IPS4 Review

[Rheddy]

While IPS4 has been out for some time, I was initially resistant to IPS4 because I didn't like the large font types set by default and that it looked like someone had gotten hold of the accessibility feature on my desktop (Windows 7) and set the font sizes to large type. Plus, the long loading times also prevented me from considering an upgrade. It's been a long time coming, but I finally decided to upgrade (due to some issues that my site recently experienced to unscrupulous visitors). This about a week ago when I finally requested an upgrade. While there are a lot of nice features that I've found very helpful to the software, there were a few items that really boiled my skin that created more problems for me than I realized.

The major issue came from the IPS software resetting all of my defaults, removing links that I had already established that were set on my site through IPS3 not to mention switching off signatures, defaulting permission settings to read only for staff members (admin and moderators) and removing such important links that should be set by default, such as the forum rules link and privacy policy link.

While some of the resets, like resetting the forum skin installation counts back to '1', the reset permissions for moderators and administrators set me into the stratosphere because I didn't discover this until after I had configured my community with the new version. I'm hoping that when there is another major upgrade like IPS4, that IPS will consider not resetting the permissions for usergroups when there is a new upgrade or overhaul of the IPSCS. Because, with the upgrade, not only were the permissions for forum staff usergroups changed (such as posting in certain forums) and some internal usergroups such as signatures being disabled trough the upgrade and that other features such as 'topic rating', uploading images and the like ... I ended up spending unnecessary time going through each usergroup to verify that all users had appropriate permissions for their accounts.

Overall, I think IPS 4.1.x is an improvement and I'm still getting the feel for the 4.1 series. With more improvements on the way, such as speeding up the loading times that some of the IPS staff have confirmed through the support forums, I'm looking for more improvements for the IPS4 CS. Kudos, IPS. Hopefully, you'll consider some of the points I brought up for future versions.

[jucs]

Quote

The major issue came from the IPS software resetting all of my defaults, removing links that I had already established that were set on my site through IPS3 not to mention switching off signatures, defaulting permission settings to read only for staff members (admin and moderators) and removing such important links that should be set by default, such as the forum rules link and privacy policy link.

This is NOT good at all and makes zero sense why it happened. Someone at IPS tell me this was a mistake because this is unacceptable and I am now even more leary of upgrading and have been waiting.

[Charles]

We preserve settings that we can but not all settings in IP.Board 3 do the same thing in IPS4 so we have to choose some sort of default. The same is true for new settings - we have to pick something.

It's really not a big deal thought... the very first thing anyone does after a big upgrade is go in the AdminCP and verify all the settings are as they want them. 

[Rheddy]

Thanks, Charles. I wasn't aware of why the settings were reset. Since I started using IPB back in 2004, it was an option I chose for my site because IPB 1.3(final) was offered as a free install through cPanel/fantastico. Truth be known, I knew nothing about IPB so I opted to try it out. But, over the years, the IPS platform has changed. But, IPS4 represents a major departure in the upgrade department. Even when my forums were upgraded from IPB 2.3.6 over to IPS3, the changes were there but never as extensive as it was with IPS4. I wasn't prepared for having to reset all the permissions for the usergroups and that I wasn't aware that this would happen until some of my forum staff started reporting issues with permissions and the fact that even some posting privileges for my root admin account had been reset, as well.

Only thing I can say is that I'll be prepared for it the next time. It was one of those things that wasn't serious but that it required me to start actively checking certain permissions. One of the things that the upgrade did was grant posting privileges to guests, not to mention uploading privileges, all of which I had disabled by default due to spambots trying to post and upload crap onto my site. Least I was able to catch these oversights before any real damage by spammers had occurred. But, overall, I am impressed with IPS4. I do look forward to seeing the IPS4 Community Suite improved with better loading times, something which an IPS Staffer had mentioned is being looked into.