Demo and Licensing

[Koby]

If I was to open up a demo board to only show off skins/themes, would that demo require an extra IPB license of it's own?

I see all the other skin sites provide demo boards and I'm just wondering if they had to pay for an additional license for those demo boards or if it was alright because it's just used for demos?

[Aiwa]

Demo boards would need to be licensed.

[Koby]

That sucks.. :/

It's to be expected though I guess..

[Rheddy]

From how I understand it, you wouldn't need a license for a demo board. As long as you hold an active license to the IPB Community Suite, you are permitted 1 test board. IPS allows you one test board as long as you have registrations disabled for it. All you would need to do is to have your test board allow for anyone to check out the various forum skins that you have.

Just make sure that you disable all registrations for your test/demo board. Also, be sure to ask IPS about it as well.

[Aiwa]

From how I understand it, you wouldn't need a license for a demo board. As long as you hold an active license to the IPB Community Suite, you are permitted 1 test board. IPS allows you one test board as long as you have registrations disabled for it. All you would need to do is to have your test board allow for anyone to check out the various forum skins that you have.

Just make sure that you disable all registrations for your test/demo board. Also, be sure to ask IPS about it as well.

Just to clarify, you are incorrect.

http://www.invisionpower.com/support/guides/_/advanced-and-developers/miscellaneous/development-site-license-key-r148

To qualify as a "test" board, the board must be inaccessible to the outside world (ie, on a private server.)

I have my test boards on a public webserver, but they are all behind .htaccess authentication. Which makes them inaccessible to the outside world.

[Mark H]

The test install can't be available to the public at all, as Aiwa noted, unfortunately. It would have to be offline with new registration disabled. Test installs are for internal testing, as the name implies. For example, you can have your staff members check out skins or new 3rd-party apps before rolling them onto your live site, with staff using additional member accounts setup for that purpose. An install to demo skins would require a license.

But one thing you could do is demo the skins on your own site. Create a few forums, with just one topic and some replies to it, then install the skins you want to demo, edit the restrictions so members can't choose it with the skin changer, then map each skin to one of the forums. That's done in Look & Feel -> drop-menu to the right of the skin. Edit its settings first to restrict it to admins e.g. and save, then use same drop-menu and choose "Manage URL Mapping". Give it the URL to the chosen forum's Topic View page. When anyone visits that forum they'll see the skin mapped to it.

[Rheddy]

Aiwa, I wasn't exactly sure, which is why I also suggested to contact support.