Announcements

Wagtail 7.0 brings some big quality-of-life improvements for content creators and developers. The headline change is that you can now save drafts and preview pages without filling out all the mandatory fields — required fields are only enforced at publish time. This makes drafting much smoother, removing the need for placeholder text like "CHANGE THIS" just to save progress. Alongside that, Wagtail 7.0 adds better pagination so you can quickly jump to the first or last page in listings and choosers, saving time. It also officially supports Django 5.2, introduces a new method to set default privacy settings per page type, and brings several small UX upgrades like showing locales in listings and smarter "Publish" button behavior. Behind the scenes, this release moves Wagtail closer to full autosave, where manual draft saving will eventually become unnecessary.

Because of these changes, Wagtail 7.0 includes some breaking updates that need attention before upgrading. The new way drafts are saved means that validation works a bit differently now — drafts no longer require all fields to be filled in, so if your site depends on strict checks during saving, you'll want to test carefully and adjust if needed. There are also some updates to how tagging and user forms are configured, which might require small changes in your project settings. On the bright side, Wagtail's long-term support releases are now timed to match Django's schedule, making future upgrade planning smoother. Overall, Wagtail 7.0 clears out old hurdles, adds flexibility for creators, and sets the foundation for bigger features, but upgrading will take a little extra care.

I am happy to announce that Django GDPR Cookie Consent 3.2.0 with Django 5.2 support has been released.

The latest changes in v3.x:

• Improved accessibility by keyboard and screen readers.
• Improved styling details and customizations.
• Added Django system checks for your configurations.
• Added support for Python 3.13 and Django 5.2.
• Dropped support for Python ≤3.7 and Django ≤4.1.

If you have bought Django GDPR Cookie Consent before, you can log in to Gumroad and download the latest version from the Library for free. Otherwise, I invite you to buy it for your upcoming Django projects.

Django 5.2, released on April 2, 2025, introduces several new features and improvements while marking the beginning of deprecations for some older functionalities. Notably, this version is designated as a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, ensuring security updates for at least three years. It supports Python versions 3.10 through 3.13, with official recommendations favoring the latest release in each series. Developers upgrading from previous versions should review the backwards-incompatible changes and consult Django’s upgrade guide for a smooth transition.

Among the key enhancements, Django 5.2 makes working in the shell easier by automatically giving developers access to models from all installed apps without needing to import them manually. It also introduces support for models that can use more than one field as their primary identifier, offering greater flexibility in how databases are structured. Customizing forms has become simpler too, with new options that make it easier to adjust how forms are displayed across an entire project or in specific places. Altogether, these improvements continue Django’s tradition of making web development more efficient and adaptable.

Python, the widely popular programming language, celebrates its 34th anniversary in 2025. First released by Guido van Rossum on February 20, 1991, Python has grown from a simple scripting language into a global powerhouse, driving innovations in AI, web development, data science, and automation. Its emphasis on readability and versatility has made it a favorite among beginners and experts alike. With continuous updates and a thriving community, Python remains at the forefront of modern programming, proving that simplicity and power can go hand in hand.

Django 5.2 beta 1 is now available, marking the second stage in the 5.2 release cycle. This beta provides an opportunity to explore upcoming features before the final release, scheduled for April 2, 2025. Only bug fixes for new features and regressions will be made until then, with translations finalized after the release candidate. The Django team encourages early testing to help catch issues, though this beta is not recommended for production use. Developers can download it from PyPI or the Django website and report bugs to the issue tracker.

Python 3.14.0a5 is the fifth of seven planned alpha releases, introducing PEP 649 (deferred annotation evaluation), PEP 741 (enhanced Python configuration C API), and PEP 761 (switching from PGP signatures to Sigstore). It also features improved error messages and an experimental high-performance interpreter for newer compilers. Some older Python and C API features are being deprecated. As features may still change before beta (May 6, 2025), developers are encouraged to test and report issues. The next release, Python 3.14.0a6, arrives March 14, 2025.