Cascade CMS 8.17.1

Features/Improvements

• We've improved load times when editing Pages and Data Definition Blocks with complex implementations.
• We've added accessibility improvements focused around the WCAG 1.3.1 and 1.3.2 guidelines to tables, icons and various other components throughout the application.
• We've added WCAG 2.4.7 related accessibility improvements to buttons, links and various other components throughout the application.
• Publish reports now feature more concise error reporting and will include errors that were encountered when attempting to remove empty directories on unpublish.
• We've improved keyboard accessibility in the WYSIWYG and added WYSIWYG keyboard shortcuts to the shortcuts menu (Shift + ?).
• Users can now adjust the duration of notifications displayed within the interface using a new user setting called Notification Duration. Additionally, a progress bar is now displayed on the notification to indicate how much longer the notification will be visible on the screen.
• Added support for SQL Server 2019. Support for SQL Server 2014 is deprecated and will be removed in the next on-premise release on or after 09/25/2021.
• Added support for Microsoft JDBC driver for SQL Server environments.

Fixed

• Starring a Role will no longer result in a NullPointerException error.
• Addressed an issue where consecutive attempts to star an asset caused an error.
• Fixed several issues related to replacing field groups with Shared Field groups in a Data Definition.
• Fixed an issue where changing a radio field more than once while editing an asset would not trigger additional draft saves.
• Fixed an issue with typeahead search when selecting a site in a chooser field.
• Fixed an issue where file asset size would display as 0 bytes in after editing.
• Addressed an issue where the context menu would stay open after performing an action from it or tabbing out of it.
• It is now possible to search for WYSIWYG Editor Configurations in chooser fields.
• Structured data group and field labels are now escaped to prevent from "bleeding" into the interface.
• You can now apply advanced Custom Formats to figure elements in the WYSIWYG.
• Fixed a background error when sending a Block through workflow containing a publish-working-copy trigger.
• Addressed an issue with cached site permissions when removing a user from a Group or deleting a Group.
• Asset Factories with the Create Resized Images plugin will no longer trigger a null error when used to create assets.
• Addressed some styling issues in the CMS header.
• Long task names will now be truncated in the Tasks widget on the Dashboard.
• Working copies will now show their parent folder instead of the current version's parent folder if different.
• Corrected an issue where MariaDB 10 was being reported as MySQL 5.5 on startup. Note: MariaDB is not an officially-supported database vendor. For supported platforms, please see the Requirements section for your release in the Release Notes.

• New driver for SQL Server installations
• Potential increased upgrade time and storage requirements for SQL Server installations
• First time installation?
• Upgrade Steps
• Which installer should I use?

New driver for SQL Server installations

Cascade CMS 8.17.1 uses the Microsoft JDBC Driver for connections to SQL Server databases. The SQL Server Context template in the tomcat/conf/context.xml configuration file has been updated to accommodate the new driver.

Potential increased upgrade time and storage requirements for SQL Server installations

Cascade CMS 8.17.1 adds support for multi-lingual/Unicode characters throughout the system in Microsoft SQL Server databases by converting columns with the data type varchar(max) to nvarchar(max). For databases with a large number of records in affected tables, particularly the cxml_mail table which stores user Notifications, this can significantly increase both the time and the database storage space required during this update.

We recommend testing the upgrade in a test environment using a copy of your production database first, to assess the time and storage space for the database and transaction log   required for it to complete.

First time installation?

Be sure to import our default database schema prior to installing Cascade CMS for the first time. Then follow the appropriate installation instructions for your environment.

Upgrade Steps

1. Shut down your currently running Cascade CMS environment.
2. Before you upgrade, we strongly recommend that you back-up your production database as well as set up a test environment and perform a trial run of the upgrade. All customers are entitled to a test license for this purpose.
3. Read the release notes and upgrade guides for all releases between your version and the latest version.
4. Check the table below to see which installer type is required.

Which installer should I use?

With certain upgrade paths, a full installation of Cascade CMS is required in order to ensure that the application has the latest required libraries. See the table below for a summary of which installer you should use based on the version from which you are upgrading. For any versions that do not require a full installation, using the ROOT.war upgrade method is allowed.

Server Requirements (for CMS deployment)

Supported Platforms