Site integration

[Chris89]

For some reason I don't seem to be able to post in virtually any forum anymore, so I'm going to post here instead even though it's not 100% relevant.... I already have one copy of Invision Community. I'd like to get a second copy, or potentially even transfer my first over to a different website and use it there instead.

However, before I do so I need to know some things. Currently, my own site is using an MVC setup very similar structurally to that of IPB 3, and my current forum is deeply integrated in with my website, including authentication. I need to know if it's possible to integrate IPS 4 with my own website, so that I can run the code, for example using user authentication from IPB on my own website. What I guess I'm asking is, is it possible for my to initialise IPB to run on my own website so I can use functions, classes etc on my own website & integrate the two together? If so, what would I need to do for this to be possible?

My forum currently is using a heavily modified version of FluxBB, which is a fork of PunBB. I see you support PunBB on your converter, but not FluxBB. Is it possible I could write some code using the converter to convert my data myself to IPB?

Also, a lot of the features of IPB 3 seem to have gone.. such as the "protected forums". I took a look at the new version but it seems that the closest thing I can find is "Users can see topics posted by other users?" and "Users without read permission can open forum? ". For some bizarre reason it blocks me from allowing guests to view the forum then and then I can't change this.

 

Got a couple more things but hopefully someone can help with these first :)

 

 

[bfarber]

1 hour ago, Chris89 said:

For some reason I don't seem to be able to post in virtually any forum anymore, so I'm going to post here instead even though it's not 100% relevant.... I already have one copy of Invision Community. I'd like to get a second copy, or potentially even transfer my first over to a different website and use it there instead.

You must have a current active license in order to post in most of the forums here.

1 hour ago, Chris89 said:

However, before I do so I need to know some things. Currently, my own site is using an MVC setup very similar structurally to that of IPB 3, and my current forum is deeply integrated in with my website, including authentication. I need to know if it's possible to integrate IPS 4 with my own website, so that I can run the code, for example using user authentication from IPB on my own website. What I guess I'm asking is, is it possible for my to initialise IPB to run on my own website so I can use functions, classes etc on my own website & integrate the two together? If so, what would I need to do for this to be possible?

Yes, you can integrate our software externally. You would require the init.php file and then most of our framework is available at your disposal.

1 hour ago, Chris89 said:

My forum currently is using a heavily modified version of FluxBB, which is a fork of PunBB. I see you support PunBB on your converter, but not FluxBB. Is it possible I could write some code using the converter to convert my data myself to IPB?

I don't know what differences there are specifically between the two, but the general answer is yes. We create custom converters as needed for clients - it's entirely doable.

1 hour ago, Chris89 said:

Also, a lot of the features of IPB 3 seem to have gone.. such as the "protected forums". I took a look at the new version but it seems that the closest thing I can find is "Users can see topics posted by other users?" and "Users without read permission can open forum? ". For some bizarre reason it blocks me from allowing guests to view the forum then and then I can't change this.

Perhaps you can remind us what this "Protected Forums" feature did exactly that isn't possible in 4.x. You can certainly allow guests to view a forum (and you can allow them to see the forum but not view it too if you want).

[Chris89]

Thanks for your reply. Great to hear I can integrate it externally.

Regarding the "Protected Forums" feature..... what I want is a forum where:

• Everyone including Guests can view the forum, but only moderators for that forum, or users who created their topics, can view topics in that forum
• No last post information about that forum is shown on the index page (i.e. "Protected Forum" is shown instead of the poster and last topic)

In IPB 3 This was accomplished using a few different settings, for instance 'Hide Last Post Info' and 'Allow posters to view other member's topics' but in IPB 4 I can only find 'Users can see topics posted by other users?' and no equivalent of hiding the last post info on the forum index. Also in IPB 4 when I do enable this setting, for some reason when I try to set the forum read permissions, the read forum permission for Guests is disabled, and greyed out as well so I can't allow them to view that forum.

For some of the other things...... I might not just be able to find these things, but these are some of the things I've noticed:

• There doesn't seem to be a "members" page in IPB 4 or any way for users to browse the member list which there was in IPB 3
• When viewing a topic/forum you can't see who else is viewing that topic/forum anymore
• I can't find any way to allow access by a custom user group to the Admin CP (and the same for the Mod CP). I know it exists, I just can't find the settings for it anywhere
• Is there any way to unapprove content to the Mod CP from the main board as well? i.e. you view a topic/post and can unapprove it back to the approval queue be reapproved again.
• Probably just a case of CSS changes too, but in IPB 3 when you viewed an announcement it appeared like a regular topic, i.e. you'd have the user's details along the left and the announcement like a regular post on the right. Is this possible in IPB 4?
• I also need some user groups who can moderate everywhere and other groups who only moderate certain forums. I only want Moderators to have permissions in the forums they moderate, i.e. they can't pin even their own thread in a forum where they don't have moderator permissions
• Is there any way to display on the forum index which Moderators (or Moderator groups) moderate which forums?
• Is it possible for you to allow/disallow users to post links based on which user group they're in?
• I'd like people to be able to post things without the security issues of HTML....... is bbcode allowed or possible?

Finally, a few more things:

• On my current forum, I'm using a mod that allows users to choose an avatar from a list of images selected by the board administrator, rather than upload a one. Is something like this possible in IPB?
• Favicon settings: I usually use Real Favicon Generator, is this something that can be used or any way to use favicons?
• Site CDN: At the moment, I use a subdomain on my site for all static content on my forum (i.e, avatars, JS files) ., which I cache with CloudFlare. Will this kind of functionality be possible or will I have to drop CloudFlare and/or my CDN completely?

I appreciate this is a very long list of questions, so thank you very much for your time!

** Edit **

Is there any documentation .etc. I can look at to help me get member variables, group information, etc into my own code? I've looked but I can't really find much

 

Edited June 7, 2020 by Chris89

[bfarber]

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

Thanks for your reply. Great to hear I can integrate it externally.

Regarding the "Protected Forums" feature..... what I want is a forum where:

• Everyone including Guests can view the forum, but only moderators for that forum, or users who created their topics, can view topics in that forum
• No last post information about that forum is shown on the index page (i.e. "Protected Forum" is shown instead of the poster and last topic)

In IPB 3 This was accomplished using a few different settings, for instance 'Hide Last Post Info' and 'Allow posters to view other member's topics' but in IPB 4 I can only find 'Users can see topics posted by other users?' and no equivalent of hiding the last post info on the forum index. Also in IPB 4 when I do enable this setting, for some reason when I try to set the forum read permissions, the read forum permission for Guests is disabled, and greyed out as well so I can't allow them to view that forum.

Guests cannot really use a forum where only the topic author can view their own posts, because there is no "author" for the posts. We don't have any way to know if a guest makes a post and comes back a week later that it is the same guest, so they're inherently unable to use such forums.

You don't need the "Hide last post info" setting because the software automatically figures out what the last post the user can view is. In 3.x we cached the post data to the forum and showed it without checking permissions, necessitating that setting - that's not the case in 4.x.

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

For some of the other things...... I might not just be able to find these things, but these are some of the things I've noticed:

• There doesn't seem to be a "members" page in IPB 4 or any way for users to browse the member list which there was in IPB 3

You can perform a search on the members area without a keyword.

https://invisioncommunity.com/search/?&type=core_members

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• When viewing a topic/forum you can't see who else is viewing that topic/forum anymore

This is a widget that can be added using the sidebar block manager.

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• I can't find any way to allow access by a custom user group to the Admin CP (and the same for the Mod CP). I know it exists, I just can't find the settings for it anywhere

AdminCP > Members > Moderators and AdminCP > Members > Administrators. You add the members or groups you wish to give access, and then set their restrictions (if appropriate).

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• Is there any way to unapprove content to the Mod CP from the main board as well? i.e. you view a topic/post and can unapprove it back to the approval queue be reapproved again.

You "hide" content that has already been approved. You cannot "unapprove" it, but these are just semantics really.

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• Probably just a case of CSS changes too, but in IPB 3 when you viewed an announcement it appeared like a regular topic, i.e. you'd have the user's details along the left and the announcement like a regular post on the right. Is this possible in IPB 4?

If you modified the templates, you could do this. Announcements are not designed to look like topics in 4.x out of the box.

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• I also need some user groups who can moderate everywhere and other groups who only moderate certain forums. I only want Moderators to have permissions in the forums they moderate, i.e. they can't pin even their own thread in a forum where they don't have moderator permissions

This can be configured in the aforementioned AdminCP > Members > Moderators.

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• Is there any way to display on the forum index which Moderators (or Moderator groups) moderate which forums?

Not out of the box I'm afraid.

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• Is it possible for you to allow/disallow users to post links based on which user group they're in?

Yes, in AdminCP > Customization > Editor Toolbars you can double click on the "link" button and control which groups have permission to use it,

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• I'd like people to be able to post things without the security issues of HTML....... is bbcode allowed or possible?

BBCode is technically possible, but you're misunderstanding how the system works. With a WYSIWYG editor, we still filter and clean the content on the backend using a well-known and well-tested HTML filtering library. You can use the WYSIWYG editor without being concerned about security issues.

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

Finally, a few more things:

• On my current forum, I'm using a mod that allows users to choose an avatar from a list of images selected by the board administrator, rather than upload a one. Is something like this possible in IPB?

We removed the "avatar gallery" feature in 4.x so no.

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• Favicon settings: I usually use Real Favicon Generator, is this something that can be used or any way to use favicons?

AdminCP > Customization > Icons & Logos

19 hours ago, Chris89 said:

• Site CDN: At the moment, I use a subdomain on my site for all static content on my forum (i.e, avatars, JS files) ., which I cache with CloudFlare. Will this kind of functionality be possible or will I have to drop CloudFlare and/or my CDN completely?

Yes, in the file storage handlers in the AdminCP you can specify the path to store the files, and then specify a custom URL (to facilitate using a CDN to serve files from that path).

 

But please keep in mind, you are posting in a feedback forum designed to allow clients to suggest new features and ideas. What you are after here is technical support and "how do I" stuff, which should be posted in one of our other forums, which you'll have access to when you renew your license. You're also welcome to contact sales@invisionpower.com if you have any other questions you'd like answered before purchasing a license, and/or you can sign up for a demo of 4.x if you need to on our main site.