BlogEngine.NET 2.9 Beta Release

The newest release of BlogEngine.NET is out and available for download here.

Why beta?

We usually go with RC (release candidate) to test new code in the wild before final version. But this release has more significant changes to underlying code base than usual and we want to test it out earlier and have time to make adjustments if needed. So if you run critical website don't rush with update just yet. What we looking for is a feedback on any issues/problems you get into running this version, so we can fix it. You know, it always works fantastic on developers machine :)

What's new

Completely redesigned admin UI based on Bootstrap framework. Farzin put a lot of work into it, warm comments are welcome ;)
New standard theme, also Bootstrap based, with clean and beautiful design that is easy to extend and modify
Improvements to theme layouts (separate single post and page templates, navigation template etc)
New light-weight admin editor
Admin UI uses AngularJS and SPA (single page application) techniques to talk to back-end
Added some order to the chaos with ASP.NET Web API and Repository Pattern

Technical requirements

.NET framework 4.5
Visual Studio 2012/2013 to work with code (express is fine)
IIS 7 and up, integrated mode
Full trust for website in IIS (we will bring it down to medium for final release)
Support for Razor (web pages). MVC not required, but installing it is a simplest way to have Razor configured with IIS

Known issues

This is beta, we wanted early release so few things are not completed and some not tested thoroughly (optimization, sub-blog functionality, full trust requirement etc). We still working on it. Please bring your questions and findings to our support forum on Codeplex.

Suresh
12/1/2013 7:49:15 PM |

Great, sounds good! Will try it out soon.

Naresh
12/1/2013 9:13:42 PM |

Thanks for the update
I will try today.
i always think about AdminUI we can do it better. Good to know some body taken care of it with new features..
Cool..
www.RavithKumar.com

Slava
12/1/2013 10:00:48 PM |

Very good news, do you know when is RC?
- Ruslan
  12/2/2013 10:42:53 AM |
  
  Planning final release by the end of year.

Farzin
12/2/2013 2:13:54 AM |

Hello,
I hope you enjoy this BlogEngine,
please don't hesitate if you find any problem in admin UI and "Standard" theme and report problem by sending an email to: http://seyfolahi.net/en/contact

JP Hellemons
12/2/2013 9:33:07 AM |

Has someone tested it with azure yet? Curious if it works. Nice changelog by the way!
- Ruslan
  12/2/2013 10:50:34 AM |
  
  Unless we introduced something breaking in the very latest changesets, it should run on Azure with no issues. Last Azure deployment was a week ago.

MLindegarde
12/2/2013 2:42:44 PM |

I gave the beta a try this morning. I really like the direction you're going; however, the beta has quite a few bugs in it at this point (failed to render a post with no related posts, the create post link ignores the virtual directory, the admin menu fails to parse URLs that have a "." in them, etc..).

I look forward to seeing the final product. I really like the default theme.

Anil Kumar
12/3/2013 11:00:23 AM |

Waiting for RC.
As @MLindegarde pointed, I would avoid adventure with beta

Thanks,
http://CodePattern.net/blog
- Ruslan
  12/3/2013 12:53:20 PM |
  
  Sure, running beta on live website (as I do) not advisable It is good idea though to try it out to make sure new version will work for you and make some noise if it doesn't.

Bala Vanchi
12/3/2013 9:05:43 PM |

Wow... another major release from BE.
Good to see that we are growing open source .net blog.
I'm happy to be part of this.

http://www.balavanchi.com

Andy McKay
12/5/2013 8:11:30 AM |

Downloaded the 2.9 beta, haven't looked under the bonnet yet, so this is just first impressions of new admin after quick run through.

Likes
Big plus for going responsive, can't ignore mobile.
Overall, it's pretty slick, intuitive and easy to navigate.
Looks like a lot of work, thumbs up.

Dislikes
Mostly confined to certain aspects of the post editor(and might just be a matter of opinion).

Tags is nice(type ahead and click remove), but probably needs more input space, if you have a lot of tags the input becomes obscured and awkward with tags breaking out of the box.

Don't think this works for categories. Definitely prefer tick boxes for category selection, much as before, but perhaps nested to make any hierarchy obvious.

At this point there doesn't appear to be any guard against entering duplicate tags or categories (not previously an issue for categories, since they were tick box selected).

Also, much prefer to see post meta and save button alongside post in preference to a popup accessed via a settings button.

Presumably, final version will have "Go to post" button.

One of the good things about TinyMCE is that it has a plugin framework, I'll miss that, but not a deal breaker.

Beta Things
Couldn't see how to change an installed theme, seems to be missing a save button in the popup.

Disappearing settings on small screen, for example: In the pages section you lose the option to select "Show in list". When shrinking tables, you are going to have to sacrifice some level of summary detail and that's fine, providing it's just extraneous detail that is readily accessible elsewhere.

Might be some accessibility issues, tried tabbing my way through admin.
Secondary horizontal top menu links have outline removed, so there is no location indicator, which is a little disorienting since it's present mostly everywhere else. When tabbing in the post editor page, after a few keystrokes, focus is lost and then jumps into the content area and the only way forward is (shift tab)back.

Tony
12/6/2013 1:04:41 PM |

This is fantastic step forward. I have held back from using BlogEngine.NET for a while now, but with the SPA admin and clean default template I think when the release comes out I will be switching my site. Thanks for the hard work!

Brian Davis
12/20/2013 9:43:51 PM |

Looks like BE 2.9 is going to be a great release once it gets to stable version!

Really like all of the new additions.

Have a demo site set up at:

http://demo.bloggersonline.com/

For those that want to try it out live on a server before installing it yourself.

Have a great day!

Brian Davis

BlogEngine.NET

An open source ASP.NET powered blogging engine