Fresco Platform Update – Version 1.5.5 (13 July 2026)

This release introduces Local Navigation, expands the Embed component with additional approved services including Oxford Status information, Miro and audio/podcast services, and adds Fonts to styling options. It also improves image handling, listings, Symplectic displays, migration reliability and editing stability.

• Local Navigation component now available
  • Editors can now add a Local Navigation component within a column region of a page
    • it cannot be added to areas such as the Header, Footer, Tabs, Accordions, Tile Grid or Flexbox layouts
  • This helps visitors understand where they are within a section of a site and move between related pages
  • It presents up to three levels of navigation and indicates the current page
  • The component inherits styling from the site’s Fresco theme, so it fits with the wider design system

  • Local Navigation is currently only available on 'Desktop' view. Further support for 'Mobile' view is to be implemented in a future release

     

• Embed component extended 
  • Editors can now use the Embed component for more approved third-party services, where those services have been enabled for their site
    • Service Status Reporting Tool 
    • Audio and podcast services such as Pod Oxford, Apple Podcasts, Transistor FM and Acast
    • Miro and Timeline.js services 
    • Figshare (Beta) which allows editors to include supported research-data content in Fresco pages.  Styling may change in the coming weeks. 

  • Embed configuration has been improved so that approved services can use multiple domains where needed. This supports more reliable validation and helps keep embed settings easier to manage

     

• Styling and presentation enhancements
  • Font settings are now available for sites in the 'Branded' and 'Specialist' styling groups.
    • Site Administrators can configure font choices for Display, Body and Label text, with the available options grouped by typographic role
    • Sites in styling groups where font customisation is not available will not see the Fonts tab
  • Further styling configuration has been added to support styling group exceptions without requiring editors to manage this manually

  • Image captions and attributions now display where they have been added. Where both are present, the caption appears before the attribution. If neither field has been completed, no additional information is shown

     

• Improved set-up for Listings and Symplectic Publications
  • Listings can now be sorted by a custom taxonomy vocabulary, where relevant for the content type. This gives editors more control over how dynamic listing content is ordered
  • The default “Read more” button text is now visible in Listing set-up when buttons are enabled. Editors can see what will be displayed and amend the wording to meet compliance requirements
  • Symplectic display settings are clearer: “Show more” and pagination options remain visible, but cannot both be enabled at the same time

• Editing and component reliability
  • Videos now display correctly on pages that contain the Video component
  • Tabs can be re-ordered in a Tab component without an error displaying, and changes can be saved
  • Duplicated Tile Grids and Column layouts now keep their content in the same order as the original

  • The Sa11y accessibility tool now loads as expected, and related interactive components such as media galleries, slideshows and event-date filters initialise correctly

     

• Styling and image display

  • Images using Large or Medium image styles now use the appropriate image size, improving display quality where images previously appeared blurred

     

• Listings and filtering

  • Taxonomy filter dropdowns in listings are now responsive, so visitors can select one or more terms where taxonomy filtering has been enabled

     

• Migration and Symplectic content
  • Migrated Symplectic publication components now split multiple comma-separated SSO IDs into separate rows

  • SSO IDs are handled consistently when Symplectic publication queries are formed, reducing the risk of publication lists appearing empty after migration

     

• Content management

  • The Trash page now lists deleted items only, with the expected restore and purge options

     

• Theme colours
  • Mitigation of behaviour where colours set in the Appearance tab occasionally reverted to a previously set colour, Oxford Blue or white for non-logged in users. 

• Some pages may not show the selected site colours to non-logged-in visitors

  • On some sites, individual pages may not display the colours selected in Styling options. For example, the header, footer or components on those pages may show an older colour, Oxford Blue, or white
  • Logged-in users may see the correct colours on the same pages, while non-logged-in visitors see the incorrect colours
  • It is likely that selected styling has been saved, but some publicly visible pages may not update straight away (a caching issue)
    • Workaround for a single affected page:
      • Log in and edit the affected page
      • Save the page without making any changes
      • The page should then show the correct colours to non-logged-in visitors
    • Workaround for several affected pages:
      • A Site Administrator should log in and go to Settings > System > Google Analytics.
      • Make no changes
      • Select Save configuration

      • This clears the site cache after a few seconds. The correct colours should then appear for non-logged-in visitors across the site within 5 to 15 minutes

         

• SharePoint embedded content may not display correctly
  • On some pages, SharePoint embedded content may not appear as expected, with the content appearing as 'blocked'
    • Suggested workaround for viewers
      • Log into a University Microsoft service (i.e. Nexus SharePoint) in another browser tab
      • Make sure the Video cookie is enabled in the cookie manager.
      • Refresh the page
      • Click the blue button in the video window to accept cookies

• Platform maintenance and supporting work

  • This release includes security hardening and platform maintenance work. Technical detail relating to security updates has intentionally been omitted
  • It also includes internal work to support embed configuration, automated testing reliability, deployment stability, shared content discovery and future content-editing controls
  • This release includes a compatibility update for SharePoint embeds. SharePoint videos will continue to be affected until Microsoft's corresponding service-side changes are in place.

Sprint: W5 - Sprint 5

Product Backlog Items: 119282, 126689, 115633, 124866, 125906, 126678, 127039, 126872, 126871, 124159, 126996, 113337, 94327, 116689, 125089, 115886, 127090, 125499, 127956, 127471, 127515

Bugs: 127326, 123030, 96136, 127193, 127121, 127425, 127551, 127556, 127287, 128209