Since the release of IP.Board 3.2 (and our addon application updates), we have been hard at work resolving issues reported to us in order to deliver the most stable and secure community software available on the net. We are very proud of our latest releases, yet we are still working hard to deal with any issues that affect you, our customers. Before we start discussing changes you can expect to see in future versions of our addon applications, we wanted to be sure that the current releases work reliably and efficiently across the board (no pun intended).
Having said that, however, we did manage to slip in a few new feature changes for the next application releases that we felt you might be interested in hearing about.
IP.Content 2.2.2
IP.Content databases and articles have powerful field configuration options, allowing you to create and customize the fields available in every database (including the built in articles system). An oft-used field is the "Editor" field type, which produces a WYSIWYG editor for posting content to the database. You can optionally allow HTML in this field, which is useful when you are posting complex articles on your site. Allowing HTML in this field, however, creates a situation where one administrator may not want to translate newlines in the editor into newlines on the page, while the next administrator may expect just that to occur.
For IP.Content 2.2.2 we have changed the "Allow HTML" option for each "Editor" field to a dropdown with the options "No", "Yes (change newlines to HTML line breaks)" and "Yes (do not parse newlines)". If you can use HTML in your posts in the forums, this is analogous to the per-post HTML posting options. If you choose "No", HTML in the field is not parsed at all (this is the safest option if you allow non-trusted users to post content in the database). If you choose "Yes (change newlines to HTML line breaks)", HTML is parsed as you would expect, and additionally hitting the enter key on your keyboard to produce a line break in the editor will translate to a line break in the final output. If you choose "Yes (do not parse newlines)", HTML is parsed, but newlines in the editor will not be turned into HTML newlines. This is useful if you post a lot of HTML content and wish to format in a way that is easier to read, but cannot allow line breaks to show up everytime there is a line break (for instance, if you post HTML tables and do not want newlines between table and tr tags to result in a <br /> tag in the output).
If you don't allow HTML in your editor fields, nothing changes for you. If you do, however, you now have one more level of control to ensure your content is produced in exactly the manner you expect.
IP.Calendar 3.2.2
I would like to take this moment to point out something here that many of our customers have overlooked recently due to the fact that IP.Calendar has traditionally been packaged with IP.Board, instead of released separately. IP.Calendar is a separate addon application; it is no longer part of IP.Board directly. This means that it can (and will) receive independent bug fix and feature updates, and subsequently it's version number will not always coincide with IP.Board. When we release IP.Board 3.2.3, you will also see a release of IP.Calendar 3.2.2. This is a minor detail, and does not affect the functionality or ability to use the software, however it is important to keep in mind when you are looking at our tracker and trying to determine if a bug fix has been released yet.
With that out of the way... we wanted to tell you about a minor, but highly requested change coming with the next release of IP.Calendar. Beginning with IP.Calendar 3.2.2, users who RSVP for an event will be able to un-RSVP for the event themselves, without intervention from a moderator or the event owner. The event owner will still be able to remove any attendee from the list (if given the permission to do so in the ACP), however individual attendees will now also see the delete icon next to their name if they have RSVP'd, allowing them to remove themself from the list of attendees.
IP.Nexus 1.3.2
IP.Nexus is continuing to mature as a product, and has proven itself a stable and reliable solution for monetizing your community. We have many great ideas for the next major release of IP.Nexus, however Mark has introduced a change in 1.3.2 that we felt our customers would be interested in hearing about.
Beginning with IP.Nexus 1.3.2, you will now be able to issue PayPal refunds right through the IP.Nexus administrator interface. On orders made through PayPal, there will be a refund option available, which will automatically refund the payment from your PayPal account to the purchaser's account. This small but useful enhancement can save you a lot of time when managing your transaction purchases using IP.Nexus 1.3.2.
And more to come...
Our maintenance releases here at IPS traditionally only include bug fixes. We do this to ensure we are focusing on stabilizing the release without the potential of introducing new complexities or issues, something every developer has to be mindful of anytime a new feature is built. We decided, however, that these few small but useful changes could be introduced safely without compromising the stability of the software, and at the same time allow you some additional flexibility and functionality from your purchases. We are very excited about the changes we have in the pipeline for our future addon application updates and can't wait to start blogging about them, but until then we hope these small additions will tide you over. :smile: