Overview
April was a busy one. We shipped a brand-new way to lock down your publications behind a password (because not everything should live on the open internet), wired up an AI pipeline that takes the manual labor out of processing complex PDFs, and made a long list of improvements to the Fastr Frontend v2 migration experience for clients moving over from Fastr Frontend. Throw in some quality-of-life fixes for Fastr Optimize and Fastr Frontend, and we think you'll find something to like in this release. Grab a coffee — here's what's new.
Fastr Frontend v2
Three new interaction actions: Set Text, Set Image, and Set Alt Text. You can now dynamically swap text content, image fills, and alt text via interactions. Want a banner that updates its headline mid-experience? Done. Need to rotate hero images on a click? Easy. Want to programmatically set proper alt text so screen readers don't read out "untitled-1.jpg" to your shoppers? Now possible — and we're proud of you for caring. Read more in our updated Interactions: Advanced Options article.
Faster asset exports. Frontend v2 asset exports are noticeably faster now, especially for large image-heavy experiences. We won't claim it's instant — but you'll spend less time staring at a loading spinner and more time doing literally anything else.
Smarter scene transitions. Changing scenes now correctly cancels any previously running interactions that have delays or time-based durations. Translation: no more stray animations crashing the next scene's party.
"Use Bounding Box" is now the default. All new (and existing) widgets now have "Use Bounding Box" selected by default, ensuring consistent interaction behavior across the board. One less checkbox to remember.
Refreshed UI palette. The Frontend v2 canvas got a small visual refresh — updated colors for better consistency and readability. If you find yourself thinking "did the buttons always look like that?" — yes, that was us.
Unified app frame. Initial release of the unified frame that gives every Fastr product a consistent look and navigation.
Migration Fixes
Our team has been busy doing the leg work so we can migrate content from Fastr Frontend over to Frontend v2 with ease. We squashed a long list of migration quirks so the move is smoother:
- Migrated experiences now show a "Migrated" badge in your experience list so they're easy to spot.
- The bulk republish modal now includes migrated unpublished experiences (because manually republishing 50 experiences is no one's idea of a good time).
- Mouseover effect "return to original state" now imports correctly into Fastr Frontend v2.
- "Use bounding box" is preserved during migration to keep your original UX intact.
- Carousel "Change Scene on Delay" behavior now imports correctly.
- Zoom animations migrate without errors.
- Image fill type "Fill" no longer mysteriously becomes "Contain" after migration (it was a bug; no one knows why it ever did this).
- Soft-deleted file remigration is now supported.
- Publish queue status is visible in the migration portal frontend, plus failure notifications and dead-letter handling have been added.
If you haven't started migrating yet, our Migrate content from Fastr Frontend guide is the place to start.
Frontend v2 Bug Fixes
- Editor role can now view and use folder options on right-click in your experience list (previously a missing feature, now an existing one).
- Fixed a regression that prevented some accounts from importing Fastr Experiences.
- Fixed unescaped double quotes in content slot names that could break init.js. If you've been avoiding the
"key in slot names — you can stop now. - Click-trigger interactions now respect ADA labels for accessibility.
- All user roles on app.getfastr.com can now preview an experience.
Fastr Publications
Password-protected publications. This is the big one. You can now gate any published publication behind a secure password — perfect for internal-only catalogs, partner-exclusive content, or anything you'd rather not let strangers stumble into. Enable it from the content slot menu, set a password, and Fastr will handle the rest: a clean login page, HMAC cookie auth, per-IP rate limiting, edge-cached authenticated asset delivery, and a clear lock indicator in your publication list so you know at a glance which slots are protected. Learn how to set this up in our How to Password Protect a Publication guide.
AI Publication Processing Pipeline. Large or complex catalogs can now be processed through a hybrid AI extraction pipeline. Available to Fastr Admins via the new "Use AI extraction" checkbox, the pipeline pulls text, images, and annotations more accurately than the standard processor. End-to-end tested on the GK26 Eurofase catalog and other production PDFs. We can't promise the AI will write your product descriptions for you (yet), but we can promise it'll save your team a lot of manual cleanup time.
Fastr Optimize
Init.js standardization. The init.js code generated for Optimize-enabled accounts has been standardized to use a unified clientCollectionManifest and consistent reportVariant behavior. We also documented the init.js Iron Rules as a fleet standard so future updates stay consistent across all accounts. (Yes, we are very serious about init.js. Maybe too serious.)
PostHog protection. Added Object.defineProperty protection for the window.posthog global, preventing accidental overwrites by host-site scripts. Translation: rogue third-party scripts can no longer hijack your analytics.
Session Replay updates. HAR file download is now available for the session replay network tab — a small but mighty addition for anyone debugging real session traffic. Pagination, filters, e-commerce fixes, and navigation improvements have all landed across session recordings.
Fastr Frontend
Analytics flag fix. Experience init.js was previously gating analytics emission on the wrong feature flag (fastr-optimize-enabled). It now correctly uses fastr-frontend-analytics-enabled. If your analytics looked a little quieter than expected, you'll likely notice it speak up after this fix.
Foreground / Background rendering regression fix. A regression around foreground and background widget rendering is resolved. Things look the way they should again.
Internal namespace cleanup. CLJS globals are now isolated under the PENPOT namespace, fixing an upstream issue affecting some accounts. (Internal plumbing — you won't see it, but it makes our lives easier, which means yours too eventually.)
That's the April rundown. As always, if you have questions about any of these updates or want a walkthrough, reach out to your CSM or Fastr Customer Support — we're happy to help.
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