IPS Community Suite has long had a reputation system; first we had a simple up/down system, later updated to introduce a Likes system as an alternative. Whichever system you chose to use, it tied in with our reputation system.

We're pleased to introduce the latest updates to the reputation system, and it's something that has been requested for quite some time: Reactions.

Quite simply, reactions allow users to offer more fine-grained sentiments towards content than a simple up/down or 'like'. They are now in common usage on social networks, and so users expect to be able to be more nuanced in their response to something they see.

Let's see how they work in a post, and then cover the options you'll have available.

What you see above is the default setup for a site that has used the Like system in version 4.1. We include 5 reactions by default:

• Like
• Thanks
• Confused
• Sad
• Haha

If you currently use the older style up/down reputation system, don't fret - you'll still get the new reactions on upgrade, but they'll be disabled by default and instead the new reaction UI will show up/down reactions. This gives you the flexibility to decide which of the new reactions, if any, you want to allow.

So, those are the basics - but what configuration options can you expect to see? First, you can of course add your own reactions! We expect that beyond the default reactions you'd expect to find, some sites will want reaction types specific to their use-case. On an intranet, you might want to have 'agree' and 'disagree' reactions for staff to use when responding to discussions. On a gaming community, you might replace the icons to be some graphic from a video game that means something to your particular userbase. There's a wealth of possibilities.

Each reaction you set up can be configured to adjust the original author's reputation count - a reaction can be positive (i.e. award a reputation point), negative (i.e. subtract a reputation point), or neutral (i.e. leave the reputation count unchanged). Our default set won't include any negative reactions, but you are free to configure these and new reactions to suit your own use-case. A user's total reputation count is still shown alongside their content and in their profile, of course.

If you don't want to use the new reactions for whatever reason, you can disable all of them except Like, and it'll behave just the like 4.1-and-earlier system:

Sites that currently use the up/down system don't show a list of names of users, and instead show an overall reputation score for the content. With the new reaction system, you can enable this even if you don't use up/down reactions. This is great if you plan to use reactions as, for example, an agree/disagree system, or where the content score is more important to your site than the individual reaction types.

As you'd expect, you can click individual reaction counts (or the overall reputation score, if you enable that setting) to view who reacted to the content. This remains a permission setting that you can apply per-group.

On touch devices, on-hover functionality is not suitable, and so for these devices the reactions UI looks like this:

Reactions play well with all areas of the suite, including Recommended Replies:

...and activity streams...

...and a couple of places we aren't quite ready to reveal yet  

We hope you're looking forward to this new feature as much as we are. It's already been a hit on our internal testing site, and we're looking forward to seeing how clients customize it for use on their own community.

Developer note: Reactions are one of two new features (the other currently unannounced) so far that make use of PHP Traits.

Following on from our previous news entry "Add Similar Event" we are pleased to announce another feature that will make adding and discovering new events as easy as possible.

Support for geographic event locations has been in Calendar for some time now but with 4.2 we have taken this a step further with venue support. When enabled, members can set the event location from a list of pre-defined venues. Address details and maps will then be automatically shown in the event view.

Additionally, a link will be added so that other events occurring at this venue can be discovered.

Venues can be added via the admin control panel or inline when adding events (for users with permission)

If a venue has not already been added then a fallback to the standard address form input is provided.

We have a few more Calendar improvements still to reveal so be sure to follow News & Updates for further announcements.

Social Sign In has long been a feature of the IPS Community Suite but we are always looking for ways to make interaction easier for your visitors. A small but significant improvement we are able to add for 4.2 is to include social sign in links directly at the point where your customers are ready to contribute.

Visitors are much more likely to comment when the registration process is as fluid as possible and social sign in has fast become a familiar and efficient way of doing so. After signing up via these methods users are logged in and brought right back to where they started ready to comment.

Feedback from our testers has already shown that this change has an immediate effect on the volume of new registrations and we look forward to making it widely available with 4.2.

Recurring events are not new with IPS Community Suite but often you may wish to create similar events that don't necessarily occur on a regular schedule. Previously this has meant creating a new event for each and then manually re-entering the information for event description, location, cover photo, RSVP options and so on. Often the only thing changing between the events would be the date and time.

Starting with IPS Community Suite 4.2 it is now possible to create a similar event based on one you have already added with a single action.

After opting to add a similar event you will be presented with the add new event form with all of the event info already filled out for you. Just set the date and time, make any required adjustments and submit your new event.

Note: This option is only presented to the author of the original event in order to reduce visual clutter for regular visitors.

We will be announcing many more interface improvements such as this in the coming weeks so be sure to follow the News & Updates section for updates.

Improvements to our Gallery application, both in terms of new functionality and minor enhancements, are coming in 4.2. One area that was identified early on for improvement was the Gallery image view page and specifically how the lightbox feature available on this page behaved.

We adjusted the buttons that overlay the main Gallery image to use icons instead of text

If you click to view an alternative image size, we improved the header styling of this page as well for clarity and to allow easier downloading of the image you are viewing

When viewing an image, you can open the image in a lightbox by clicking the icon at the very top far right corner. When doing so, there was previously a button at the bottom left hand corner of the lightbox if you wanted to download the image. We modernized this experience by implementing an overlay that you can click on in order to download the full size image instead.

You will notice there are now left/right arrows in the lightbox view here. You can click left/right to scroll through the images in the container, just as if you clicked through the images in the photostrip immediately below the image on the main page. You can also use the left/right arrow keys on your keyboard. While this would navigate through the photostrip previously, it will now also navigate through the images in the lightbox as well.

When viewing on your mobile device, the lightbox has been cleaned up allowing more image to display which is a welcome change for your mobile users.

We have more changes coming to Gallery in 4.2 which we will be revealing soon but in the mean time we hope you enjoy these useful improvements.

IPS Community Suite comes with a default profile photo which is used when members have not set a profile photo for their account. While this model has served the software well for years, we felt it was time for an update to the software to keep pace with current internet trends. This has led to one of the latest changes you can expect to see with version 4.2: letter profile photos

When upgrading you will be asked if you wish to use letter profile photos, or if you wish to stick with the generic per-theme default profile photo that is used presently. You can change your mind any time after upgrading by adjusting the setting in the AdminCP as well.

We have tested many languages to ensure maximum compatibility. The font used in the image is automatically selected based upon the characters to be written to the image, so sites that have more than one language will see compatibility for all of the profile photos that are created automatically.

The colors are not set for each letter. You will notice in the screenshot that each "A" letter photo has a different color. They are chosen randomly when generated.

We hope that this change helps bring your communities to life with a little more style, flair, and uniqueness for each new user on your site.

Developer Note

The code is structured in such a manner that third party developers can further extend the feature with plugins. The methods for writing text to images are exposed through our central \IPS\Image class introducing new possibilities in your own custom code.

I made a quick video to demo things we have already announced for 4.2 so far.

Enjoy  

Improving your SEO can be a complex undertaking with many different approaches but there are things that everyone knows are good practice and also more modern approaches to SEO that have changed since we first started developing IPS Community Suite. So it was time for a review and update.

Unfortunately no pretty screenshots on this one as this is all behind the scenes stuff but still quite useful to know . Also, some of this may sound a bit technical and dry but feel free to search some of these technologies if you are curious.

• Move from HTML structured data to JSON-LD and enhance our existing markup with sensible additions.
• Calendar, blog, forum and pages (articles) data marked up for rich snippets.
• General review of our schema.org markup and enhance where appropriate. Use sitelinks search and other sensible markup such as the website and logo markup.
• Allow administrators to specify social profile links in the AdminCP which we then show links to in the footer and also make available in schema.org markup.
• Fix many duplicate page title issues.
• Review and ensure nofollow/noindex tags are used in appropriate areas.
• Add item tags as HTML meta tags
• Adding <link rel="next" value="next page url"> helps search engines know next/previous page.

Nothing like a bulleted list of items to get you excited! But really these should be welcome improvements to all.

One of our more technically-oriented features for 4.2, we have added more detailed logs of user logins, and the devices and IP addresses used. This brings several new features:

Notification of a new device sign in

If enabled, users can receive an email notification when a new device is used to log into their account:

When a user signs in for the first time, a special key is set to recognise the browser on subsequent logins. This mean the notification email does not trigger on a new IP address, which would be annoying when travelling or if using a network where the IP address changes regularly. Instead, the notification is only triggered if someone signs into your account from a new physical device or web browser.

UserCP Device Management

If enabled, a new page will show in the user's settings page showing all the devices which have been used to log into their within the last 90 days (which is recent enough that could still be logged in if "Remember Me" was checked).

Users can see the device, browser, physical location (obtained by a GeoIP lookup) and if applicable, how the login was processed (for example, if the sign in was with Facebook or Twitter, this will show). If they chose "Remember Me" when logging in, they can undo that (handy if you realise you accidentally left yourself signed in on a public computer).

If they see anything they don't recognise, a page to walk them through the necessary steps to re-secure their account is available.

New Two-Factor Authentication Setting

"Logging into the front-end" is one of the options of when to prompt for Two Factor Authentication. In 4.2, this has been separated into two distinct settings:

• Logging into the front-end from a new device
• Logging into the front-end from a known device

If you enable the former, but not the latter, and the user has previously logged in devices, the system will automatically show an explanation to users alongside the other available recovery option. This can be useful especially if you do not want to offer other recovery options.

AdminCP Device Management

In the AdminCP, administrators can see all the device and IPs a member has used. They can also disable automatic login for any device.

The system can also detect if another user is using the same device and will show this in the list of devices.

I am sure we have all accidentally clicked delete on a post in your community and then realized you needed it. Luckily we now have Delayed Deletes to easily restore deleted content.

You can delete just as you normally do as you moderate and your posts will be removed just like now. The main difference is that you can now view recently deleted content and restore as needed in the Moderator Control Panel.

All you have to do is click the deleted item and you will be taken to that item in context of where it used to be. This makes is much easier to understand why it was deleted and decide if you should restore.

Delayed Deletes is a feature that could be a life saver for your community and we cannot wait to get it out to you.

This release focuses on bug fixes and performance along with some new key features.

Ability for members to lock and unlock their own content
We've added a new group level option to allow members to lock and unlock their own content. This is disabled by default.

Messenger Quota Display
To help diagnose issues your members may find, we now display their personal message quota in the ACP.

Default view for Activity Stream
When creating a new activity stream, you can specify either expanded or condensed as the default view. This is especially handy for streams you wish to share with other members.

Other key changes include:

• Performance and speed improvements.
• A new moderator setting to restrict users from ignoring moderators.
• A new group setting to hide a group from filters in search.
• When moving content moderators are now prompted for where you want to be redirected after the action.
• An email is now sent when an account is locked for too many bad login attempts.

Check out the Release Notes for a full list of changes.

There are many Calendar related improvements in 4.2 designed to make adding and engaging with events easier than ever before. First of these is Event Reminders. 

Reminders are easy to create. Simply use the Set Reminder button shown on all future events and specify when you would like your reminder.

Changed your mind? Simply adjust the reminder or remove it altogether.

When the time comes a notification will be sent via the member's chosen email or inline method.

Event reminders are a simple but often requested feature and we're excited to be introducing it with 4.2. Don't forget to follow the News & Updates section as we have many more announcements to help keep your members engaged.

Following on from our previous entry about the new Recommended Replies feature, we also have one more small feature change that will be very useful.

Content Message is a small feature available in all IPS Community Suite content areas (forums, blogs, gallery, etc.) and allows a moderator to put a message at the top of any item.

This is useful if you have a special use for the area people are posting in, need to encourage conversation to stay on topic, or perhaps the conversation is becoming heated and you need to remind people to behave.

Sometimes the smallest features can prove the most useful and already I have found myself reaching for this feature out of habit from using it on our test 4.2 installs and missing it on our production site. I cannot wait to have it available and I am sure you will enjoy the ability to add custom notes to any area of the Suite.

Development Note

For our power users: this feature and the Recommended Replies feature use a new content meta data capability. This allows you to store miscellaneous data that is attached to a content item which does not need to be otherwise searched or exposed unless you are viewing that item. We will provide technical details on this later but it is a really easy way to store data about content without having to create additional tables or methods.

Sometimes you may find situations where you want to highlight one or more replies to a content item to bring attention to a really great response. This is especially true on busy communities where you might have dozens or even hundreds of replies in a single discussion.

There is now an ability for a moderator to Recommend a reply (or multiple replies) and even leave an optional note explaining why they think you should view that post.

When a reply is Recommended you will see a snippet at the top of the content item along with the optional moderator note and a link to jump right to that reply.

You can Recommend more than one reply and this feature works through IPS Community Suite in forum topic, blog entries, gallery images, and so on. You can set this permission along with other moderator permissions in the AdminCP.

We really think this will allow moderators to bring attention to some of the best replies and guide users to the best content your community has to offer.

We are well into development on IPS Community Suite 4.2 and are excited to start announcing all the new features and improvements.

Our next big release is focused on engagement with your members. You will see enhancements to our Reputation system, new ways to encourage people to register on your community, and enhancements to existing features to make them more interactive. There are also entirely new capabilities we cannot wait to show you ranging from new ways to organize content to tools to help promote your community.

Version 4.2 also features a refreshed AdminCP and default front-end design. Theme changes in 4.2 are mostly in the CSS framework so your existing themes will either work without issue or require minor changes to work in the new version.

Over the next several weeks we will be posting news entries with previews of upcoming features fairly often. Be sure to follow our News section, our Facebook, or Twitter to stay up to date.

We expect IPS Community Suite 4.2 to be out in mid-2017 with a public preview available sooner.

Everyone at IPS has worked very hard on this update and we think you will love it!

Two large changes include Two Factor Authentication:

And changes to make Google less jumpy about password inputs:

Some smaller changes include:

• Pinterest share link has been added
• Images embedded in the editor can now have an alternative title set for accessibility
• The Approval Queue page now has a "Hide" button to hide content (rather than only being able to approve / delete)
• Disabling Profile Photo uploads will now also disable importing from a URL
• The Admin CP will now indicate whether or not a member is connected to a social network
• The Admin CP will now display more information for a user who has been banned
• imgur embedded is now supported

Check out the Release Notes for a full list of changes.

There are also new settings to control when a user is required (or not) to setup 2FA:

You can control what areas will prompt for 2FA authentication:

And how the system should recover if a user cannot login via 2FA on their account:

An administrator can configure these settings to tailor the security needs of their community. For example, you might want to require 2FA your admins and moderators but keep it optional for your members. 

On the front end your members will see a new Account Security section under their settings area.

Once authenticated, a user will then be able to enable various security options. For example, the Google Authenticator setup shows an easy to follow setup.

We hope you enjoy this new level of system security. IPS has plans to add additional 2FA providers beyond Question and Answers and Google Authenticator. We will keep you updated!

This change will be in version 4.1.18 which is scheduled to be released in late January 2017.

You can upgrade by downloading in the client area or just click upgrade in your AdminCP.

To take advantage of this offer, please use coupon code IPSPROMO16 at checkout. This promotion is active starting now and valid until 1 December 2016 (EST) and applies to new purchases only. We are unable to retroactively apply the discount.

This promotion also applies to Community in the Cloud for your first month of service!

If you’ve been waiting to purchase a new license or add products to your suite, this is the last opportunity to obtain this level of pricing! Happy shopping!

Check out the release notes for the full list of what's new and our preview articles for details on some of the most interesting changes:

• Better Analytics Integration
• Tag Quick Edit
• Default Warning Notes
• Custom RSS Feeds
• Word and Link Filters
• Leaderboard
• Moderation Improvements
• Security and Privacy
• Embeds and Integration

We hope you enjoy all these new additions coming in 4.1.17 and be sure to read the release notes for many smaller changes. The big feature in 4.1.17 is the new Leaderboard which we really think will enhance your community.

If you like using pre-release beta versions, the public beta of 4.1.17 will be available in the client area on 28 November. We support betas on live installs with some exceptions so give it a try if you like to be first to try the new features!

https://twitter.com/invisionps/status/799269691579449344

I get:

You can do that will many popular sites already and we are adding a lot more:

• codepen.io
• coub.com
• deviantart.com
• docs.com
• funnyordie.com
• gettyimages.com
• iFixit.com
• kickstarter.com
• meetup.com
• mixcloud.com
• mix.office.com
• on.aol.com
• reddit.com
• reverbnation.com
• screencast.com
• screenr.com
• slideshare.net
• smugmug.com
• ustream.tv
• Google Maps

Once you enable Google Maps under Community Enhancements by entering your Google API key you can them just paste in a link to a Google Map location. So when you paste a link to a Google Map in an editor it shows like this:

The maps are also interactive on the screen.

REST API

We have also added quite a few more endpoints, particularly in member management, to our REST API. If you are not already familiar with the REST API it is a great way to integrate external systems with IPS Community Suite. You can both fetch and modify data in the Suite via the API. REST API documentation...

Third Party Diagnostics

This is a bit more of a technical feature so feel free to skip if it does not interest you. If you use third party plugins or applications from our Marketplace or from other sites you may occasionally encounter issues in the Suite caused by those items but it is often hard to know the root issue. There are now tools in the AdminCP to show all places in the code that third party items are modifying to help with diagnosing issues. The Suite will now also try to detect if an error it encounters is referencing a third party plugin and suggest you disable it to see if the issue is resolved.

New Support Tool

Though not specifically about embeds or integrations, the new Support Tool does better help diagnose issues so I thought I would give it a nice shout out. It really does help to find server problems, database issues, or outdated files that might interfere with your site. It also makes support so much easier if you submit your ticket to us via the Support Tool as it sends along a temporary login (if you allow it) for us to use. The new design simplifies the tool down to just one step and it gives you a report and suggested actions.

This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

Birthday Control

You may wish to make birthday viewing only show to admins or you can completely disable prompting for a birthday if you consider that information sensitive.

Member Delete Name Retention

When deleting a member in the AdminCP, if you choose to keep their posts the system currently names the posts with a display name of "Guest user" where user is the previous display name of the member you deleted. You can how choose to retain their name in posts or not so you can either have it as it is now or simple "Guest" on member delete.

Password Strength

You now have two new options for password: show a strength meter and require strong passwords. You can choose to either just show the meter as a suggestion or you can also choose to enforce a password strength. You can choose between three levels of password enforcement parameters depending on how strict you choose to be.

Guest Terms Banner

There is a new option to show a guest terms of service banner when a new visitor first visits your site. You can set the text shown in the display and you can also put in two special tags to automatically link to your Terms of Service or Privacy Policy page.

Age Restrictions

We have always had COPPA support in the Suite but we have extended this to be a more generic age restriction feature. You can now set your site to reject registrations from anyone under a certain age you specify. For privacy, the birthday entered on registration is only used to calculate permission and is never stored.

This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

We have already talked about a few new moderation improvements:

• Default Warning Notes
• Tag Quick Edit
• Word and Link Improvements

Now let's go over a few more new features that are designed to help moderation.

Multi Page Actions

When you split a topic or delete replies to some content that has multiple pages you would always be redirected back to the first page and first post. This could get a bit annoying if you were previously very deep into a conversation. We now try to remember where you were and keep your place after those items are removed.

Hide Unapproved Content

Previously you had only two options when viewing content that was pending moderator approval: delete and approve. You can now choose to hide an item rather than approving it so you can remove it from the approval queue without deleting.

Moderator Actions on Reports

When a moderator changes a report status it now logs that action so other moderators can view when and who changed a status.

Display Name History

You can now see a display name history on the front end for a user. This can also be enabled for the public to see per-group if you want everyone to see the display name changes of a member.

Animated Profile Photos

You can now disable animated profile photos so your users cannot apply them to their profile. This will not go back and remove existing photos but will stop new additions.

IP Tools

The IP tools have had an update to make finding IPs with their related members and posts easier. This works with both IPv4 and IPv6.

You can also search for all uses of an IP by member or wildcard search an IP to find all uses of an IP range.

These changes to moderator tools will help you better moderate your community and allow you to focus on member interaction rather than member management. In addition to the items linked at the top of this entry we have already talked about, these small changes come together to make moderation even easier in IPS Community Suite.

This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

First you will notice the new feature of member leaders based on a specific time frame. In the example above it is set to All Time showing those members with the most reputation overall on your community. It also shows the content with the most reputation for the same timeframe so you get a snapshot of both popular members and popular content in one view.

The Past Leaders tab shows the "winners" of each day in a history. The system counts all reputation made each day and logs the members who had the top reputation counts that day. Using reputation rather than post count encourages your members to post quality of quantity which is really important to any site.

Those who win the day also get a badge on their profile page to highlight that they were the member with the most reputation for a particular day.

Top Members shows you a list of all members sorted by various metrics. By default you will see members sorted by reputation but you can also easily sort by total post content Suite-wide or per-app. All of these views can be linked directly to so if you wanted a menu item to show members who post the most files in Downloads you can just directly link to that sort view.

There are various settings to control the default behavior of the Leaderboard. You can define the default view and how many members to show which is helpful to tailor it to your needs.

We hope you enjoy this initial launch of the new Leaderboard feature. We are excited about the new content and member discovery abilities this offers and look forward to adding new options to the Leaderboard as we continue to develop!

This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.