I just shipped Columnist 3, and the easiest way to describe what’s new is this: write plain markdown (or content from Total CMS), get an editorial layout.
No extra stacks. No special markup. Just write, and Columnist handles the typography.
The bundle now ships three stacks:
- Columnist — the main text-flow stack, rewritten from scratch
- Columnist Grid — a new masonry card grid with hover effects
- Columnist Swatch — for swatch enthusiats who want column styling on any selector
There’s also a real typography toolkit underneath — widow and orphan sliders, hyphenation control, text-wrap balance, per-heading break controls. The stuff that separates text in columns from actually readable columns.
It’s pure CSS multi-column under the hood. Zero JavaScript. Every setting is a CSS custom property you can override from your own stylesheet.
I’m demoing the whole thing on tomorrow’s livestream.
Existing Columnist owners get an upgrade discount
Heads up for v1 and v2 users: you will have to add the v3 stack to the page to get the new features. Worth it though — wait until you see what the new editorial styles do.
Cheers,
Joe