Here's the full changelog: 

*** May 8, 2026 - Version 3.84 (Maintenance Release)

SERVER REQUIREMENTS (Since Jun 2025): PHP 8.1+ and MySQL 5.7+ (or MariaDB 10.2+)

BUG FIXES
    - Upgrade: Fixed an "Unknown column" error that could stop the upgrade partway through on older installs
        - Was caused by audit/error logging trying to write to columns the upgrade hadn't added yet
        - When the audit or error log can't write to its table, the failure and original message now go to data/_php_error.log instead
    - Developer Log: Displayed HTTP method now reads correctly from older error log entries logged in older format (was falling back to "CLI" before)

This is only needed if you got an error while upgrading or are upgrading from a much older version. If you already upgraded without issue, no action is required.

Let me know any questions. Thanks!

Thanks everyone for your feedback, posts, and emails.  We've released v3.83 here: 

https://interactivetools.com/forum/forum-posts.php?CMSB-v3.83-Released-Show-Hide-Fields-MCP-Server-83137

Thank you!

We've just released v3.83 (our biggest single release to date!), and we're already running it on our site.

Here are some highlights from this release: 

• Field Editor
  • Show If: New option allows you to dynamically show/hide fields based on the values of other fields
  • Show for: Replaces old "Admin only" setting with options for everyone, editor, admin only, or new: Nobody (completely hidden)
  • Placeholder: New option for text and textbox fields to set hint text inside the field when empty
  • Field List UI: Lock and eye icons now mark restricted and conditional fields in your field list
  • Reorganized and simplified the field editor UI
• Admin → Advanced → MCP Server
  • AI coding assistants like Claude Code can now read and update your CMS directly
  • Read and write records, upload files, run queries, and view your database schema
  • Built-in /fix-cms command: AI reviews your recent PHP errors and offers fixes
• Admin → Backup & Restore → Website → Restore from Zip
  • Added restore button to restore from previous website backup zips (for uploading a local or dev site)
• Fields → List → pillbox (multi value)
  • Selected values can now be drag sorted to change the order
  • Dropdown options show checkboxes to select multiple values (easier for end-users)
• Admin → Advanced
  • Admin Favicon: Pick a colored favicon (green/yellow/red) to tell CMS installs apart in your browser tabs (e.g. dev, staging, live)
  • Server Links: Add dev, staging, and live server URLs for quick-switching between environments
• Developer Console
  • Automatically decrypts and displays contents from encrypted fields
• General code modernization and cleanup

Note: We still have a queue of pending user feature requests.  We're releasing what we have now so you can start using it.  Feel free to remind us what you'd like to see next. 

The full changelog for this release is as follows:

*** May 8, 2026 - Version 3.83 (Show/Hide Fields & MCP Server)

SERVER REQUIREMENTS (Since Jun 2025): PHP 8.1+ and MySQL 5.7+ (or MariaDB 10.2+)

FIELD EDITOR
    - Show/Hide Fields: Fields now show/hide automatically based on what users select
        - Example: Show "Speaker Name" only when Event Type is "Webinar"
        - Example: Show "Shipping Address" only when Delivery Method is "Mail"
        - Works with all field types: text, checkboxes, tabs, upload fields, related records
        - Custom expressions allow for multi-field AND rules (e.g. type=article AND status!=draft|hidden)
        - Configure in: Database > Edit Field > Visibility > Show If
    - Field Access: "Admin Only" replaced with clearer "Show for" dropdown
        - Options: Everyone, Editor and above, Admin only, or new: Nobody (completely hidden)
        - ***Behavior change***: List view now hides restricted fields as well (previously didn't)
    - Placeholder: New option for text and textbox fields to set hint text inside the field when empty
    - Lock and eye icons now mark restricted and conditional fields in your field list
    - Simplified field editor interface with cleaner organization
    - Textbox Fields: "Auto Format" renamed to "Line Breaks" (nl2br) and deprecated.
         - Off by default for new fields; existing fields can be turned off, but not re-enabled

MCP SERVER
    - AI coding assistants like Claude Code can now read and update your CMS directly
    - Read and write records, upload files, run queries, and view your database schema
    - Configure in: Admin > Advanced > MCP Server (IP allowlist, API keys, permissions)
    - Built-in /fix-cms command: AI reviews your recent PHP errors and offers fixes
    - Security: IP allowlist required, Bearer token auth, read-only enforced at MySQL session level
    - Write operations logged to the audit log

ADMIN > BACKUP & RESTORE
    - Website: Added restore button to restore from previous website backup zips
    - Website: Previous Backups dropdown now shows relative dates (e.g., "5 min ago", "yesterday")
    - Website: Removed "Only include code files" option (use .cms-no-backup marker files to exclude folders instead)
    - Database: Backup dropdown now offers option to include log tables in backup ("include skipped")

PILLBOX & FOREIGN KEY FIELDS
    - Replaced form dropdown component Select2 with Tom Select
    - Pillbox: drag pills to reorder selected values
    - Pillbox: dropdown options show checkboxes so you can see all options and their selection state at a glance
    - Type-ahead search to filter options instantly

ADMIN > ADVANCED (New Page)
    - Reorganized admin settings into "Admin Interface" and "Advanced Settings" sections
    - Admin Favicon: Pick a colored favicon (green/yellow/red) to tell CMS installs apart in your browser tabs
    - Server Links: Add dev, staging, and live server URLs for quick-switching between environments
    - Admin Shortcuts, Debug Footer, and WYSIWYG/Menu/Cookie settings moved here from General Settings

MINOR CHANGES
    - Email Settings: Developer Email now accepts multiple comma-separated addresses
    - File Uploads: Files are saved with dashes instead of underscores for better SEO, and .jpeg is normalized to .jpg
    - Audit Log: Expanded logging coverage for fields, tables, uploads, backups, and database operations
    - Security: Added additional .htaccess hardening for data directories (Apache 2.4+ compatibility)
    - PHP 8.5: Silenced deprecation warning by disabling unneeded register_argc_argv directive in shipped php.ini, .htaccess, and .user.ini
    - Improved text contrast for input fields, selects, and placeholders
    - Admin menus updated and reorganized for better usability
    - Upgraded Dependencies: PHPMailer v6 to v7, Firebase/JWT v6 to v7, and other library updates

BUG FIXES
    - SmartArray: Fixed TypeError when calling load() on SmartArrayHtml (changed type hint to SmartArrayBase)
    - Language: Fixed "No such file or directory" error when developer mode was enabled without a language selected
    - Upload Fields: Fixed "Create Thumbnail" checkbox re-enabling itself after saving when unchecked
    - Edit Page: Fixed false "unsaved changes" warning appearing after clicking in fields without editing them
    - Misc code and other minor improvements

**FOR PROGRAMMERS**
    - Modern PHP features enabled:
        - Native types: Database queries now return native PHP types (int/float) instead of strings
        - mysqli::execute_query() for one-line parameterized queries (available natively in PHP 8.2+, backported for PHP 8.1):
            $rows = DB::$mysqli->execute_query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?", [$id])->fetch_all(MYSQLI_ASSOC);
            DB::$mysqli->execute_query("UPDATE users SET name = ? WHERE id = ?", [$name, $id]);
    - Database Encryption: Key now cached as MySQL session variable @ek
        - Faster: Computed once per-connection, not per-query
        - Simpler: AES_ENCRYPT(val, @ek) instead of AES_ENCRYPT(val, UNHEX(SHA2('key',512)))
        - Cleaner: Key hidden from SHOW PROCESSLIST and error messages
        - On-demand: Only initialized when encrypted fields are used
    - MySQL Console: Record edit page database icon now opens console with that record in column mode
    - MySQL Console: New {{column}} shortcut auto-expands to AES_DECRYPT(`column`, @ek) for encrypted columns
    - Moved /api.php to /api/ to better organize future API endpoints

**FOR PROGRAMMERS (BREAKING CHANGES)**
    - Note: These changes only impact developers who have written custom PHP code
    - Database queries now return native PHP types (int/float) instead of strings
        - If your code expects strings, cast them: (string)$row['id']
    - MySQL queries now throw exceptions instead of returning false (following PHP 8.1+ standard behavior).
        - Before: $result = mysqli()->query($sql) or die("MySQL Error: " . mysqli()->error);
        - After:  try { $result = mysqli()->query($sql); } catch (mysqli_sql_exception $e) { die("MySQL Error: " . $e->getMessage()); }
    - Library Updates: ZenDB has been moved to composer with several renamed and deprecated methods
        - DB::get() renamed to DB::selectOne() (DB::get() still works but is deprecated)
        - See ZenDB docs for full list of changes: https://github.com/interactivetools-com/ZenDB/

You can download the latest version here: https://www.interactivetools.com/download/

Please feel free to ask any questions or post any feedback or comments.

Thank you!

We've just posted Beta 2 (build 3126). Thanks to everyone who's been posting and sending in feedback and bug reports on Beta 1.

Here's what's new:

MCP Server

• New auto-disable timer -The MCP Server can now be enabled with an auto-disable timer (15 min / 1 hour / 8 hours). The server turns itself off automatically when the timer expires, so you can safely turn it on for a coding session and not have to remember to switch it off afterward. Configure in: Admin → Advanced → MCP Server.
• Execute Access - This allows AI to read the server filesystem, run shell commands, and execute PHP.  This is incredibly powerful for quickly diagnosing server issues, but be sure to backup first, manually approve everything but read-only commands, and actively monitor AI agents using it.

Show/Hide Fields Polish

• Custom Expressions: OR rules now supported, e.g.: type=article|review AND published=1 OR alwaysShow=1 (mouse over the custom expression field for a pop-up with instructions)

Plus lots of bug fixes and minor improvements.

You can download the latest beta here:https://www.interactivetools.com/download/

Send over any other issues you find. We're aiming to release this in the next few days if no further issues are reported.

Thanks!

It's the new "default," but you store your uploads wherever you want, and you don't need to change it for existing sites.

Some of the reasons for the change are to prevent upload paths from revealing the url of your cmsb admin, shorter/nicer urls, and making it easier to backup just the /cmsb/ folder without a very large uploads subfolder.

Thanks for double-checking!  That happens to me all the time.

Sorry for the delay in responding.  If you're still working on this, you can change the custom upload dir for media files here: 
admin.php?menu=database&action=editField&tableName=_media&fieldname=media

Hope that helps!

There's no built-in way to permanently hide past records from the editor list. That one needs a small custom plugin (or code change).

Try saving this in your /plugins/ folder as futureDatesOnly.php (or something similar):

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Future Dates Only
Description: Hides past-dated records from a section's editor list, so users only see upcoming records.
Version: 1.00
*/

use Itools\Cmsb\Plugin;

Plugin::on('list_where', function (string $where, string $table): string {
    $forTable  = 'events';
    $dateField = 'event_date';
    if ($table === $forTable) {
        $where = "($where) AND `$dateField` >= CURDATE()";
    }
    return $where;
});

Just change $forTable and $dateField to match your table and field.

Hope that helps, let me know any questions.

Thanks!

You can manually add that feature back by adding either of these to the field schema: 

• 'autoFormat' => 1, 
• 'nl2br' => 1, (new name)

We're removing it because we want to standardize on either text or HTML, and that field type is a mix of both.  So we can't fully html encode it, or treat it as text.  For fully text fields you can get the same effect in the viewers with echo nl2br(htmlencode($record['name']));

You said the <br> tags didn't get removed.  Could you email or post a screenshot of the data with the <br> tags from the MySQL Console (see attached example) so I can see what the pattern is that didn't get replaced?  I can then work on a fix for that.

Thank you!

Thanks for the feedback.  

In general, we write to the spec, but optimize for the client application and user experience.  Same as when new HTML features are in that spec, but not fully supported by the browsers.

So for this first release, we're targeting the latest release of Claude Code and whatever makes our workflow fastest with it.  If anyone has another AI agent we can make work with a few adjustments, we'd be happy to do that as well.

Some updates: 

• MCP tools now all return generic info (nothing server-specific).  If you are token and IP-authenticated, they'll add some server hints for the agent.
• cmsApiSearch errors: Good catch!  Those are unreleased future libraries that we're not including yet, and they shouldn't be referenced or cause errors.  Fixed.
• JSON-RPC errors: These were killing the AI session previously (requiring a restart) and not allowing us to pass info back to the user, but they're working now, so we'll switch back to them.  Our key requirement here is relaying setup hints to the user (e.g. your IP doesn't match or you need to enable a setting) rather than having them dig through logs.
• protocolVersion: We only list the latest version because that's the only one we're targeting and supporting.  I think we can go one further back, though, so I've updated it to this range ('2025-11-25', '2025-06-18')
• selectOne silently coerces string → int: MySQL also coerces strings to ints, so it still works.  I'm not aware of a case where this would cause an issue.  But we'll add some error checking.

We'll have these in the next beta. 

Let me know any questions, or other feedback.  Thanks!

Search on linked fields is a current limitation and something we hope to address in future.

You might be able to add a search pulldown at the top of the page for it, though.  Under Database Editor > Search fields: Add something like: Document Lines|document_lines|match

Or you can write (or update) some custom code to populate a text field with the linked value, so you have something to search on.

Thanks for sharing this with the community and for the kind words about CMSB. That's a serious amount of work to put together and offer up.

Appreciate the contribution!

We've just released v3.83 beta (our biggest single release to date!), and we're already running it on our site.

Here are some highlights from this release: 

• Field Editor
  • Show If: New option allows you to dynamically show/hide fields based on the values of other fields
  • Show for: Replaces old "Admin only" setting with options for everyone, editor, admin only, or new: Nobody (completely hidden)
  • Placeholder: New option for text and textbox fields to set hint text inside the field when empty
  • Field List UI: Lock and eye icons now mark restricted and conditional fields in your field list
  • Reorganized and simplified the field editor UI
• Admin → Advanced → MCP Server
  • AI coding assistants like Claude Code can now read and update your CMS directly
  • Read and write records, upload files, run queries, and view your database schema
  • Built-in /fix-cms command: AI reviews your recent PHP errors and offers fixes
• Admin → Backup & Restore → Website → Restore from Zip
  • Added restore button to restore from previous website backup zips (for uploading a local or dev site)
• Fields → List → pillbox (multi value)
  • Selected values can now be drag sorted to change the order
  • Dropdown options show checkboxes to select multiple values (easier for end-users)
• Admin → Advanced
  • Admin Favicon: Pick a colored favicon (green/yellow/red) to tell CMS installs apart in your browser tabs (e.g. dev, staging, live)
  • Server Links: Add dev, staging, and live server URLs for quick-switching between environments
• Developer Console
  • Automatically decrypts and displays contents from encrypted fields
• General code modernization and cleanup

Note: We still have a queue of pending user feature requests.  We're releasing what we have now so you can start using it.  Feel free to remind us what you'd like to see next. 

The full changelog for this release is as follows:

*** April 14, 2026 - Version 3.83 (Show/Hide Fields & MCP Server)

SERVER REQUIREMENTS (Since Jun 2025): PHP 8.1+ and MySQL 5.7+ (or MariaDB 10.2+)

FIELD EDITOR
    - Show/Hide Fields: Fields now show/hide automatically based on what users select
        - Example: Show "Speaker Name" only when Event Type is "Webinar"
        - Example: Show "Shipping Address" only when Delivery Method is "Mail"
        - Works with all field types: text, checkboxes, tabs, upload fields, related records
        - Custom expressions allow for multi-field AND rules (e.g. type=article AND status!=draft|hidden)
        - Configure in: Database > Edit Field > Visibility > Show If
    - Field Access: "Admin Only" replaced with clearer "Show for" dropdown
        - Options: Everyone, Editor and above, Admin only, or new: Nobody (completely hidden)
    - Placeholder: New option for text and textbox fields to set hint text inside the field when empty
    - Lock and eye icons now mark restricted and conditional fields in your field list
    - Simplified field editor interface with cleaner organization
    - Textbox Fields: "Auto Format" renamed to "Line Breaks" (nl2br) and deprecated. Off for new fields, can be turned off but not back on

MCP SERVER
    - AI coding assistants like Claude Code can now read and update your CMS directly
    - Read and write records, upload files, run queries, and view your database schema
    - Configure in: Admin > Advanced > MCP Server (IP allowlist, API keys, permissions)
    - Built-in /fix-cms command: AI reviews your recent PHP errors and offers fixes
    - Security: IP allowlist required, Bearer token auth, read-only enforced at MySQL session level
    - Write operations logged to the audit log

ADMIN > BACKUP & RESTORE
    - Website: Added restore button to restore from previous website backup zips
    - Website: Previous Backups dropdown now shows relative dates (e.g., "5 min ago", "yesterday")
    - Website: Removed "Only include code files" option (use .cms-no-backup marker files to exclude folders instead)
    - Database: Backup dropdown now offers option to include log tables in backup ("include skipped")

PILLBOX & FOREIGN KEY FIELDS
    - Replaced form dropdown component Select2 with Tom Select
    - Pillbox: drag pills to reorder selected values
    - Pillbox: dropdown options show checkboxes so you can see all options and their selection state at a glance
    - Type-ahead search to filter options instantly

ADMIN > ADVANCED (New Page)
    - Reorganized admin settings into "Admin Interface" and "Advanced Settings" sections
    - Admin Favicon: Pick a colored favicon (green/yellow/red) to tell CMS installs apart in your browser tabs
    - Server Links: Add dev, staging, and live server URLs for quick-switching between environments
    - Admin Shortcuts, Debug Footer, and WYSIWYG/Menu/Cookie settings moved here from General Settings

MINOR CHANGES
    - Email Settings: Developer Email now accepts multiple comma-separated addresses
    - File Uploads: Files are saved with dashes instead of underscores for better SEO, and .jpeg is normalized to .jpg
    - Audit Log: Expanded logging coverage for fields, tables, uploads, backups, and database operations
    - Security: Added additional .htaccess hardening for data directories (Apache 2.4+ compatibility)
    - Improved text contrast for input fields, selects, and placeholders
    - Admin menus updated and reorganized for better usability
    - Upgraded Dependencies: PHPMailer v6 to v7, Firebase/JWT v6 to v7, and other library updates

BUG FIXES
    - SmartArray: Fixed TypeError when calling load() on SmartArrayHtml (changed type hint to SmartArrayBase)
    - Language: Fixed "No such file or directory" error when developer mode was enabled without a language selected
    - Upload Fields: Fixed "Create Thumbnail" checkbox re-enabling itself after saving when unchecked
    - Edit Page: Fixed false "unsaved changes" warning appearing after clicking in fields without editing them
    - Misc code and other minor improvements

**FOR PROGRAMMERS**
    - Modern PHP features enabled:
        - Native types: Database queries now return native PHP types (int/float) instead of strings
        - mysqli::execute_query() for one-line parameterized queries (available natively in PHP 8.2+, backported for PHP 8.1):
            $rows = DB::$mysqli->execute_query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?", [$id])->fetch_all(MYSQLI_ASSOC);
            DB::$mysqli->execute_query("UPDATE users SET name = ? WHERE id = ?", [$name, $id]);
    - Database Encryption: Key now cached as MySQL session variable @ek
        - Faster: Computed once per-connection, not per-query
        - Simpler: AES_ENCRYPT(val, @ek) instead of AES_ENCRYPT(val, UNHEX(SHA2('key',512)))
        - Cleaner: Key hidden from SHOW PROCESSLIST and error messages
        - On-demand: Only initialized when encrypted fields are used
    - MySQL Console: Record edit page database icon now opens console with that record in column mode
    - MySQL Console: New {{column}} shortcut auto-expands to AES_DECRYPT(`column`, @ek) for encrypted columns
    - Moved /api.php to /api/ to better organize future API endpoints

**FOR PROGRAMMERS (BREAKING CHANGES)**
    - Note: These changes only impact developers who have written custom PHP code
    - Database queries now return native PHP types (int/float) instead of strings
        - If your code expects strings, cast them: (string)$row['id']
    - MySQL queries now throw exceptions instead of returning false (following PHP 8.1+ standard behavior).
        - Before: $result = mysqli()->query($sql) or die("MySQL Error: " . mysqli()->error);
        - After:  try { $result = mysqli()->query($sql); } catch (mysqli_sql_exception $e) { die("MySQL Error: " . $e->getMessage()); }
    - Library Updates: ZenDB has been moved to composer with several renamed and deprecated methods
        - DB::get() renamed to DB::selectOne() (DB::get() still works but is deprecated)
        - See ZenDB docs for full list of changes: https://github.com/interactivetools-com/ZenDB/

You can download the latest beta here: https://www.interactivetools.com/download/

Please post (or email) any feedback, questions, concerns, or bugs you find.   Your help with beta testing allows us to release new features even faster.

Thanks. We look forward to your feedback! :)

Okay, perfect. Since you've done the CMS upgrade before, the CMSB side should be straightforward.

For any custom PHP code or plugins, the most common issue is type handling. PHP 7 was more forgiving - it would silently accept `null` where a string was expected. PHP 8 throws deprecation warnings (and PHP 9 will make them errors).

An example might be @$_REQUEST['city']; if that form field wasn't submitted, it would return null.

So if you see warnings like `trim(): Passing null to parameter #1` or `strlen(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated`, the fix is usually one of:

// Option A: null coalesce to set a default for null values
$value = trim($record['middle_name'] ?? '');

// Option B: cast to string
$value = strlen((string) $record['notes']);

What I recommend is upgrading, then clicking through all the pages and checking the CMS Developer for any errors.

Let me know if you run into anything specific, and we can help you sort it out.

First, make sure your database is supported by the latest version - you'll want MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.2+.

But in general, it's pretty straightforward. Backup everything (files and MySQL), upload the new CMSB files over top of the old ones, then upgrade any plugins that need upgrading.

If you run into any PHP 7 to 8 coding errors in your custom code, any of the AI coding agents (Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) can help you come up with a fix pretty quickly.

That said, feel free to fill out a 2nd-level support request if you'd like me to take a look either before or after: https://interactivetools.com/support/request/

Also, feel free to email me at dave@interactivetools.com if you run into any issues. I'll be around this weekend and can help make sure you're back up and running by Monday if needed.

Hope that helps, let me know any questions!

Unfortunately, there's no built-in functionality for that, or quick fixes.

Can you let me know what you want to use it for and how you'd want it to work? 

For example, what problem are you trying to solve?

Thanks!

We're currently working on a big update for the next release, but I can keep this in the queue for a future release.

We actually wanted to redo the date component already for better multi-lingual support.

The browser date fields are generally considered not to have the best user experience compared to some of the custom ones.   

The benefit of the multi-field is that it's quick to select, but it depends on your use case, though.  You'll see most of the big sites (airbnb, google flights, etc) use custom date controls.  We were looking into some of the more popular date field components a while back.

We've already got some requests for Date field modifications already.  Can you let me know how you'd like it to work differently so we can consider that as well?

Thanks!

This took us a bit to track down.  Can you try this fix: 

In /cmsb/lib/menus/default\wysiwygMedia.php

Replace this: 

uploadIframe.contentDocument.location.reload();

With this: 

uploadIframe?.contentDocument?.location.reload();

Let me know if that works for you.  If not, feel free to submit a 2nd level support request, and we'd be happy to help you track it down and resolve it.

Thanks!

Can you submit a 2nd-level support request?  We'll take a look and resolve this for you: 

https://interactivetools.com/support/request/

Thanks!

Thanks, we'll look into this and get back to you shortly.

This will be easier for us to confirm and debug on your server directly.  Can you send in a 2nd level support request, and we'll take a look?

https://interactivetools.com/support/request/

Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestion.  That makes sense. We'll take a look at that for a future release to see how we can improve the UX.

We're busy working on the next release, which is probably 1-2 weeks out before the beta, but can revisit repeater fields in the future.

Can you give me an example use case?  How you'd actually be using it.  e.g., What's a real-world example of some fields you'd be repeating? 

We're busy working on the next release, which is probably 1-2 weeks out before the beta, but can revisit repeater fields in the future.

Can you give me an example use case?  How you'd actually be using it.  e.g., What's a real-world example of some fields you'd be repeating? 

Auto Backup backs up your MySQL database, so it shouldn't include PDFs. But yes, once your backup files become very large or the server times out, the next step is to check for other backup options available through your hosting provider.

If you're thinking of the "Website Backup" feature under Admin > Backup & Restore > Website Backup, it can also experience similar timeout issues with large sites. What you can do is create an empty file named .cms-no-backup in any folder to exclude it from backups.  That way, you can skip those large PDFs. Just make sure you back up those PDFs somewhere else.

And yes, once your backup files become very large or the server times out, it's worth checking with your hosting provider for other backup options.

Hope that helps!