CinemataCMS 2.1.5
Release Date: March 2026
Release Type: Feature & Maintenance Release
🎯 Overview
CinemataCMS v2.1.5 is a significant release combining major frontend infrastructure modernization with targeted community engagement improvements. This release completes a multi-phase frontend overhaul — upgrading React, migrating the build system from Webpack to Vite, and introducing a modern component architecture — while also delivering meaningful improvements to how filmmakers and site visitors communicate and discover content.
✨ New Features
📧 Email Notification on Video Publishing
Filmmakers now receive an email notification when their uploaded video changes publishing state — confirming whether their work has been approved, made public, or requires attention from site curators. This closes a feedback loop that previously required filmmakers to check back manually. (#397, #468)
📬 Contact Form Now CC's the Sender
When someone uses Cinemata's contact form to reach a filmmaker — a common channel for screening invitations, licensing inquiries, and collaboration requests — the sender now automatically receives a copy of their own message. This makes follow-up conversations easier to track and gives organizers confidence that their outreach went through. (#401)
📊 Prometheus Queue Monitoring for Encoding Tasks
Administrators and DevOps can now monitor transcoding queue wait times through Prometheus metrics, giving better visibility into encoding pipeline health and backlog. Useful for proactive scaling and incident response. (#463)
🐛 Bug Fixes
🔍 Search Results Now Show Film Summaries
Search results previously displayed credits metadata instead of the film's summary or synopsis snippet. This is now corrected — visitors searching Cinemata will see a meaningful description of each film directly in search results, making discovery more useful. (#476)
📱 Mobile Header Overlap with Notification Bar Resolved
A z-index conflict caused the site header to visually overlap with the notification bar on mobile screens. This is now fixed, restoring a clean browsing experience on phones and tablets. (#464)
🛡️ Encoding Resilience and Resource Limits
Several encoding pipeline issues — including edge cases where videos could get stuck in processing, incorrect resource ceilings, and user action inconsistencies — have been addressed. Uploads are now more reliably processed end-to-end. (#440)
🕐 Timezone-Aware Datetime and Contact Form Validation
Datetime values throughout the platform now properly account for timezones, preventing scheduling and timestamp errors. The contact form also received improved input validation. (#401)
🏗️ Frontend Modernization (Adryan Eka Vandra)
This release closes a multi-phase frontend overhaul that represents a major architectural milestone for CinemataCMS. The modernized frontend now coexists alongside the legacy Flux/React 17 codebase — new features are built with modern patterns while existing components remain stable.
React 17 → React 19 (#430)
The core frontend framework has been upgraded from React 17 to React 19, including resolution of breaking changes. This brings access to React's latest concurrent rendering capabilities and future-proofs the component architecture.
Webpack → Vite Migration (#432)
The build system has been migrated from Webpack to Vite. Build configuration was reduced from approximately 760 lines to around 80 — dramatically improving build times, hot module replacement speed, and developer experience. The migration covered three sub-phases (2A, 2B, 2C).
Comprehensive Frontend Modernization (#439)
A full modernization layer was introduced alongside the legacy codebase: TanStack Query for server state management, Zustand for client state, and a Tailwind CSS v4 bridge enabling utility-first styling in new components. Django-Vite integration links backend template rendering to the Vite asset pipeline.
Modern Track Demo Page and Contributor Docs (#434)
A live /modern-demo page now demonstrates the modern component architecture in action and serves as a reference implementation for contributors working on new features.
Frontend Package Consolidation (#448)
All frontend packages were migrated to the Vite ecosystem with a full dependency upgrade pass, ensuring consistency across the build toolchain.
This frontend modernization is a direct CinemataCMS differentiator from upstream MediaCMS and sets the foundation for the community engagement features being built in Milestone 2.
What's Changed
- Fix production JS crashes: MediaPlayer import and stale ref cleanup (#477) by @adryanev in #477
- Fix search results showing credits instead of summary snippet by @adryanev in #476
- feat: add email notification when videos are published (#397) by @jery1402 in #468
- fix: use timezone-aware datetime and validate contact form inputs (#401) by @jery1402 in
- fix: resolve mobile header overlap with notification bar (#464) by @adryanev in #464
- feat: add Prometheus queue wait time monitoring for encoding tasks (#463) by @jery1402 in #463
- chore: migrate frontend packages to Vite and upgrade all dependencies (#448) by @adryanev in #448
- fix: Encoding resilience, resource limits, and user action bug fixes (#440) by @jery1402 in #440
- feat(frontend): comprehensive frontend modernization (React 19, Vite, Tailwind bridge) by @adryanev #439 in #439
- feat(frontend): modern track demo page and contributor docs (M3 PR 3B) #434 by @adryanev in #434
- feat(frontend): migrate from Webpack to Vite (M2 PRs 2A+2B+2C) (#432) by @adryanev in #432
- feat(frontend): upgrade React 17 to 19 with breaking change fixes (#430) by @adryanev in #430
Full Changelog: https://github.com/EngageMedia-video/cinematacms/commits/v2.1.5
