Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5

[Ehren]

Welcome to Invision Community 5!

Over the coming weeks, we'll be exploring a bunch of new features and improvements coming to our user interface including our brand new theme editor, a new mobile UI, dark mode and performance improvements thanks to a reduction in both JavaScript and CSS. To kick off this series, let’s take a closer look at the new sidebar layout and new view modes for the forum index and topic pages.

Sidebar Layout

Traditionally, Invision Community has shipped with a horizontal header and navigation bar at the top of the page, which is still available in version 5. We're introducing a brand new (and optional) sidebar layout, which can be enabled or disabled easily from within your theme settings. The sidebar not only provides convenient access to your applications, activity streams and search bar, but you can now add links to nodes for even easier access to popular or commonly used areas of your community. For example - a category from your forum, an album from the Gallery, or a product group from Commerce.

Forum Index: Feed view

One of our goals for version 5 was to re-imagine new ways for your visitors to consume content, and the sidebar layout is just one of our solutions. Table view has been the typical way of displaying forums, providing visitors with a simple summary of the most recently active topic. Grid mode introduced cover photos to forums and is a great way to make your page more visually engaging, while fluid view allows visitors to filter through a list of topics to easily focus on multiple areas of the community.

Joining these view modes in version 5 is our new Feed view. Optional cover photos and featured forum colours allow you to personalise each forum, and a list of recently active topics with snippets of the most recent reply allow you to easily see what each forum is focusing on at a glance. The topic list drops below the cover photo and converts to a scrollable list on small devices. It's our fresh take on content display, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback!

 

Topic pages: Compact view

In addition, Invision Community 5 also introduces a new, compact layout option for topics. We wanted to create a layout which placed focus on your content while still keeping all of the authors profile information easily accessible within a mini profile. Stats, rank, badges, reputation points and more can be found by tapping the icon at the top of every post. The mini profile strip has also been added to other areas of the software too, such as comments and reviews in applications like Gallery and Blogs, and will appear on the mobile layout when the traditional "table view" is used in topics.

Switching between the new compact view and the author sidebar view takes just seconds giving you complete control over your community.

 

As part of this view, you also have the choice to feature/pin the original post to the top of every page, making it a breeze for your visitors to easily understand the context of replies without navigating back to page 1. Pinned posts have a slightly larger font-size to distinguish them from replies, and we've thoughtfully truncated them on pages beyond the first to keep scrolling to a minimum.

 

The new sidebar layout and view modes offer a fresh and innovative approach to navigating and interacting with your community. We’re really keen to hear your thoughts on these new views and whether you’ll be unleashing them on your own sites! We appreciate that no two sites are the same, and those who are a fan of the classic header look will benefit from quick styling tools and a visual way to re-arrange the header elements which we’ll cover in a later blog.

We’re looking forward to showcasing a whole bunch of new features over the coming weeks - so stay tuned, and we’ll see you then!

 

View full blog entry

[Cedric V]

This is remarkable. I love the new content scrolling feature on mobile. I'm this

close on dropping XenForo and migrating to Invision Community. 😅

Brilliant work to everyone involved. I love the new sidebar. Very cool to be able to link additional threads, forums or other features that are popular. Also, I didn't know Ehren was part of the IC Team. 😄 Good asset !

[Matt]

Just now, Aerodynamic said:

This is remarkable. I love the new content scrolling feature on mobile. I'm this

close on dropping XenForo and migrating to Invision Community. 😅

Brilliant work to everyone involved. I love the new sidebar. Very cool to be able to link additional threads, forums or other features that are popular. Also, I didn't know Ehren was part of the IC Team. 😄 Good asset !

Ehren is a superstar, he's barely scratched the surface on what he's been working on for the past six months. I'm really excited by these new views and the sidebar mode gives a very desktop app like experience, whereas the new mobile view is truly fit for purpose and not just a squished desktop view.

[Cedric V]

Just now, Matt said:

Ehren is a superstar, he's barely scratched the surface on what he's been working on for the past six months. I'm really excited by these new views and the sidebar mode gives a very desktop app like experience, whereas the new mobile view is truly fit for purpose and not just a squished desktop view.

Definitely. I see a small resemblance to the theme illuminate, always have loved that theme. Keep up the good work all! Can't wait till v5 is completely done. It seems you have been pushing some very innovative changes !

[Kirill Gromov]

Looks great, love the compact look of the posts! 👍

[InvisionHQ]

Great work @Ehren

[opentype]

Some nice ideas there. 
I’m not a fan of minimizing the user info in the topic view though. The personal touch of clearly seeing who you are interacting with is getting more important these days, not less. If anything, this view should only be triggered if there is not enough space, not in full desktop view. As a typographer, the example screenshot is painful to look at.  3 posts with just one or two lines each that are waaaaaaaay too long for comfortable reading. This was always a problem with a default IPS installations but now it was made worse, not better. If the user info remains to the side, it also improves the readability of the post content. 

[Matt]

Just now, opentype said:

Some nice ideas there. 
I’m not a fan of minimizing the user info in the topic view though. The personal touch of clearly seeing who you are interacting with is getting more important these days, not less. If anything, this view should only be triggered if there is not enough space, not in full desktop view. As a typographer, the example screenshot is painful to look at.  3 posts with just one or two lines each that are waaaaaaaay too long for comfortable reading. This was always a problem with a default IPS installations but now it was made worse, not better. If the user info remains to the side, it also improves the readability of the post content. 

No two sites are the same, which is why we've made it very simple to switch between layout types. More on that very soon.

[Dean_]

Agree with the above. The user mini profile while a good idea, hides away who you are on a post. If this is toggled, then great. Or, even if the username can still be coloured to their associated group would be a nice touch. Other than that, I like this!

[Charles]

Don’t get obsessed over things like compact mode 😀

These new modes are options and you can keep a traditional mode like we have now or experiment with new modes. It’s all just a toggle and you can mix and match to create endless customization possibilities. 

[Dreadknux]

I absolutely LOVE these new design ideas. Thanks a lot for all your hard work @Ehren and team! I've been playing around with the idea of a sidebar navigation purely because I can see my current topbar nav getting a bit chaotic once I start adding the other core IPS apps (and things in dropdown menus tend to be ignored/forgotten about). It's great to see this will be part of the core design as an option!

It'd be good to get an idea of just how customisable it is in terms of organising sections/content (although the part about placing 'sticky' nodes at the top gives me very exciting hints) and how it appears for mobile users, so I definitely can't wait to play around with it.

Being able to pin the OP to a topic is a brilliant feature as well. Can this be applied on a per-forum basis? I can see this being most useful in a 'News' forum scenario... I'm using Pages >< Forum integration a lot, so having a News forum design and News Pages database record design look more consistent with one another is something that really appeals to me (you guys just need to be able to fully integrate Page and Sync'd Topic Metrics and Reactions together and I'm fully sold!).

Also very intrigued with the new Forum View, I have been using the standard table format ever since I first picked up Invision some 15 years ago, and I'm feeling like it's getting a little stale..! 😆 Looking forward to trying this out.

One thing I'm very interested in knowing more about, design wise, is how sidebar content (the right hand sidebar, not the new nav menu on the left) will be displayed/respond to different device sizes. In the past all of that content just gets dumped underneath the main content, I wonder if that will be the case with V5?

I'm also interested in learning more about that "Feed" button that I've seen on the Mobile drawer in that video, when you're ready to start talking about it... 👀 

Well done guys, and can't wait to hear more!

30 minutes ago, opentype said:

I’m not a fan of minimizing the user info in the topic view though. The personal touch of clearly seeing who you are interacting with is getting more important these days, not less. If anything, this view should only be triggered if there is not enough space, not in full desktop view. As a typographer, the example screenshot is painful to look at.  3 posts with just one or two lines each that are waaaaaaaay too long for comfortable reading. This was always a problem with a default IPS installations but now it was made worse, not better. If the user info remains to the side, it also improves the readability of the post content. 

I imagine this would be a toggle in AdminCP to offer communities the option of displaying the minimized user info or not. Personally, I'd like to try it out, it seems interesting (and the minimized view here seems to keep the design consistent with the mobile view, which already displays user info above the post content in V4). But it'd be good to confirm if it's an option.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Dreadknux

[Matt]

Just now, Dreadknux said:

But it'd be good to confirm if it's an option.

It is indeed an option.

[Dreadknux]

I love it! Thanks Matt!

This is probably going to be discussed in a later video/blog or something, but it'd be really cool if you could move the user icons into the sidebar nav as well (perhaps underneath/above the search bar). I imagine with one of the previous videos teasing a dynamic block template system where elements can be drag-dropped around, this might be doable, but figured I'd express my anticipation for that here while I'm still quite excited! 😄

[Matt]

Ehren will be covering the theme editor in more depth very soon. I stole a little of his thunder with that gif but I see a lot of concern about new views and how they fit in with their community, so I wanted to show just how easy it is to toggle between them.

It's also worth mentioning that these layout options are per-theme and not global as they used to be, so you can mix and match across your community as you see fit.

[Ehren]

In addition to Matt’s post, each of your members (where a new group permission allows) can also choose their own preference out of the views. So if you’d prefer to use the traditional table view for the forum index and the traditional column view for topics (even if the admin has assigned other layouts), that’s of course possible. We’re absolutely not forcing change, just offering more options than before 🙂 

[Jordan Miller]

This is SO cool! Really looking forward to the release. Awesome job 🥲🫠🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[Kirill Gromov]

Waiting for a demo so we can try it out.

[Starship]

Looks amazing! I can't wait to try it out!

[My Sharona]

Is the navigation sidebar collapsible?

[Matt]

Just now, My Sharona said:

Is the navigation sidebar collapsible?

Only when using a smaller screen where it drops into the menu button on mobile view. There's no way to hide it using desktop (unless you choose to use the classic view where there is no sidebar!)

[Ocean West]

I am impressed great job!

I do have one question that I we all know the answer to...

 

Quote

"When it's ready©™®"

 

[Randy Calvert]

I found the super secret server hosting the site!  Invision.local!  That’s what you get for not blaring out that localhost address!  

All the secrets exposed!

[Jim M]

16 minutes ago, Randy Calvert said:

I found the super secret server hosting the site!  Invision.local!  That’s what you get for not blaring out that localhost address!  

All the secrets exposed!

[Mike G.]

This looks absolutely amazing! 

[Miss_B]

It looks indeed amazing. @Ehren is truly an artist. Well done.