News & Roadmap
Keep visitors in the loop with news articles and let them vote on feature requests — all without leaving the widget.
Overview
The News and Roadmap tabs turn your widget into a two-way communication channel. Visitors can read your latest announcements and actively shape your product by voting on feature requests.
Both tabs are optional — enable them individually from Dashboard → Widget → Menu Settings.
News
A feed of your published news articles with images, rich text, and date stamps.
Roadmap
A public board of feature requests visitors can browse, upvote, and contribute to.
News
The News Feed
When a visitor opens the News tab, they see a scrollable list of article cards. Each card shows:
- Image — a featured image if one was uploaded
- Title — single-line, truncated if long
- Preview — up to two lines of the article body (HTML stripped)
Cards are sorted newest-first. Tapping a card opens the full article inside the widget.
Reading an Article
The detail view displays the full article:
- Featured image at the top (full width)
- Article title
- Publication date
- Rich HTML body (with formatted text, images, tables, and more)
A back button in the header returns the visitor to the news list.
Home Screen Integration
News articles can also appear on the widget's Home Screen when you add a NEWS card. Clicking a news card from the home screen switches to the News tab and opens that article directly.
Empty & Error States
If no articles are published yet, visitors see a newspaper icon with "No news articles yet" and a prompt to check back later. If something goes wrong loading the feed, a friendly error message is shown instead.
Roadmap
The Board
The Roadmap tab shows a public feature request board. Visitors see one status column at a time, selected from a dropdown at the top. Only columns you've marked as public are visible.
Each column has a colored indicator next to its name, matching the color you've set in the dashboard.
Feature Request Cards
Each card on the board shows:
- Title — extracted from the first short text field of the form submission
- Description — rendered as rich text from the second field
- Upvote button — an arrow icon with the current vote count
Sorting
A dropdown lets visitors switch between two sort orders:
| Sort | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Most Votes | Highest-upvoted requests first (default) |
| Most Recent | Newest submissions first |
Upvoting
Visitors upvote by clicking the arrow icon on a card. The first time they upvote, the widget asks for their email address — this is a one-time requirement stored for the session.
Visitor clicks the upvote arrow
If they haven't provided an email yet, a modal appears asking for one.
They enter their email
Basic format validation ensures the address is valid. The email is saved and linked to the visitor's record.
The vote is recorded
The arrow and count update immediately. Clicking again removes the vote (toggle behavior).
Requesting a Feature
A "Request a Feature" button is pinned at the bottom of the Roadmap tab. Clicking it opens a form (configured as the board's default form in the dashboard) where visitors can submit their own feature requests.
Settings
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Show (News) | Enable or disable the News tab in the widget menu |
| Title (News) | Custom label for the News tab (defaults to "News") |
| Show (Roadmap) | Enable or disable the Roadmap tab in the widget menu |
| Title (Roadmap) | Custom label for the Roadmap tab (defaults to "Roadmap") |