Invision Community 5: New Live Community Features

[Matt]

Bring your community to life with the latest live community features coming to Invision Community 5.

Last year we introduced new features that immediately showed who was currently reading a topic and who was replying. This feature leveraged new technologies to connect members with each other instantly.

In this blog post, we'll delve into the latest live community features for Invision Community 5 and explore how they enhance our sense of togetherness within our communities. We'll examine how these features instantly notify us about new events, updates, or interactions and how they contribute to a shared sense of presence.

These features go beyond the static posts and comments we've grown accustomed to and introduce a real-time element. Whether you're part of a support community, a gaming forum, or a professional network, these features will have you feeling like you're interacting with other community members simultaneously, fostering a strong sense of shared experiences. 

 

 

Posting
We've all been involved in a busy topic where you're keen to see what replies your latest post has. Select packages on Invision Community 4 can see who is active on a topic and who is typing, but you have to hit refresh to see the new posts added to the topic. If you're anything like me, then you hammer refresh until something new appears.

With Invision Community 5, this is no longer a problem. As you interact with a topic, new replies are automatically added to the topic without needing to refresh. This one feature brings the conversation to life, and you get a real sense of other members interacting with the topic at the same time as you.

 

 

Reactions
Did you drop a razor-sharp GIF or post something applause-worthy? Watch as others react to your content in real time with Invision Community 5. There's no need to refresh or return to the topic later to see who enjoyed what you wrote.

Getting rewarded for your content is gratifying and encourages you to post more and show your appreciation for other's content via reactions.

Notifications
Notifications have long been a valuable way to be notified when anything important happens in your community. It may be that someone has quoted your content, tagged you in a post or started a new topic in a forum you're following.

With Invision Community 5, you can watch the notification count rack up in real time, alerting you to new events that you may otherwise miss as they happen.

 

 

We hope that you've enjoyed reading about these new features and look forward to them coming to select packages for Invision Community 5. They provide a sense of togetherness and immediacy, making it feel like we're interacting with fellow community members simultaneously. 

We're keen to hear what you think, please leave a comment below.

The features discussed in this announcement will not be available for Invision Community Classic. Click here to learn more about switching to our platform to get this and other benefits.
 

View full blog entry

[Randy Calvert]

[My Sharona]

3 hours ago, Matt said:

Posting
We've all been involved in a busy topic where you're keen to see what replies your latest post has. Select packages on Invision Community 4 can see who is active on a topic and who is typing, but you have to hit refresh to see the new posts added to the topic. If you're anything like me, then you hammer refresh until something new appears.

With Invision Community 5, this is no longer a problem. As you interact with a topic, new replies are automatically added to the topic without needing to refresh. This one feature brings the conversation to life, and you get a real sense of other members interacting with the topic at the same time as you.

 

Question on posts showing without having to refresh.

This sounds like a very nice addition. The question I would have though, is where is the last read cookie set? To the last post on the page when it was opened or to the last post automatically added? I can foresee complications arising in either scenario.

Thanks. Questions aside, v5 looks quite impressive.

[Dreadknux]

Sadly not a feature that I will be able to take advantage of, being self-hosted, but still a nice addition.

I did notice a new icon in the userbar in this video though, right next to the profile picture. I'm guessing this is where users can quickly check the Activity Feed in V5? That'll be quite useful 🙂

[Matt]

1 hour ago, Dreadknux said:

Sadly not a feature that I will be able to take advantage of, being self-hosted, but still a nice addition.

If you are interested in switching in the future, just let us know. We can help you get your data migrated. We're fully booked this side of Christmas and New Year is already busy for self hosted to cloud conversions but we'll always do what we can to help.

 

1 hour ago, Dreadknux said:

I did notice a new icon in the userbar in this video though, right next to the profile picture. I'm guessing this is where users can quickly check the Activity Feed in V5? That'll be quite useful

It is indeed. 🙂 

[David N.]

This is GREAT!!! 

I was wondering if we were going to get a little Xmas V5 video, and you delivered. Love it!! 😄

[David N.]

Question about that gif animation: while Olivia is typing her answer, we're not seeing "Olivia is typing" in the top window, is that because her post is too short to trigger the Real time Who's Typing feature? 

I suppose that ideally, if I'm watching a thread, I should see that someone is typing something, wait, and when the answer is submitted, I end up seeing the answer pop up without having to refresh. 

[UncrownedGuard]

On 12/21/2023 at 12:07 PM, Matt said:

Notifications
Notifications have long been a valuable way to be notified when anything important happens in your community. It may be that someone has quoted your content, tagged you in a post or started a new topic in a forum you're following.

With Invision Community 5, you can watch the notification count rack up in real time, alerting you to new events that you may otherwise miss as they happen.

Everything looks awesome so far!  One thing that I would love to see addressed with the notifications in IC5 is a better link between the actual notification menu (the red bubble where you can see a quick list of your notifications) and the little popup on the screen you get a notification while viewing the site.  Currently, if you click that popup box, you get taken to the item in question (great feature), but it does not clear out the notification in the menu bar.  

A minor issue, but it does lead to some redundancy in the user experience.  E.G., if Matt was on when I quoted this post of his and he clicked that pop-up box on the bottom of the screen to see the quoted message, the notification tray would still show him that he has an unread quoted post even though that would no longer be true.

[jesuralem]

On 12/22/2023 at 2:36 PM, Dreadknux said:

Sadly not a feature that I will be able to take advantage of, being self-hosted, but still a nice addition.

 

For minute I did hope this would be available for self hosted because it seems very integrated with how new posts are managed and displayed...

[kalin]

Will we have to translate version 5 from scratch?