We are pleased to announce the release of cloudscribe v8.5, which includes important changes to licensing, plus some new features, enhancements and bug fixes.

Major Licensing Change

Commercial Components Now Free

  • Announcement: All cloudscribe commercial components are now available for free use
  • Components Included:
    • TalkAbout Commenting System
    • TalkAbout Forums
    • Membership Paywall
    • Newsletter Management
    • Forms and Surveys
    • Stripe Payment Integration
  • Impact: License key requirements have been completely removed for all commercial components
  • Source Code: Components remain proprietary (subject to potential future open-sourcing)
  • Benefit: Full cloudscribe ecosystem now accessible without licensing barriers

New Features

Admin Application Restart

  • Feature: Added capability for administrators to restart the application directly from the cloudscribe admin interface
  • Benefit: Eliminates need for direct server access when application restart is required
  • Configuration: Controlled via appsettings.json configuration boolean for security
  • Issue: #1102

Enhanced Summernote Editor - Element Path Display

  • Feature: New element path breadcrumb display showing current cursor position in DOM hierarchy (similar to CKEditor)
  • Functionality: Real-time updates with clickable breadcrumbs for easy navigation
  • Implementation: Custom Summernote plugin with comprehensive HTML5 tag support
  • Issue: #1208

Enhanced Summernote Editor - Improved Link Behavior

  • Change: Hyperlinks no longer open in new windows by default
  • Configuration: Controlled via linkTargetBlank: false in summernote-config.json
  • Issue: #1209

RSS Feed Styling Support

  • Feature: Added ability to style RSS feeds with custom CSS stylesheets
  • Implementation: Support for XML stylesheet meta tags in RSS feeds
  • Functionality: Automatic XSL and CSS file deployment with user override protection
  • Benefit: RSS feeds can now match site branding and provide better user experience
  • Documentation: New documentation available at https://www.cloudscribe.com/cloudscribesyndication
  • Issue: cloudscribe.Syndication #7

Enhancements

Enhanced Auto-Logout System

  • Improvement: Resolved session timeout issues for users actively using JavaScript API endpoints
  • Features:
    • Server-side middleware for intelligent session activity tracking
    • Client-side JavaScript for cross-tab session management
    • Configurable timeout thresholds
  • Benefit: Prevents unexpected logouts during active user workflows while maintaining security
  • Issue: #1204

System Information Improvements

  • Enhancement: Updated System Information page to include previously missing packages
  • Added: Compiled views, static files, integration packages, and Bootstrap components
  • Fixed: Removed duplicate "cloudscribe.Email.Templating.Web" entry
  • Benefit: Improved visibility for troubleshooting and support scenarios
  • Issue: #698

Bug Fixes

IdentityServer4 Support Resolution

  • Fixed: Resolved token creation issues caused by dependency version conflicts
  • Root Cause: System.IdentityModel.Tokens.Jwt version 8.2.* breaking changes
  • Solution: Updated dependency chain management and explicit package references
  • Impact: Restored proper JWT signature validation and metadata endpoint functionality
  • Issue: #1205

Email Queue Background Task Exception Handling

  • Fixed: Resolved cancellation exception thrown during app pool recycling
  • Error: "A task was canceled" in EmailQueueBackgroundTask.ExecuteAsync
  • Solution: Improved cancellation token handling in background services
  • Impact: Eliminates log noise during normal application lifecycle events
  • Issue: cloudscribe.Messaging #13

Upgrading to v8.5

To upgrade your cloudscribe installation to version 8.5:

  1. Update all cloudscribe package references in your .csproj files to version 8.5.*
  2. Run your application and verify all features are working as expected

Note: As always, we recommend testing the upgrade in a development environment before deploying to production.

Community and Support

We appreciate the continued support and feedback from the cloudscribe community. For questions or issues related to this release, please visit our GitHub repository or join the discussion in our community forums.

Thank you for using cloudscribe!

We are aware of an issue that has arisen from the recent 8.1 release, specifically around: "#798: Enhanced the file manager with the ability to move files between folders, eliminating the need to delete and re-upload files."

This has resulted in the 'Select' button not always appearing in the File Manager in some circumstances when you select an image to insert into content.

We have a fix for this which will be released soon, in the meantime you are able to override the setting yourself in order to see the 'Select' button.

How to:

  1. Add this file to your project as a view override in \Views\FileManager https://github.com/cloudscribe/cloudscribe/blob/develop/src/cloudscribe.FileManager.Web/Views/FileManager/BrowsePartial.cshtml
  2. On line 192, change 'data-can-select="false"' to be 'data-can-select="true"'
  3. Save and release to your site in the usual way

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).

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.