Migrating from v3 to v3.5
Site Designer v3.5 is a largely additive release. The vast majority of v3 projects open in v3.5 without any issues. This guide covers the notable changes and the one deprecated feature that may require attention.
Good news: no one-way conversion
Unlike the v2 → v3 upgrade, opening a v3 project in v3.5 does not permanently convert the file. V3.5 can open and save v3-compatible .rsd files. You can open the same file in v3 or v3.5 without issues (as long as you haven’t used v3.5-exclusive features like Master Grid areas with named regions).
Additive changes (no action needed)
Master Grid editor
The Master Grid editor is entirely new. Existing Grid containers in your v3 projects are not touched — they continue to work exactly as before. The Master Grid editor is available as a new tool in the Style pane when display: grid is set on a container. You opt in to using it; it doesn’t activate automatically.
Expanded component library
The 100+ new components added in v3.5 are available in the library panel. Components you already inserted into your project from v3’s library remain unchanged. The new components are additive — they don’t replace existing ones.
WebP support
If your v3 project contains JPEG or PNG images, they remain as-is. No automatic conversion happens. WebP is available for newly imported images. To benefit from WebP, replace images manually in the Resources panel.
Performance improvements
No action needed. The canvas and Outline pane performance improvements apply automatically.
Form accessibility improvements
Newly added form elements in v3.5 include better default ARIA and label associations. Existing form elements in v3 projects are not retroactively modified. If you want to improve accessibility on existing forms, add <label> elements and aria-required attributes manually via the Content pane.
Deprecated: old column-based grid helper
What changed: The old column layout helper (the “grid container” tool from pre-v3 Site Designer, carried forward as a compatibility layer in v3) is deprecated in v3.5. It is no longer generated for new elements.
Impact: If your v3 project uses old .grid-container style references from this helper, they still work — the CSS is still in your project’s stylesheet. However, if you delete and re-add a grid container element, the new element will use CSS Grid or Flexbox, not the old column helper.
What to do: No immediate action is required. Plan to migrate these layouts to CSS Grid or Flexbox before v4, at which point the helper may be fully removed.
Recommended actions after upgrading
- Update component library thumbnails. Open the component library panel and click Refresh Thumbnails if any components show a placeholder image instead of a preview.
- Test complex Grid layouts in Live Preview. The Master Grid editor may render some existing Grid containers slightly differently in the editor UI (though the CSS output is identical). Verify the live output, not just the canvas.
- Consider updating images to WebP for projects you’re actively maintaining. The size savings are worth it for image-heavy sites.
What’s not changing
Everything you built in v3 continues to work in v3.5:
- All Flexbox layouts are untouched.
- All Foundation, Bootstrap, and Materialize framework integrations work as before.
- All custom CSS, symbols, and reusable components are preserved.
- All publish settings (S-Drive credentials, FTP credentials, export directory) are unchanged.
