IPS Rules Application

[Kevin Carwile]

No new features are planned for this app. Only critical bugfixes will be made to it at this point.

[SammyS]

3 minutes ago, Kevin Carwile said:

No new features are planned for this app. Only critical bugfixes will be made to it at this point.

Well, this negative review was written after the last update, almost 1 year ago.

I think a bug fixing release 2 o 3 times per year would be fair for the people who trusted in you

 

"Having some serious trouble here since last invision V4.4.2 and rules update V1.4.6 :

Private Messages are randomly spread to arround 100 users from the community without their consent.

It happened at least two times.

Invision support says it is rules problem, rules says it is usage or invision problem ...

Nothing has changend in the rules between the updates, in 2 years nothing like that did happen.

There is a bug somewhere, it needs to be solved"

 

[Kevin Carwile]

41 minutes ago, SammyS said:

Well, this negative review was written after the last update, almost 1 year ago.

I think a bug fixing release 2 o 3 times per year would be fair for the people who trusted in you

 

"Having some serious trouble here since last invision V4.4.2 and rules update V1.4.6 :

Private Messages are randomly spread to arround 100 users from the community without their consent.

It happened at least two times.

Invision support says it is rules problem, rules says it is usage or invision problem ...

Nothing has changend in the rules between the updates, in 2 years nothing like that did happen.

There is a bug somewhere, it needs to be solved"

 

That's the reason why IPS removed rules from their marketplace. People get themselves into trouble and neither IPS nor myself can really do anything about it. That particular issue may be a bug "somewhere", but it is not in the IPS core, and I verified that it is not in the Rules application itself, so it is within the rules configuration on the client site. That is a configuration that nobody maintains except for the client themselves. Not sure exactly how to troubleshoot that for them without being able to reproduce it on my end.

But packaging a new version of rules and calling it a maintenance release is not going to solve that issue for them.

[CoffeeCake]

1 minute ago, Kevin Carwile said:

That's the reason why IPS removed rules from their marketplace. People get themselves into trouble and neither IPS nor myself can really do anything about it. That particular issue may be a bug "somewhere", but it is not in the IPS core, and I verified that it is not in the Rules application itself, so it is within the rules configuration on the client site. That is a configuration that nobody maintains except for the client themselves. Not sure exactly how to troubleshoot that for them without being able to reproduce it on my end.

But packaging a new version of rules and calling it a maintenance release is not going to solve that issue for them.

Perhaps it's time to open source the code and throw it up on Github for others to help maintain going forward?

[ahc]

19 hours ago, Paul E. said:

Perhaps it's time to open source the code and throw it up on Github for others to help maintain going forward?

I support this. 

We can't use the "NOT" reverse condition on any type of rule set even though it would help us automate a handful of things.  We've been dealing with this issue since 4.3. 

The minute we turn it on, regardless of condition, it triggers all rules to activate for both members and guests the minute they visit our site, even if the rules are not set to trigger or are applicable to the member/guest.

[CoffeeCake]

3 minutes ago, ahc said:

I support this. 

We can't use the "NOT" reverse condition on any type of rule set even though it would help us automate a handful of things.  We've been dealing with this issue since 4.3. 

The minute we turn it on, regardless of condition, it triggers all rules to activate for both members and guests the minute they visit our site, even if the rules are not set to trigger or are applicable to the member/guest.

In fact, this should be a precondition of selling on the IPS marketplace, I think. If a person can no longer support an extension, then IPS should mark the extension as no longer supported. Keep it available for download, yet note that the developer is no longer supporting maintenance of the project and open it up for the sites that have come to rely upon it. It's dangerous for a new community to come along and install (or worse yet, purchase) things that are essentially abandonware.

[Adriano Faria]

1 minute ago, Paul E. said:

then IPS should mark the extension as no longer supported. Keep it available for download, yet note that the developer is no longer supporting maintenance of the project and open it up for the sites that have come to rely upon it.

You, me or even IPS can’t take ownership of other people's work. IPS is doing the only thing they can do: forbid the download and new purchases to try to minimize the damage for others. 

If this dev (or any other) wants to share in Github or wherever he wants, he will. But it’s only their call. No one else.

[Kevin Carwile]

3 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

In fact, this should be a precondition of selling on the IPS marketplace, I think. If a person can no longer support an extension, then IPS should mark the extension as no longer supported. Keep it available for download, yet note that the developer is no longer supporting maintenance of the project and open it up for the sites that have come to rely upon it. It's dangerous for a new community to come along and install (or worse yet, purchase) things that are essentially abandonware.

It was the other way around. IPS removed it from their marketplace therefore there is not really any point of continuing development on it. 

16 minutes ago, ahc said:

We can't use the "NOT" reverse condition on any type of rule set even though it would help us automate a handful of things.  We've been dealing with this issue since 4.3. 

The minute we turn it on, regardless of condition, it triggers all rules to activate for both members and guests the minute they visit our site, even if the rules are not set to trigger or are applicable to the member/guest.

I was not aware this was an issue. I remember we fixed a bug that sounds a lot like this. I'll see if I can reproduce this locally.

[CoffeeCake]

2 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said:

You, me or even IPS can’t take ownership of other people's work.

I was speaking on contractual terms. "As a condition of using the marketplace, developer agrees insert terms here." This is entirely possible.

I understand that it's all at your own risk only now, yet I think there's an opportunity for improvement. This would both encourage developers to make arrangements external to the marketplace (turning over a resource to another developer, for example) to continue a revenue stream, and encourage communities to purchase extensions knowing that at the very least, if someone gets hit by a bus, there are provisions in place to continue a developer's good work.

[Adriano Faria]

3 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

8 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said:

 

I was speaking on contractual terms. "As a condition of using the marketplace, developer agrees insert terms here." This is entirely possible.

Then I believe this marketplace would be abandoned in a not distant future. While not closed, prices would increase considerably. You wouldn’t see $10 resources anymore, as someone else can “take” resources ownership, people would try to earn the maximum they can while they have the ownership of their OWN work.

[CoffeeCake]

3 minutes ago, Kevin Carwile said:

It was the other way around. IPS removed it from their marketplace therefore there is not really any point of continuing development on it. 

Completely understand. You're a busy person and you can't easily sell this extension. It causes support headaches for the folks that misconfigure something for IPS. It's not worth the time or hassle--who wouldn't understand that?

However, it seems that some communities rely on it and want to continue iterating on your good work. It seems that this would be a good candidate to open up as open source project that others, who have an interest in maintaining this project, can fork or contribute to. We don't use this, yet I think it's important to encourage an ecosystem where in those infrequent circumstances that an extension gets to this place, there's a mechanism to move forward with non-core items for those for whom continued development and support do make sense.

 

[CoffeeCake]

1 minute ago, Adriano Faria said:

Then I believe this marketplace would be abandoned in a not distant future. While not closed, prices would increase considerably. You wouldn’t see $10 resources anymore, as someone else can “take” resources ownership, people would try to earn the maximum they can while they have the ownership of their OWN work.

Sure, that might be a consequence. Just throwing out ideas off the cuff, but consider having a developer indicate something like a service-level agreement at the outset at the time of purchase. "This is $10, but no guarantees it will continue to work in the future" vs. "with ongoing support and maintenance for the 4.x series"

And I would think that the trigger to have a resource opened up to the community would be after some inactivity or by the developer communicating their intentions to IPS. Maybe Adriano wins the lottery, moves to a private island, and lives this rest of his days sipping from coconuts. He decides that he'll sell 10 of his extensions to Kevin, 20 of them to Scott, 40 of them to Veronica, etc. He updates his extensions to indicate the new account supporting them. Or maybe Adriano can't be bothered by all that, and drops off the face of the earth, jetsetting around the globe with supermodels and the uber rich, and doesn't log into his account or make any updates or respond to any support requests for a year.

In that last case, the hypothetical clause kicks in and IPS says "Hey, this stuff appears to be unsupported. We've reached out to the developer via e-mail three times, called him once, and no response. In 30 days, we'll make it available at your own risk as open source."

I may just be suffering from too much cabin fever, but I think it's a novel idea.

[Bluto]

Honestly, I think @Kevin Carwile is an excellent programmer and could make this project over the top, but if he's not doing it I'd love to see @Makoto

How much to make this an open source project @Kevin Carwile ?   

How about releasing it under a os license which heavily favors you?  Own the repo but allow others to merge changes building more rep up on github, which I'm probably sure you already have I'm assuming.  In charge of popular project is always looks good.  I'm sure there would be a lot more people interested in using it.  People will help each other out on github.

Just an idea, because right now I'm afraid to do anything more with it because I'm not sure what is going to happen long term.  Just doing updates = it's dead to me.  Just sayin.

[Adriano Faria]

7 minutes ago, Bluto said:

because right now I'm afraid to do anything more with it because I'm not sure what is going to happen long term.  Just doing updates = it's dead to me.  Just sayin.

Wouldn't the 4.5 Zapier integration totally replace the need of this resource? See Self-Integration there. Of course it will not be complete at first but others will be able to hook and improve the feature over time.

[Bluto]

6 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said:

Wouldn't the 4.5 Zapier integration totally replace the need of this resource? See Self-Integration there. Of course it will not be complete at first but others will be able to hook and improve the feature over time.

I'd have to check that out.  You are a lot more knowledgeable about IPS stuff than me.  I never even heard of it.  Thanks!

[jair101]

3 hours ago, Adriano Faria said:

Wouldn't the 4.5 Zapier integration totally replace the need of this resource? See Self-Integration there. Of course it will not be complete at first but others will be able to hook and improve the feature over time.

While Zapier will help, it will probably replace not more then 5% of the functionality of this app, at least in the beginning. 

- Can't mass message/notify your memberbase, zapier pricing skyrockets after 2k tasks
- Doesn't have the custom data fields that Rules has. 
- It will be at least few years until it can even remotely match the available in Rules trigger/conditions/actions. 

So yeah, it is the next best thing, but it is very far from being able to challenge it. 

[Adriano Faria]

The hugest issue, IMO, is trust blindly your board to something like that. I’ve seen this happen a few times since 2007. And 5% working and officially supported feature is better than 100% of nothing. But that’s only my opinion. 👍

Edited April 9, 2020 by Adriano Faria

[OctoDev]

On 3/28/2015 at 3:20 AM, Kevin Carwile said:

IPS Rules Application - A powerful rules engine for your IPS4 site

Download Rules "LITE" Version  -  Download Rules FULL Version

The Rules application makes it possible for you to create customized workflows, automation routines, manipulate content, send emails, create conversations, post content, manage members, apply filters, redirect pages, and generally perform any standard operation on your site… all in an automated way based on rules that you create for your site.

Notable Features

• ·         Over 500 built in events, conditions, and actions for stock IPS products and contributed apps.
• ·         Rule actions can be configured to happen in real time or at a future time.
• ·         Schedule and unscheduled actions from inside of rules or manually through your ACP.
• ·         Built in lists of “replacement tokens” for including variable data in text entry fields (like email content)
• ·         Fully extensible by app and plugin developers to add new tokens, events, conditions, and actions.
• ·         Look for Rules Expansion Packs in the marketplace which add new events/conditions/actions.
• ·         Create your own custom actions within the rules app which can be invoked by rules.
• ·         Create your own custom data fields for any entity on your site to manipulate with rules.
• ·         Rules can be grouped together into rule groups and rule sets for easy management.
• ·         Easily import and export rules and sets to share with friends or distribute as your own rule packs.
• ·         Built-in rule debugging console for full visibility of what your rules are doing on your system.
• ·         Built in rules error and performance logging console.

 

You going to update it for 4.5?

[Chris Anderson]

6 hours ago, OctoDev said:

You going to update it for 4.5?

Read comments above.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Christopher Anderson

[OctoDev]

7 hours ago, Christopher Anderson said:

Read comments above.

I see that it was removed from marketplace, but no clue why. This was one of the best apps if not the best for Invision Power.

 

Zaper wouldn't replace it at all, plus they charge per rules.

[IndianaJoe]

This isn't cool. Great job Invision, now you are breaking people's websites. 

[SammyS]

57 minutes ago, IndianaJoe said:

This isn't cool. Great job Invision, now you are breaking people's websites. 

Developer abandoned this app over one year ago. Thats not invision fault.

[NoSpy]

So no 4.5 compatible version?

[Chris Anderson]

46 minutes ago, NoSpy said:

So no 4.5 compatible version?

Developer has moved on to other endeavors and is unlikely ever to return.

[NoSpy]

I will uninstall with add-ons. Are there any special precautions that need to be taken?