We are pleased to announce a new release of cloudscribe at version 8.1. This minor version release addresses a number of issues, bugs and feature enhancements (see the release notes below).

We've released a new version of the cloudscribe Visual Studio template. Reviews are always appreciated!

We recommend that the VSIX template should be installed into Visual Studio 2022 (version 17.8 onwards).

Alternatively, you can use the 'dotnet new' command as documented.

Older versions of the VSIX template remain available here: https://github.com/cloudscribe/cloudscribe.templates/tree/master/Archive.

As always, feedback is welcome in the forums or on GitHub.

Release Notes

version 8.1 - 6 May 2025

@cloudscribe/cloudscribe.Web.Navigation

  • #135: Fixed an issue causing incorrect child page sub-menus when the URL ends with a trailing slash. This ensures consistent navigation tree behavior across routes with or without trailing slashes.

@cloudscribe/cloudscribe

  • #1073: Introduced a reserved word list for tenant site names to prevent conflicts. For example, "development" is now restricted to avoid issues with accessing developer sections.
  • #1063: Added a feature to export user data from the User Manager, including basic attributes such as First Name, Surname, Display Name, Email Address, and Created Date.
  • #798: Enhanced the file manager with the ability to move files between folders, eliminating the need to delete and re-upload files.
  • #762: Updated the main heading on /privacy and other cloudscribe core pages to use <h1> tags or allow configurability, replacing the previous <h2> implementation.
  • #942: Extended reCAPTCHA protection to the "Forgot Your Password?" page to mitigate risks associated with automated email spam and enhance security.
  • #935: Resolved an issue where the returnurl parameter was ignored on the login page if the user was already logged in. Now, the intended return behavior is consistently applied.
  • #929: Improved the user experience for sites with social sign-in by hiding password management options (/manage/setpassword and /manage/changepassword) when database authentication is disabled.
  • #924: Fixed a UI issue in the Page Manager tree where togglers were inheriting an underline style and made them larger and easier to click.
  • #959: Fixed a crash when saving user details with a date of birth in PostgreSQL. Ensured compatibility with timestamp with time zone by enforcing UTC for DateTime values.
  • #1056: Corrected the behavior of the "Clear Image" button to ensure it functions as expected after dragging and dropping an image.
  • #1034: Added a "View Activity" link on the Manage User page to improve navigation to the User Activity page.

@cloudscribe/cloudscribe.SimpleContent

  • #487: Added options in CMS settings to display created and last edited information (author and timestamps) below content. These settings include configurable defaults.
  • #549: Updated the LinksRenderPartial to align with Bootstrap 5 standards. Replaced <h2> and float-based styling with semantic markup and modern flex layouts.

Upgrading an existing cloudscribe site

We recommend manually editing the .csproj file of your solution (or each of them, if you have multiple projects). to upgrade the package references:

<PackageReference Include="cloudscribe.Core.SimpleContent" Version="8.1.*" />
<PackageReference Include="cloudscribe.SimpleContent.Web" Version="8.1.*" />
<PackageReference Include="cloudscribe.Core.SimpleContent.CompiledViews.Bootstrap5" Version="8.1.*" />

(and so on for all cloudscribe packages)

There should be no breaking changes from our previous v8.0 release.

Apologies to anyone who was trying to do anything on this website earlier today - we experienced a 40-minute outage after removing earlier versions of the ASP.NET Core runtimes. The site was showing this

HTTP Error 500.31 - Failed to load ASP.NET Core runtime

even though the correct ASP.NET Core Runtime 6.0.35 was installed (and reinstalled!).

We fixed this by upgrading the site to .NET 8, which was anyway in testing. If you spot anything not working, please do contact us!

We are pleased to announce a new release of cloudscribe that targets .NET 8. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/whats-new/dotnet-8 for information about what's new in .NET 8.

We've released a new version of the cloudscribe Visual Studio template. Please do leave a review!

We recommend that the VSIX template should be installed into Visual Studio 2022 (targeting .NET 8.0 is officially supported in Visual Studio 17.8+ only - this is a version of Visual Studio 2022 that was released in November 2023).

Older versions of the VSIX template remain available here: https://github.com/cloudscribe/cloudscribe.templates/tree/master/Archive.

Upgrading an existing cloudscribe site

We recommend manually editing the .csproj file of your solution (or each of them, if you have multiple projects). to upgrade the target framework:

<TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>

All package references to cloudscribe libraries should be updated, e.g. (just a small selection for example):

    <PackageReference Include="cloudscribe.Core.SimpleContent" Version="8.0.*" />
    <PackageReference Include="cloudscribe.SimpleContent.Web" Version="8.0.*" />
    <PackageReference Include="cloudscribe.Core.SimpleContent.CompiledViews.Bootstrap5" Version="8.0.*" />

If you have any direct references to Microsoft libraries then bring them up to the latest appropriate .net 8 versions too:

    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore" Version="8.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational" Version="8.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions" Version="8.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.NewtonsoftJson" Version="8.0.0" />

You can follow your own policies and strategies about whether you wish to use wild-carded version numbers such as 8.0.*, or fixed 8.0.0 versions as above.
However we do not recommend a random mixture of the two.

You may well also have to upgrade any other third-party libraries that you reference in your solution, and diagnose version incompatibilities among them.

Build and run your solution, and check for any runtime errors and breaking changes...

Important breaking changes

Because of recent changes in EF Core 8 we can no longer reliably support versions of MS SQL Server earlier than 2016 (13.x). 
If you are using a more recent of MS SQL Server, you still need to check that your databases are not set to compatibility levels for older versions (< 130).
See the details and mitigations here: 
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/what-is-new/ef-core-8.0/breaking-changes#sqlserver-contains-compatibility

Also with SQL Server, you may need to modify your connection strings to specify whether or not to trust the SQL Server's self-signed certificate:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3674160/using-encrypt-yes-in-a-sql-server-connection-string-provider-ssl-provider
Failure to do this typically produces a "white-screen"  runtime error on start-up.

As always, feedback welcome in the forums or on GitHub.

We've upgraded cloudscribe to integrate with the new Google Analytics 4, with a seamless transition from Universal Analytics, which Google are retiring at the end of June 2023.

If you have an existing cloudscribe site (at version 6), simply build and publish your site - the updated cloudscribe code will come into your solution automatically so long as you have a reference like this:

<PackageReference Include="cloudscribe.Core.Web" Version="6.0.*" />

Then, in your running website, visit Administration > Site Settings ( /siteadmin/siteinfo ) and add the GA4 Measurement Id into the Google Analytics Tracking Id setting. You should find that GA4 starts receiving information immediately.

Find out more about the integration here https://www.cloudscribe.com/google-analytics-ga4-integration

Google Analytics 4 screenshot