HydePHP v2.0 Release Notes

Overview#

HydePHP v2.0 represents a major evolution of the framework, introducing significant improvements to the asset system, navigation API, and overall developer experience. This release modernizes the frontend tooling by replacing Laravel Mix with Vite, completely rewrites the navigation system for better flexibility, and introduces numerous performance optimizations throughout the framework.

This document will give you an overview of the changes. When you're ready to upgrade your site, take a look at the Upgrade Guide.

Major Features#

🚀 Modern Frontend Tooling with Vite#

We've replaced Laravel Mix with Vite for a faster, more modern development experience:

Instant Hot Module Replacement (HMR) for real-time updates during development
Direct asset compilation into the _media folder for cleaner builds
Updated build command: Use npm run build instead of npm run prod (or --vite during the site build)
Vite facade for seamless Blade template integration
Optimized asset serving through the realtime compiler
Hyde Vite plugin for enhanced integration

🎨 Enhanced Asset Management System#

The new consolidated Asset API provides a more intuitive interface for handling media files:

MediaFile instances with fluent methods like getLink(), getLength(), and getMimeType()
HydeFront facade for CDN links and Tailwind configuration injection
Intelligent caching with CRC32 hashing for improved performance
Automatic validation to prevent missing assets from going unnoticed
Lazy-loaded metadata for optimal resource usage

The navigation system has been completely rewritten for maximum flexibility:

YAML configuration support for defining navigation items
Extra attributes for custom styling and behavior
Improved Routes facade with Laravel-consistent naming conventions
Natural priority ordering using numeric prefixes in filenames
Enhanced sidebar management with better organization options

📝 Improved Documentation Features#

Documentation pages now benefit from several enhancements:

Alpine.js-powered search with customizable implementation
Blade-based table of contents that's 40x faster than before
Custom heading renderer with improved permalink handling
Colored blockquotes now using Tailwind CSS classes
Smart natural language processing for search headings
Dynamic source file links in Markdown documents

🎯 Better Developer Experience#

Numerous quality-of-life improvements for developers:

PHP 8.4 support and Laravel 11 compatibility
ESM module support for modern JavaScript development
Tailwind CSS v4 with automated upgrade tools
Enhanced data collections with syntax validation
Improved error messages with clearer exception handling
Interactive publish:views command on Unix systems
Extension callbacks with booting() and booted() methods

Upgrading to v2.0#

📖 For complete step-by-step upgrade instructions, see the Upgrade Guide.

Important: PHP 8.2+ is now required. Laravel Mix has been replaced with Vite, and Tailwind CSS has been upgraded to v4.

Breaking Changes#

High Impact Changes#

1. Tailwind CSS v4 Upgrade#

We've upgraded from Tailwind CSS v3 to v4. Run the automated upgrade tool to migrate your custom classes:

npx @tailwindcss/upgrade

Review the Tailwind v4 Upgrade Guide for detailed breaking changes.

2. ESM Module Migration#

Frontend tooling now uses ESM modules instead of CommonJS. If you have custom JavaScript, update to ESM syntax:

Before:

const module = require('module-name');
module.exports = { /* ... */ };

After:

import module from 'module-name';
export default { /* ... */ };

Update your navigation configuration to use the new array-based format:

Before:

'navigation' => [
    'custom_items' => [
        'Custom Item' => '/custom-page',
    ],
],

After:

'navigation' => [
    'custom_items' => [
        ['label' => 'Custom Item', 'destination' => '/custom-page'],
    ],
],

4. Features Configuration#

Replace static method calls with enum values in your config/hyde.php:

Before:

'features' => [
    Features::htmlPages(),
    Features::markdownPosts(),
],

After:

'features' => [
    Feature::HtmlPages,
    Feature::MarkdownPosts,
],

General Impact Changes#

Post Author System#

The blog post author feature has been significantly improved:

Configuration changes:

// Before
'authors' => [
    Author::create('username', 'Display Name', 'https://example.com'),
],
 
// After
'authors' => [
    'username' => Author::create(
        name: 'Display Name',
        website: 'https://example.com',
        bio: 'Author bio',
        avatar: 'avatar.png',
        socials: ['twitter' => '@username']
    ),
],

Key changes:

Authors are now keyed by username
Author::create() returns an array instead of a PostAuthor instance
Author::get() returns null if not found (previously created new instance)
Usernames are automatically normalized (lowercase, underscores for spaces)
Authors support biographies, avatars, and social media links
A new Hyde::authors() method provides access to all site authors
Authors can be configured via YAML

The way this system now works is that you first define authors in the config, Hyde then loads this during the booting process, and you can then access them using the get method.

Medium Impact Changes#

Asset API Updates#

All asset methods now return MediaFile instances instead of strings. This instance can be cast to a string which will automatically resolve to a relative link at that time. You can also call helper methods on it. When using Blade templates, thanks to the Stringable implementation no change will happen.

// Methods renamed for clarity
Hyde::asset('image.png');        // Previously: Hyde::mediaLink()
Asset::get('image.png');         // Previously: Asset::mediaLink()
Asset::exists('image.png');      // Previously: Asset::hasMediaFile()
HydeFront::cdnLink('app.css');   // Previously: Asset::cdnLink()

Configuration changes:

Rename hyde.enable_cache_busting to hyde.cache_busting
Remove references to hyde.hydefront_version and hyde.hydefront_cdn_url

Routes Facade API#

Methods renamed to follow Laravel conventions:

// Before
$route = Routes::get('route-name');        // Returns null if not found
$route = Routes::getOrFail('route-name');  // Throws exception
 
// After
$route = Routes::find('route-name');       // Returns null if not found
$route = Routes::get('route-name');        // Throws exception

DataCollection API#

Class renamed from DataCollections to DataCollection
Syntax validation now throws ParseException for malformed files
Empty data files are no longer allowed
Directory creation is no longer automatic
The route function now throws RouteNotFoundException if route not found

Low Impact Changes#

Includes Facade Return Types#

Methods now return HtmlString objects:

{{-- Before: Required unescaped output --}}
{!! Includes::html('partial') !!}
 
{{-- After: Automatic rendering --}}
{{ Includes::html('partial') }}

⚠️ Security Note: Output is no longer escaped by default. Use {{ e(Includes::html('foo')) }} for user-generated content.

Documentation Search Generation#

The documentation search page is now generated as an InMemoryPage instead of a post-build task, meaning it appears in the dashboard and route list.

Documentation sidebar configuration has been reorganized:

docs.sidebar_order → docs.sidebar.order
docs.table_of_contents → docs.sidebar.table_of_contents
docs.sidebar_group_labels → docs.sidebar.labels

New Features#

Enhanced Blog Posts#

Simplified image front matter with new "caption" field
Date prefixes in filenames for automatic publishing dates
Rich markup data with BlogPosting Schema.org type
Author collections accessible via Hyde::authors()
Custom posts support in blog feed component

Improved Build System#

Vite integration with HMR support in realtime compiler
Smart asset compilation - app.js only compiles when needed
Environment variable support for saving previews
Grouped progress bars for InMemoryPage instances
Media asset transfers via dedicated build task

Developer Tools#

Interactive publish:views command on Unix systems
Custom HydeSearch.js support for search customization
Extension callbacks with booting() and booted() methods
Dynamic source file links in Markdown documents (for example [Home](/_pages/index.blade.php))
Filesystem::ensureParentDirectoryExists() helper method

Package Updates#

Realtime Compiler#

Simplified asset file locator for media source directory
Added Vite HMR support
Experimental Laravel Herd support

HydeFront#

Complete migration from Sass to Tailwind CSS
Extracted CSS component partials
Removed legacy hyde.css file

Performance Improvements#

40x faster table of contents generation using Blade components
CRC32 hashing replaces MD5 for cache busting (much faster)
Lazy-loaded media metadata with in-memory caching
Cached media assets in HydeKernel for instant access

Dependency Updates#

PHP: Now requires 8.2–8.4 (dropped 8.1 support)
Laravel: Upgraded to version 11
Tailwind CSS: Upgraded to version 4
Symfony/Yaml: Updated to version 7
Torchlight: Switched to forked version for compatibility

Removed Features#

Deprecated Method Removals#

PostAuthor::getName() - use $author->name property
FeaturedImage::isRemote() - use Hyperlinks::isRemote()
DocumentationPage::getTableOfContents() - use Blade component
MarkdownService::withPermalinks() and canEnablePermalinks()

Build Commands#

npm run prod - replaced by npm run build
--run-dev and --run-prod flags - replaced by --vite
--run-prettier flag and Prettier dependency removed

Configuration Options#

hyde.hydefront_version and hyde.hydefront_cdn_url - now handled automatically
hyde.enable_cache_busting - renamed to hyde.cache_busting
hyde.navigation.subdirectories - renamed to hyde.navigation.subdirectory_display

Components and Files#

hyde.css from HydeFront - all styles now in app.css
table-of-contents.css, heading-permalinks.css, blockquotes.css - styles now use Tailwind
.torchlight-enabled CSS class
<x-hyde::docs.search-input /> and <x-hyde::docs.search-scripts /> components - replaced by <x-hyde::docs.hyde-search />

Support & Resources#

Documentation: https://hydephp.com/docs/2.x
Upgrade Guide: https://hydephp.com/docs/2.x/upgrade-guide
GitHub Issues: https://github.com/hydephp/hyde/issues
Community Discord: https://discord.hydephp.com

For the complete changelog with all pull request references, see the full changelog.

HydePHP v2.0 Release Notes

Overview#

Major Features#

🚀 Modern Frontend Tooling with Vite#

🎨 Enhanced Asset Management System#

🧭 Redesigned Navigation API#

📝 Improved Documentation Features#

🎯 Better Developer Experience#

Upgrading to v2.0#

Breaking Changes#

High Impact Changes#

1. Tailwind CSS v4 Upgrade#

2. ESM Module Migration#

3. Navigation Configuration Format#

4. Features Configuration#

General Impact Changes#

Post Author System#

Medium Impact Changes#

Asset API Updates#

Routes Facade API#

DataCollection API#

Low Impact Changes#

Includes Facade Return Types#

Documentation Search Generation#

Sidebar Configuration#

New Features#

Enhanced Blog Posts#

Improved Build System#

Developer Tools#

Package Updates#

Realtime Compiler#

HydeFront#

Performance Improvements#

Dependency Updates#

Removed Features#

Deprecated Method Removals#

Build Commands#

Configuration Options#

Components and Files#

Support & Resources#