The most flexible sandbox around just got a bit more powerful. Today we're announcing native windows support for our sandboxes.

While we have supported running windows hosts as part of our sandboxes for a while, they required a stepping stone to connect to them. As of today that is no longer needed. We have added feature parity for Windows based virtual machines with our Linux-based hosts.

With this release you can now:

• Use PowerShell to write lifecycle scripts
  You can now create PowerShell-based lifecycle scripts that run directly on the Windows VM. This allows you to integrate better with the Windows ecosystem, and allows for easier ways to set up and check sandbox environments.
• Run PowerShell based terminals
  Terminal tabs now also support Windows hosts. Give your users access to an interactive PowerShell session on their Windows VMs.
• Use our built-in file editor
  We've also updated our built-in file editor to supports Windows-based filesystems. The editor gives your users an easy way to view and edit to text-based files, like log or configuration files.

Read more about Windows Support on our docs. Happy creating!

We’re announcing a new way to discover what Instruqt has to offer: the Inspiration Library. Here you can find example tracks, ready-to-use templates, and tutorials that will help and inspire you to get the most out of Instruqt.

• Learn how to use Instruqt with Terraform to build cloud resources or configure SaaS accounts.
• Run a service in the background or keep a long-running command going between challenges with the GNU screen tool
• Learn how to set up a multi-node Kubernetes cluster

Good to know: source files for the templates, examples, and tutorials are available on Github.

Happy creating!

Previously you had to host assets on a separate CDN now you can simply add them to your track directory. 

Get started by adding an assets folder to your track directory:

.
├── assets
│   ├── image.png
│   └── video.mp4
├── config.yml
└── track.yml

And reference assets from markdown:

Hello there, assets! ![Image Description](../assets/image.png)

Or YAML:

notes:
- type: video
  url: ../assets/video.mp4

For more information read the docs.

Learners often feel overwhelmed by the assignment content displayed in the lab environment's sidebar. This has a negative effect on the user's engagement with your tracks.

To solve this, we are shipping the ability to add collapsible sections to your tracks.

The sections can be easily added to your existing content by using the following syntax:

< Name Section >
================

In addition, we updated the markdown styling, to improve the readability of the sidebar content.

Check our documentation for more information on how to implement sections in your tracks.

The most commonly heard feedback on our CLI is that the track.yml file is hard to manage. One large file is hard to maintain and nested markdown is difficult to edit. To make content creation easier, we shipped a new version of the track configuration format (v3). This version splits the track.yml into a separate markdown file per challenge. Some of the key benefits of the new config format are:

• Editor support for challenge markdown
• No need to maintain a single large track.yml file
• Easier to reorder challenges

To upgrade your local track configuration to the new format, run:

> instruqt track upgrade

For more information read the docs.

The new Hot Start feature, previously called Pooling, makes it possible to preheat sandboxes. Using Hot Start your users do not have to wait for their environment to spin up, by claiming an already started sandbox.

Previously, with Pooling, you had to turn on and switch off every pool manually. With Hot Start, you are able to schedule a pool at a future date and time. The scheduled pool automatically cleans unclaimed sandboxes after the pool expires.

The new Hot Start pool can be configured to operate in two modes:

• Scheduled - the pool spins up at the given time and drains unclaimed sandboxes after it expires.
• Always Hot - the pool spins up immediately and keeps refilling until it is deleted.

For more information check out the docs!

Today we are excited to launch a set of integrations which allow you to increase the value of your Instruqt tracks:

• Webhooks: With webhooks it is easier to integrate Instruqt content with third party systems. Webhooks allow you to track the progress of a user inside your LMS or send events to an marketing automation platform. https://docs.instruqt.com/integrations/webhooks
• Postmessages: An embedded iframe now notifies the parent window of certain track events, making it possible to notify your LMS of track completions. https://docs.instruqt.com/integrations/webhooks
• Custom parameters: To allow you to correlate a user's session in an external system to an embedded Instruqt play, you can now pass custom parameters. 
  https://docs.instruqt.com/integrations/embedding#embed-custom-parameters

To learn more about use cases for webhooks, read our blog post: Drive product growth with event-based insights using webhooks.

The most requested feature since releasing embed 2.0 is to embed private tracks. 

Today we have some good news: You are now able to embed both your private and public tracks.

We are excited to announce a bunch of cool new features, like the new creator studio, improved content creation wizard, and profile page.

• New Creator Studio - With the new creator studio, we launch a page with an overview of all your tracks. The studio allows you to sort, filter, and delete the tracks you created.
• Improved content creation wizard - Our new and improved wizard makes it easier to create content via the Web UI. You can now create a track from one of our templates and copy one of your existing tracks.
• Download CSV Report - We have made it possible to download a CSV report of an invite. With the report you are able to analyze the progress of your users. To download the CSV report click on the actions menu on a row in the track invites table and select Download CSV Report.
• Improved profile page - You are now able to update your name, password, and profile picture. If you do not have a profile picture your avatar is created from the initial of your name.