs.archbee.com/github

2. New markdown directives - now you can define new Archbee blocks in markdown:
- CodeDrawer
- Changelog

See more info here: https://docs.archbee.com/markdown-directives

Subscribe to the changelog to get the new updates and if you want to provide product feedback, get in touch with us at support@archbee.com or check the https://roadmap.archbee.com/

This roundup highlights the most noteworthy features and updates in the past 12 months. We have been adding and improving existing features, and it's time to share what we shipped in the past year. Let's break it down.

Writing experience updates

1. Reusable content
   1. Content Variables - https://docs.archbee.com/reusable-variables
   2. Content Snippets - https://docs.archbee.com/content-snippets
2. New custom blocks
   1. Expandable Heading - https://docs.archbee.com/expandable-headings
   2. Vertical Split
   3. Link block
   4. Code Drawer - https://docs.archbee.com/code-drawers
   5. Button block
3. Improvements on existing custom blocks
   1. API endpoint
   2. Table improvements - resize columns
   3. Code Editor 
   4. Insert images in lists
   5. Improve styling for the SwaggerUI block
   6. Dark-mode image support
4. Other writing improvements
   1. FontAwesome - add inline icons or change the icon of documents or Spaces.
   2. Emoji library and new shortcuts
   3. Support for international keyboard layout
   4. Drag and drop and contextual options for blocks
   5. Better markdown support - replace markdown shortcuts as you type
   6. Select anchor from @dynamic links - open a document to a section

New publishing workflow

1. New publish workflow
   1. Preview and production environments
   2. Publish Spaces with icons
2. Appearance Settings
   1. New template designs
      1. Stripey template
      2. Booklet template
      3. Colored Nav template
   2. Content layout settings
      1. one column
      2. two columns
   3. Logo Redirect URL
   4. Control over the document info on published pages
3. New home page template: Provided Template
4. Public Access Control: Authenticate customers with Magic links - https://docs.archbee.com/authentication-options#ZOP-e
5. Hosted Spaces New Features
   1. i18n support - https://docs.archbee.com/localization
   2. Space links and Version links - https://docs.archbee.com/version-links
   3. Host spaces on a subfolder - https://docs.archbee.com/hosting-spaces-on-a-sub-folder
   4. Better SEO meta controls with redirects
   5. Accessibility improvements for the published Spaces
6. Contextual Documentation Widget - https://docs.archbee.com/contextual-documentation-widget
7. PDF export - https://docs.archbee.com/export-to-pdf

Collaboration experience

1. Document verification - https://docs.archbee.com/document-verifications
2. In-app navigation, spacing, colors, and more have been tightened all over the app
3. Use emojis in the thread comments
4. Upload Logo for the Organization
5. Feedback analytics - https://docs.archbee.com/feedback-analytics

Integrations

1. Released the Public API - https://docs.archbee.com/get-document
2. Microsoft Active Directory SSO
3. SAML - https://docs.archbee.com/google-setup
4. GitHub integration - https://docs.archbee.com/github
5. OpenAPI import & sync - https://docs.archbee.com/importing-openapi-swagger-spec-files
6. Postman Collection
7. Jira Integration

General

1. Platform and infrastructure improvements
2. Delete an organization
3. More control over the trial experience with swap Trial and auto extend the trial for 7 days
4. Dark/Light mode based on the system preferences.

What to do next?

Go to our roadmap and add your suggestions.

Reach out to support@archbee.com or read the full article on our blog.

We are happy to announce another release focusing on editor and appearance improvements.

Inline FontAwesome icons

Font Awesome is the world's most popular icon set and toolkit. As of 2020, Font Awesome was used by 38%, and the icon library consists of over 2,000 elements.

With the addition of inline FontAwesome icons, you can now:

• use the (fa) shortcut in the Archbee editor to add an inline icon from the FA icon library;

• change the icon for Spaces, Categories, or Documents with FontAwesome icons, not just with emojis.

Insert images in lists

Now you can add images to lists. Usually, you would have a numbered list to explain some steps. And one of them would need an image to provide better context.

Here's how you do that with Archbee.

1. start your list
2. add your steps
3. when you need an image, type /, and add the image block

Content layout settings

We introduced the 2 column layout for API endpoint and Code Drawer blocks in the previous release. Now we offer more controls around the Content Layout.

Go to Space settings, Appearance, and choose between 1 column and 2 column layout.

Other improvements

Now when you add an icon to a Space, it will be available in the tabs on the production website.

Another improvement is around shortcuts now; emojis are available when using the : symbol.

We've done it. Today we ship some of the hardest features we've ever shipped, with the best team we've ever had.

1. Code Drawers

Code drawers are a way to show code examples in a 3-column layout. Multi-languages are available and even responses.

When you have multiple code drawers in one doc, scrolling to the current one will change the code examples in the third column. To show the current section only.

2. 3-Column layout

This new layout automatically appears when blocks like `API Endpoint`, `OpenAPI` and the new `Code Drawer` are available in the document.

It's a new way to present annotated API information so that your users are taken to the exact context they need to be in as to understand how to use your API.

The view is also available in public documentation.

3. A new version workflow + language localization

Previously creating versions was a hassle and little understood. We've made it better.

Now you can choose where to start the new version from and label each version accordingly.

On top, we've made it possible to create language translations, every element of the UI being translated on top of the content that you'll create. We support English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian at the moment and adding more as we see more usecases from you our customers.

The new versions also show in a neat new way when editing the content, in the left navbar.

4. Tens of design and UX features improvements to keep your documentation workflow going — and we're bringing more.

Hoping to get your feedback and stay tuned for next releases!

We have received your feedback!

Preview links are a great opportunity for your team to review and give feedback on the work being done. We recognized this when we built the feature, but every change you made went automatically to these links. Because unfinished work went there, it wasn't ideal for reviewing.

We've now changed it, and preview links work exactly like production (with domain) links.

Hit publish, copy the link, send it to your teammates, get reviewed and suggested changes applied, then hit publish to production!

Happy documenting!

Some changes we've made to allow a better user experience.

1. Staging becomes Preview

Our Staging environment has been renamed to Preview environment and is now publishable — just as the Production environment. Now everybody can preview their documentation sites BEFORE setting their domains — a huge time saver.

On top of that, the Preview environment is now authenticated by default for users already authenticated in Archbee. This makes it possible to create your documentation site privately and make it public only when it's ready, and you've configured it for Production.

2. Collections become Spaces

For many people `Collection` does not reflect what we mean.

Now Spaces, collections were meant to be the first layer of document organization. Spaces sound more familiar from similar software that's focused on internal documentation.

Basically:

• Documents are organized into Spaces;
• Spaces are organized into Sites (which we'll introduce shortly).

3. Workspaces become Orgs

Our Workspaces feature allows you to use a single login to be in the context of multiple companies, negating the need to re-login with another account. 

This is great. However, many users get confused by the concept, buy a subscription and assume it's for all Workspaces they create. Each workspace has its own subscription because what we really mean by workspaces is "organization". 

We considered a switch to "Teams" but we realized it could also mean that there are separate teams in an organization. So we're making this semantic change to reflect that.

4. Code Editors Update

All code editors have been updated to allow multiple tabs using the same language, drag and drop to reorganize tabs, and performance improvements.

5. Better Markdown converters

We've made a bunch of modifications to our Markdown converters and now they catch more of our custom blocks, that were previously hard to translate to markdown. For example, our Link Blocks and Tabs now translate to a custom Markdown directive, that we understand and other software can easily be made to understand.

6. Removing favorite collections (now spaces)

The favorite collections (now spaces) feature has been removed, for various complicated reasons. You can still drag and drop spaces to organize them as you see fit, potentially putting spaces you care more about at the top of your list.

7. Lots of UI changes and improvements

We've reorganized many things around the UI to build a better user experience.

Cheers from the fearless Archbee team, meaning is not afraid to deploy to prod on Fridays or any other day 💪

At least that we can do to feel 0.1% as brave as Ukraine people.

#WeAreWithUkraine 🇺🇦

Building product docs sites in-house is... time-consuming, de-focusing engineering from the product, error-prone, and... expensive. And in the end, you still lack a nice-to-use CMS for your writers and have to pay for hosting and a search solution.

You can always buy a solution on the market, but there's a big drawback: most solutions don't offer that much customization.

We noticed this a while back and allowed our customers to customize pretty much everything with custom CSS, and custom JS.

While good for many companies, it doesn't seem to be enough for some. 

This is why we've built an entire system that allows us to build documentation site templates very quickly. It's here!

We've also launched the first template for it (beta) — Stripey. Stripey uses Stripe's docs (which is beloved by many developers) as inspiration.

Here's how it looks like on our own docs:

Of course, you still get all the goodies: dark mode, ultra-fast and reliable search, search analytics, authentication options, and rich SEO controls.

Try it out on your docs and let us know what you thought.

Here's what we have planned next for the product documentation sites use case: 

- GitHub Integration (write your docs in GitHub — then use Archbee to generate the site and host it);

- Multi-product sites (use multiple collections on the same site with a tab-switcher similar to Stripe's docs);

- New blocks, many inspired by Stripe's custom made docs;

- i18n;

- Collections as changelogs hooked into the main doc sites.

YAY!

As promised to many of you, we're focusing on improving the functionality we already have as opposed to adding new stuff. 

We've improved the performance of the app, the design system, our libraries & code, the self-service abilities of the system.

Here are some highlights:

• custom HTML with handlebars templates in custom footers or custom landing pages for documentation sites; read more here: https://docs.archbee.io/custom-landing-page;
• improved image rendering; we've changed our CDN for images with one that renders sizes dynamically and allows people with smaller screens (e.g mobile) to download the exact size of images they need; we also changed the way image widths/heights are calculated so no layout shifting will happen anymore;
• user downloadable invoices; download any invoice on demand so that you don't have to look for them in your email;
• ability to appoint a new super admin; this also changes the email that Stripe sends invoices to;
• ability to change email address by yourself;
• UI improvements all over; we've tightened our design system even more; more consistent colors and spacing;
• better automatic scrolling in the document tree section;
• improved search algorithm and faster instances on AWS for search indexing;
• we've upgraded most of our code to the latest libraries so you get the benefit of improved performance and security;
• reduced load time for public collections by 20%;
• reduced load time for documents by 25%;
• improved callout blocks;
• more accurate reading time prediction by using a new algorithm;
• faster real-time sync between people looking at the same document;
• better table of contents rendering;
• improved loading time of the knowledge graph on workspaces with 1000+ documents;
• improved document tree drag & drop accuracy;
• improved blockquote rendering.

Enjoy!

What a day on ProductHunt!

Thanks to all your support, we made it to top 1 when we launched Archbee 2.0!

ProductHunt called us a "Google Docs alternative" a few days later in their newsletter. Flattered and humbled!

But there's no resting on the laurels... here's what we released today.

Workspace-Level Domains

One of our cool & distinctive features is that you can share collections of documents on your domain.

But each domain was bound to a single collection. That made it hard for everybody:

• companies with multiple products had to set a different subdomain for each product's documentation; 
• agencies with multiple customers (like you'd find an agency with a single customer, haha) had to set a different subdomain for each customer they wanted to share docs with;
• every new domain had to be set in the DNS provider, taking too much time, and DNS propagation is really slow sometimes;
• that also made it hard for us because we had to supply many SSL certificates, and that's not easy, or cheap.

The alternative was sharing the collections with an archbee.io link, and that worked for some companies, but it didn't for those that wanted a more professional look.

Super happy to announce we now made it possible to share multiple collections on the same domain, by having a path on each collection, while maintaining the root path for a single collection. 

It was one of the most requested features!

Here's how you do it:

Publish-Mode!!

Our automatic save feature and collaborative experience made it easy to create docs by not having to click any unnecessary buttons.

That's awesome for internal team documentation and collaboration.

But for customer-facing documentation, it's not a good look to have them see unfinished work or drafts.

This is why we now have publish-mode, which snapshots your collection and deploys it to your domain.

You get to keep the archbee.io staging link that points at the real-time collection, and a production environment to which the snapshot is deployed at your domain. 

Publish-Mode gets activated whenever you have a domain set on your collection.

This new feature also introduces clean URLs. We only add the randomly generated string at the end of the URL if you have another doc named exactly the same. To get the new URLs you have to publish once.

Here's how it looks like:

Enjoy your holidays, and we'll see you soon with more blazing features.

🖖