Invision Insight: 4.7.7 Beta 4 and a teaser!

[AlexJ]

2 hours ago, Gary said:

Discord appeals mostly to the gaming sector as they build their platform to support gamers.

That's not true, trust me. I think AlexWebsite note is right on the point i.e. monetizing. I have seen much larger groups for Trading and other things. I used to think as well i.e. Discord is popular in just gaming but when I noticed other groups focused on Infra/Ops Monitoring, Trading, OpenAI etc. my perspective has changed. 

 

[Gary]

I may have generalised the current global usage, however, its roots stemmed from the gaming industry/community. To stay relevant and appeal to other audiences they have had to adapt their platform.

[Charles]

For those of you not interested in cloud, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to PM me your specific situations and concerns. Cloud very well may not be a good fit for you but I would love to learn more as to why it is not so we can evolve as we move forward 🙂

[abobader]

Hi Charles,

For me it not the issue "your cloud" it simply we been having servers on many hosting for the past 23 years, we manage our servers, we simply have other services and usage for them, the hosting company we have our servers with them for the past 11 years now, all it fit our need. It not simply running IPS software on them.

Regards,

[Matt]

33 minutes ago, abobader said:

Hi Charles,

For me it not the issue "your cloud" it simply we been having servers on many hosting for the past 23 years, we manage our servers, we simply have other services and usage for them, the hosting company we have our servers with them for the past 11 years now, all it fit our need. It not simply running IPS software on them.

Regards,

Sounds like our self hosted option is a good fit for you at this time.

[abobader]

40 minutes ago, Matt said:

Sounds like our self hosted option is a good fit for you at this time.

Matt, where the link for compare plans?

[Randy Calvert]

35 minutes ago, abobader said:

Matt, where the link for compare plans?

There is one self-hosted plan:

https://invisioncommunity.com/buy/self-hosted/

With that option, you can choose which modules you want with your license.  You get access to the software, but need to run everything yourself.  You get to run the software forever, but updates and support are included for 6 months.  After the 6 months, you need to renew your support/updates for an additional 6 month period.  

The various cloud plans are at:

https://invisioncommunity.com/buy

With the cloud plans, it's 100% hosted by IPB, so there is no software...  you access it like you would Gmail in that you simply use the solution.  IPS takes care of all of the underlying "stuff" such as managing hardware, backups, firewalls, etc.  There is a matrix on that page that shows which features are included with each plan.  The pricing is shown with the monthly or annual cost.  (Paying by the year is cheaper.)

There is a smaller Beginner plan that is not included in the matrix as well....

So if you need just the forum app without the other things such as commerce, blogs, files, pages, etc...  that could potentially be a starting point for you as well.  

Edited February 6, 2023 by Randy Calvert

[marklcfc]

8 hours ago, Charles said:

For those of you not interested in cloud, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to PM me your specific situations and concerns. Cloud very well may not be a good fit for you but I would love to learn more as to why it is not so we can evolve as we move forward 🙂

The top 3

1. Too expensive, seems to be twice what I pay already.

2. It's slower.

3. Can't even access files via FTP, sounds like an absolute nightmare to upload something simple like an ads.txt file

[Daniel F]

6 minutes ago, marklcfc said:

an ads.txt file

You can literally use the pages app to create it.

[Randy Calvert]

7 minutes ago, marklcfc said:

3. Can't even access files via FTP, sounds like an absolute nightmare to upload something simple like an ads.txt file

Pages app.  It was actually even faster than FTP'ing it as someone who has done both methods. 

[marklcfc]

32 minutes ago, Randy Calvert said:

Pages app.  It was actually even faster than FTP'ing it as someone who has done both methods. 

I have pages but never used it for this. What about creating in a new folder in public_html and uploading multiple php/css files / images for a separate section on my forum? If it’s easily done then 3 can be written off, but still a restriction I’d not be comfortable with

On another note can backups be created via ssh? I’m guessing not

Edited February 6, 2023 by marklcfc

[marklcfc]

Also I have a separate database on the server too, I bet that’s not allowed either, or even phpmyadmin?

Edited February 6, 2023 by marklcfc

[Randy Calvert]

20 minutes ago, marklcfc said:

Also I have a separate database on the server too, I bet that’s not allowed either, or even phpmyadmin?

No. Why is it needed?  You’re buying a hosted solution. You’re not buying a server.  You don’t get database access with Gmail or a separate area to directly edit the files in a mail queue either. Think of this like Gmail or Salesforce, or a SaaS platform. 

28 minutes ago, marklcfc said:

What about creating in a new folder in public_html and uploading multiple php/css files / images for a separate section on my forum? If it’s easily done then 3 can be written off, but still a restriction I’d not be comfortable with

You can upload images, you can create CSS, but you’re not uploading random PHP scripts. Again… this is not a hosting account.  You should not be “mass uploading” content.

28 minutes ago, marklcfc said:

On another note can backups be created via ssh?

No. Again, you don’t need to.  No hosted solution such as Gmail or Salesforce does that. You keep framing this to hosting when it’s a different solution. 

Think about just USING the service instead of trying to RUN it. Now if you need to install other scripts like Wordpress and you want to manage things like backups or play in the firewall or get your hands dirty… a hosted solution is not the right thing for you.  

Edited February 6, 2023 by Randy Calvert

[marklcfc]

So you can’t create a backup before upgrading there’s #4

And as for php files and database I have a separate area on my site which I put together which uses php files and a separate database. It is on the forum here https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/history/browse/ but not part of the forum database. so if I can’t even upload those files #3 can be reinstated

Edited February 6, 2023 by marklcfc

[Randy Calvert]

You would still need to retain something to run your custom database or PHP scripts. This is a hosted IPB service, not a hosting account.  Your website might be www.domain.com while your history app might be history.yourdomain.com. History would be on a hosting account where IPB is run off of www.

Regarding backups… they’re automatically done by IPS. In fact because they directly control the hardware AND software, you’re muuuuuuuch less likely to run into problems that would trigger needing a restore. No more things like mod_security issues or PHP running in the wrong mode or dealing with the wrong settings in php.ini.   When an upgrade is done, you’re just re-mapped to different cloud servers running the correct code base.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Randy Calvert

[Hatsu]

16 hours ago, Charles said:

For those of you not interested in cloud, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to PM me your specific situations and concerns. Cloud very well may not be a good fit for you but I would love to learn more as to why it is not so we can evolve as we move forward 🙂

Way too expensive. Currently, I pay 300$ yearly. I would need your Creator Pro and this is 1788$ a year (the cheap option). Even if I count in my hosting costs it's more than double the price tag. And I would have to pay my server anyway because I run more applications on it than only Invision Community.

[Dll]

11 hours ago, marklcfc said:

The top 3

1. Too expensive, seems to be twice what I pay already.

2. It's slower.

3. Can't even access files via FTP, sounds like an absolute nightmare to upload something simple like an ads.txt file

Honestly, in your case, you may want to think about how you work out the cost of running your site and include the value you place on your time within it. You're obviously not the most technically savvy in terms of running a web server (and I mean zero disrespect in saying that) and seem to spend a lot of time doing things on that side with varying levels of success. So, if you took all of that off of your plate, how much extra value could you add to your site with the additional time which would be available to you? Only you know the answer to that, but I think it's a worthwhile consideration. 

When you say it's slower - bear in mind that on here as an example, you're connecting to the USA, you can have your site hosted in the EU. We fairly recently moved over to the cloud, and like you are UK based with a mostly UK audience and we / our users haven't noticed any speed drop. In fact, it's probably a bit faster than our previous platform. 

People have already covered the third point, but suffice to say we've not missed having FTP access and what have you and have used the pages platform to add an ads.txt file and what have you - it's very straightforward to do. 

I'm not here to pitch the cloud to you, I've no skin in the game so to speak, but based on your posts in here and the struggles you've been having at times, I actually think you could benefit from it. 

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by Dll

[marklcfc]

3 hours ago, Dll said:

Honestly, in your case, you may want to think about how you work out the cost of running your site and include the value you place on your time within it. You're obviously not the most technically savvy in terms of running a web server (and I mean zero disrespect in saying that) and seem to spend a lot of time doing things on that side with varying levels of success. So, if you took all of that off of your plate, how much extra value could you add to your site with the additional time which would be available to you? Only you know the answer to that, but I think it's a worthwhile consideration. 

When you say it's slower - bear in mind that on here as an example, you're connecting to the USA, you can have your site hosted in the EU. We fairly recently moved over to the cloud, and like you are UK based with a mostly UK audience and we / our users haven't noticed any speed drop. In fact, it's probably a bit faster than our previous platform. 

People have already covered the third point, but suffice to say we've not missed having FTP access and what have you and have used the pages platform to add an ads.txt file and what have you - it's very straightforward to do. 

I'm not here to pitch the cloud to you, I've no skin in the game so to speak, but based on your posts in here and the struggles you've been having at times, I actually think you could benefit from it. 

 

PM your forum so I can check it out to compare speed 👍

When you say I'm not technically savvy, maybe not, I've always got by, but not being able to upload self written php files for a seperate area of the forum doesn't come under not technically savvy, its a restriction. All cloud seems to accomodate is a basic forum.

Edited February 7, 2023 by marklcfc

[Randy Calvert]

Move your self written app to Pages.  It can store data in a database and you can even then tie it more directly in with the rest of your site. 

And IPB is not just a “basic forum”. It’s a framework for you to run a full and rich featured site including a content management system, gallery, file download management system, etc.  You can run complete and complex sites from within the application suite not needing to stitch together 50 different random scripts to make a site. In the early days, you would have a forum, a separate CMS, and dozens of scripts each that had one function. Now you have one.

It’s like having an iPhone versus early mobile devices. Remember Steve Jobs on stage… “an iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator”.  Those were all separate functions previously. 

IPB is designed to be a complete ecosystem. Those that actually embrace it find that they can do a lot more than just trying to stitch together a forum with a bunch of other tools. 

[Randy Calvert]

By the way… even if you don’t move to IPS cloud… I would recommend consolidating everything into the IPB framework. It’s so much easier having a single source of truth for even the basic functions like user management, permissions, and being able to control everything from a single pane of glass. 

[marklcfc]

21 minutes ago, Randy Calvert said:

Move your self written app to Pages.  It can store data in a database and you can even then tie it more directly in with the rest of your site. 

 

16 minutes ago, Randy Calvert said:

By the way… even if you don’t move to IPS cloud… I would recommend consolidating everything into the IPB framework. It’s so much easier having a single source of truth for even the basic functions like user management, permissions, and being able to control everything from a single pane of glass. 

I do use Pages but I use a single line of includes for each page to bring the page into the forum after uploading them into a folder in public_html.

I think the pages are too big and complicated to move into the Pages app. Below is a portion of a 1000 long line file. I don't believe this will work with the Pages app.

Edited February 7, 2023 by marklcfc

[Randy Calvert]

There is no reason it could not be done in Pages. You would not be able to just copy/paste the exact code (table names would be different, etc) but pages or even custom applications could absolutely handle this. 

It would have most likely been easier to do from Pages to start with as it would have handled providing a system to enter data only for approved people automatically.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Randy Calvert

[marklcfc]

Wouldn't know where to start. The seperate database is also big one of the tables even has 75,000 rows.

Obviously it makes sense for it to be part of the framework but it would have been impossible to put together that way.

Edited February 7, 2023 by marklcfc

[The Old Man]

On 2/4/2023 at 2:34 PM, Charles said:

Of course we are putting effort into our cloud offerings as that part of our business is growing and self-hosted is declining. That's been the trend for about 10 years now.

I've got nothing against the cloud offering, personally its not for me due to the other reasons already mentioned, cost, sluggish speed, other uses etc.

We self-hosters have just got a nice Gallery update as well, it wasn't restricted to Cloud.

Just saying though, that if I sold apples for 10 years and then introduced a second product line oranges, ten years later I would expect to see sales of apples decline and sale of oranges grow. 

 

PS. Don't forget the devtools for 4.7.7 please!

Edited February 7, 2023 by The Old Man

[The Old Man]

23 minutes ago, The Old Man said:

PS. Don't forget the devtools for 4.7.7 please!

Thanks @Ryan Ashbrook !