Invision Community Blog: Invision Community

IP.Board 3.4 Dev Update: Editor improvements

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

With a product history of over ten years, it's quite often a challenge keeping the product right on trend. Old technologies go and we make provisions to remove them and likewise, we make provisions to incorporate new technologies.

For example, IP.Board was the first bulletin board to incorporate Ajax functionality all the way back in IP.Board 2.1 back in 2005. We were also one of the first boards to add in 'WYSIWYG' editing to make constructing styled posts much easier. Of course, this was long before jQuery and Prototype frameworks make writing javascript easier so we hand-rolled our own editor. This was eventually replaced in February 2011 with the arrival of IP.Board 3.2 in which we used CKEditor.

However, the underpinnings of the editor remained unchanged which lead to some challenges. For example, the actual post was saved as BBCode in the database. This meant that the post had to be converted into BBCode before saving and then converted back into HTML before editing or showing the post. This lead to some frustrating due to inconsistencies with this process.

Happily, the underpinnings to our editor have now been completely rewritten to increase stability and to remove these inconsistencies. Now, the post is actually saved as cleaned HTML (via the excellent HTMLPurify) which means it does not have to be converted between states. You can still edit the BBCode manually if you wish, but this is handled by a single BBCode plug-in for CKEditor. This is very exciting because it frees up IP.Board from having to deal with BBCode manually saving hundreds of lines of code.

Of course, your custom BBCode will work normally and because of built-in legacy functionality you won't need to convert your posts to the new format as this is handled 'on-the-fly'.

We've also taken the time to improve several other elements within the editor:

Code Boxes
The code box has been improved to allow you to select the code format (HTML, Javascript, PHP, etc) and a starting line number. Tabs and spaces are also preserved correctly.

Live Previews
When adding quote and code boxes, the editor will preview them live, like so:

The code box when rendered fully contains striping and line numbers which makes it easier to read the code:

We're confident that by rewriting the editor and parsing engines, the editor in IP.Board 3.4 will be much more stable and reduce those annoyances which can sometimes crop up when writing complex posts.

IP.Blog 2.6: Audience Building and Promotion

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Another of the goals for IP.Blog 2.6 development was to increase the level of user engagement, both from existing on-site users and from elsewhere.

Auto Share on Content Creation
To complement the existing share links which appear alongside blog entries, it is now possible to automatically share Blog content with Facebook and Twitter at the time of posting. This is possible even if the content author has not yet linked their account with the sharing services. If a user has not yet authenticated they will be prompted to do so inline, provided they have opted to share and auto share has been enabled by the administrator.

This significantly reduces the barrier to sharing that now exists.

Share Images
When sharing content with Facebook the page is checked for Open Graph meta tags. By default a tag is added to your logo for the purpose of displaying an image alongside the shared content snippet at Facebook. Starting with IP.Blog 2.6 we've included additional tags for all attachments that have been added to your content. It is therefore now possible to select a specific image which more appropriately matches what you are sharing.

Auto Follow
In previous versions of IP.Blog, it has been possible for Blog owners to optionally choose to be subscribed to all comments made on their blog via the per blog settings. The problem with this approach is that the option defaults to off and as many blog owners never revisit this settings page after the initial blog creation, it often goes unnoticed.

In the forthcoming 2.6 release this setting has been removed and instead replaced by a checkbox presented when posting individual blog entries.

This has two major benefits over the existing implementation. Firstly the checkbox is placed in a more prominent position and secondly it allows more granular control over the content notifications are received for. Additionally, the setting now defaults to auto follow in line with the rest of the IPS suite which should result in greater Blog participation.

Reputation
As of IP.Blog 2.6 it will now be possible to view the reputation or likes both given and received in a user's profile in a similar fashion to content in other applications across the suite.

Blog related reputation will also appear in the global "most liked/highest reputation content" section of IPB bringing further emphasis to this application.

Quick Nav
The quick navigation feature within IP.Board allows an at a glance overview of the most important sections within IP.Board. This functionality now extends to IP.Blog showing featured blogs and the logged in user's own blogs.

These areas of IP.Blog can now be reached in the fewest number of clicks in a consistent manner from whatever your location on the site.

IP.Blog 2.6: SEO Improvements and Microformats

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:30:00 +0000

With the recent IP.Board 3.3 update much emphasis was placed on search engine optimization. Many areas were found where a small change would make a big difference in preventing duplicate content, reducing crawl errors and ultimately resulting in better rankings. One of the goals for IP.Blog 2.6 was to continue this trend and identify potential improvements.

Duplicate Content
Recent algorithm changes used by the major search engines have highlighted duplicate content as a particularly relevant problem. With modern web applications such as IP.Blog it is often possible for interface elements to cause genuinely unique content to unintentionally fall into this trap.

One such area we have addressed in IP.Blog is the filtering of blogs on the index page. By filtering and sorting the content on these pages, the same content can be displayed in slightly different ways. Canonical tags have now been added causing content to be attributed to the single canonical URL regardless of the URL search engines use to enter the page.

Page Titles
When viewing individual categories within a blog the title shown was always that of the blog itself. For IP.Blog 2.6 we have tweaked these titles to also include the category name in the format;

Category Name - Blog Name - Site Name

Additionally, canonical tags have been added to these pages to prevent further problems with duplicate content.

Dead End Links
With IPB 3.3 we introduced changes to the way user profiles were linked. In cases where site owners disallowed profile viewing for guests, there were still numerous links to profiles throughout the site that resulted in permission denied error messages being served to search engines. Now, if you don't have permission to view a profile, then the username and profile photo are no longer hyperlinked. This functionality has been extended to IP.Blog for the 2.6 release

Microformat and Schema Updates
As well as improvements made to help your site rank higher, making those results also stand out is an increasing concern for site owners and webmasters. With IP.Blog 2.6 we've introduced two such changes to further expand your audience.

Links to user profiles from blog entry pages now include the rel="author" microformat tag. This tag, when combined with a link to a compatible social network in the user profile, will allow search engines to identify and display author info directly in search results like so;

Additionally, blog entry ratings have now also been tagged with appropriate schema data so entry ratings will display alongside search results further highlighting those entries.

The addition of these small changes both assists search engines in finding relevant content and at the same time improves usability for the end user.

It is also worth noting that the majority of these changes have come about as a direct result of user contributed feedback in the IP.Blog Feedback forum. We're very excited that we are able to continually act on readily shared experiences in this way and welcome any further comments you may have.

IP.Board 3.4 Dev Update: IP.SEO

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:30:00 +0000

IP.SEO is a popular free add-on for IP.Board which provides many additional SEO features for your community.

IP.SEO has proved so popular since it's introduction that as of IP.Board 3.4, we're going to be moving it's features into the core of IP.Board meaning that a separate application will no longer be necessary.

If you're not already familiar with IP.SEO, here's an overview the features it provides, all of which will be included in IP.Board 3.4:

Sitemap

XML site maps provide a great way to show search engines the content on your community. All IPS applications are supported, and third party applications can also add their own support.

You can even specify a "priority" for each forum and other areas of your community to tell search engines which content is more important.

IP.Board will automatically update your site map as new content is generated and will automatically ping search engines to let them know your site map has been updated.

SEO Advice

A new screen in the Admin CP will provide advice on areas of configuration which can be adjusted to provide the best SEO.

Search Activity

You will now be able to view graphs showing the visits your community has received from search engine spiders, and visits received from users who found your community via a search engine.

You can even see the term that users searched for which led them to your community.

Meta Tags

You can now edit the page title and meta tags for any page on your community. You can also use a "Live Meta Tag Editor" which will allow you to browse your community, adding tags to the pages as you visit them.

Miscellaneous Features

IP.Board will now be able to automatically ping XML-RPC ping services whenever a new topic is created.
You will now be able to select a particular skin which will be used by guests.
You can add Google Analytics tracking code through a setting in the Admin CP to integrate with the Google Analytics service.

More to come on SEO... this is not the only SEO change being made in 3.4 so keep watching our company blog!

IP.Gallery 5.0: Some Further Changes

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Development of IP.Gallery 5 continues, and today we wanted to blog about some additional changes you can expect to see in the next release. These changes are unrelated to one another, however they collectively will improve the functionality and capabilities of IP.Gallery 5.0. Note that these changes were derived as a direct result of client feedback, so keep it coming!

RSS Feed Enhancements
As of IP.Gallery 5, RSS feeds for IP.Gallery have been updated to give users better options as to how they subscribe to feeds on your site. In IP.Gallery 5, you will have RSS feeds available for categories, albums, and a new global latest images feed has been added, allowing users to stay abreast of latest images throughout the entire Gallery. This global latest images feed is discoverable easily by browsers and other feed reader applications, and a link is available in the board footer amongst the other RSS feeds for the software.

Notification Enhancements
One common request we've seen for IP.Gallery centers around notifications. IP.Gallery allows you to follow any album or image to be notified of new images or comments already, however you must follow these areas manually. Often you will upload some images and forget to follow them afterwards, so when another user comes along and comments on your images you are not aware of this.

We have added a checkbox on the review page (the secondary step after uploading your images where you specify the caption and other details) that allows you to follow the image(s) immediately upon submission. This checkbox is checked by default, so the default action is that users will be notified of comments on newly submitted media. A user can optionally deselect the checkbox if they don't wish to be notified of comments made against the submission.

This small change will help your users remain aware of comments on their images, and help spur return visits to your site through enhanced notifications relevant to the user.

Homepage Changes
While we have a fair many customers looking for a traditional navigational approach to Gallery (Category -> Album -> Image), many of our clients left feedback following an earlier blog entry regarding the new homepage indicating that they prefer a more social approach to the Gallery. Rather than a category listing, you want to see recently updated albums and new images to keep the page fresh. Additionally, the use of two sliders on the homepage spurred some discussion about the best way to present the data being made available on the homepage.

Firstly, we have changed the recent images block to a stream of images, as you would see within a listing. The featured images block remains as a large slider at the top of the screen, however the recent images near the bottom of the page will now list many small thumbnails instead. Clicking one will open the image in the new navigational lightbox to allow you to see the larger version and the image details.

Additionally, we realize that the categorical approach is not the preferred solution for all of our customers, so we have added a setting that will allow you to switch the homepage to a more "social" version. This setting only affects the homepage, however the data will be presented in a manner that will better allow users to simply review the most updated content with less of a focus on the structure of the Gallery. Here are some screenshots

The top of the page continues to show the featured images in a slider, and otherwise looks similar to the more traditional categorical layout. The main difference is that the categories are listed in a sidebar block here, de-emphasizing the structure but still allowing you to navigate into categories at will.

The main difference comes after the featured image. When the social layout is enabled, a stream of the most recently updated albums (that you have permission to view) are presented in order of last update. Up to 20 albums will be displayed. Below that, up to 50 of the most recently uploaded images are displayed, and as with the other image listings, clicking an image will open it inside a lightbox showing you the full size image and other image details without leaving the page.

Wrapping up
We will continue to evaluate feedback, particularly after the new software has been shown to our focus group and other alpha testers, and we will make sensible changes based on the feedback we receive. Please feel free to leave us feedback in the appropriate feedback forum!

New Bug Tracker, powered by IP.Content

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Hopefully most of you don't have the need to visit our bug tracker enough to have noticed, but we recently switched from a third party application for managing our bugs to IP.Content.

The history of the software we used to use for our bug tracker goes back quite a bit. It was originally written by Matt, many years ago - before that we used regular forum topics as bug reports!

A couple of years ago, around the time IP.Board 3.0 was released, we handed over the codebase to a group of volunteers who wanted to develop the bug tracker application further - and they did.

The developers have done a fantastic job with Tracker, however since then we've released IP.Content, our own application which lets you create (amongst other things) custom databases.

We decided that since moving forward it's definitely easier for us to be using our own applications (otherwise we have issues whenever we upgrade this site to beta software) especially as soon we'll be developing them all under one release cycle, and IP.Content is more than capable of handling the task, to switch from Tracker to IP.Content.

So what did we do to turn IP.Content into a fully featured bug tracker? Actually, nothing special!

IP.Content's databases already have support for categories (we created one for each product) and custom fields (we created fields for "status", "version" and "fixed in version"). We didn't need to do any skinning either - the default database templates work fantastic for a bug tracker. We also took this opportunity to have one of our non-technical members of staff create the database. This gave us some great ideas on improving the system for ease of use.

In fact, there was only 3 hurdles we had to overcome:

1. Filter Bars

When you're working through bug reports you only really want to see open bug reports - we needed a way to filter the records being shown created on the custom "status" field we'd created.

After thinking about the best approach for this, we realised that there's probably other uses for IP.Content which also might benefit from fields being "filterable". So we went ahead and added the feature to IP.Content.

When the next version of IP.Content is released, any enumerable field type (dropdowns, radio boxes, checkboxes) will be able to be selected as "filterable".

When viewing records you'll then see a sidebar allowing you to select one or more of those values to filter the records by.

This is what it looks like in our new bug tracker:

2. Quick Changing Fields

Unlike most database uses, in a bug tracker, you need to be able to change the record's data (status, fixed in version) quickly - and often at the same time as making a comment on the report.

We decided for this we'd need to write some code specifically for our needs. Fortunately, IP.Board's hook system makes this really easy.

In case anyone out there is feeling particularly geeky and wants to know how this works, the hook has 3 parts:

A skin overloader which adds dropdown boxes above the comment form
A data hook which intercepts the comment being added and updates the records data based on the dropdown box values. It also edits the comment that was posted and adds in "Updating Status to: X", or whatever was changed.
An action overloader which stops an error being thrown if the comment is empty.

In total, the hook is just 81 lines of code and took about 30 minutes to write.

3. Moving the data

Our final hurdle was converting the data (for which I whipped up a CLI script).

Naturally, we also had to make sure that old bug report links gave HTTP 301 redirects to the new reports - wouldn't want our SEO to suffer!

To do this, I just dropped a few lines of code in one of the old Tracker source files.

So here it is, our brand new bug tracker, completely powered by IP.Content.

Read more about IP.Content or try it for free.
If you have any questions about what IP.Content can do, shoot us an email - we'd love to hear from you.

IP.Gallery 5.0: More Navigation Changes

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:57:23 +0000

While we discussed some of the basic core navigational changes in IP.Gallery 5.0 already (and yes, we've heard your feedback on those changes!), we have implemented some other changes to enhance consistency and bring IP.Gallery into the modern world wide web. Some of these changes are basic on the surface, but will help to ensure the interface remains consistent throughout the application, in third party applications, and in future features we may add, while some of the changes represent an entirely new way to use the software.

Image Navigation
When you enter into a category or album that has a listing of images, you see each image and can click into them one by one to view the full-sized image and some further details. This is simple and intuitive enough, but a little...boring. With today's web, we can enhance this a bit, so we've done so.

When you are viewing a listing of images and click onto an image, it will now open in a lightbox and most of the image details will be presented to the user. You can navigate through the images in the listing with next and previous buttons, easily allowing you to view all of the images on the page without ever leaving the page itself. The functionality itself is handled by javascript (and AJAX requests), but the links are good old-fashioned links to the full image details page, so you don't have to worry about search engine spiders being able to navigate through the software. To them, the navigation will work as it always has.

The AJAX responses are cached to save resources while the user is still viewing the page (if the user navigates to an image they've already loaded, it pops up instantly).

Here is a quick video demonstrating this new change. Note that you can still access the full image details page by clicking the caption in the lightbox (or through any other normal browser means, such as opening the link in a new tab, or dragging the image itself to your address bar in your browser).

http://screencast.com/t/5yMrkqTe

Album Changes
In IP.Gallery 5.0, you will no longer be able to create sub-albums. Sub-categories are still supported, however albums themselves can only be placed within a category, not within another album. The upgrader routine will move sub-albums to the nearest category that allows album creation (or to the special Member's Gallery if a suitable category cannot be found). Similarly, private and friend-only albums are only allowed within the special Member's Gallery. These changes represent necessary deviations from past versions to allow IP.Gallery to scale effectively as the site becomes larger. One of the primary issues faced in past versions was resource consumption as the number of albums on the site grows - this will no longer be an issue with specific rules in place that prevent complex hierarchy challenges.

Member's Gallery
The special Member's Gallery category is the only category that allows friend-only and private album creation. It is designed as a category that members can create any type of album they want within (subject to the per-group restrictions the administrator has defined), and includes a special option to allow you to determine how to present the contents of this category.

The special Member's Gallery allows the administrator to determine if the category will display albums, images or individual members. When you display albums, the category works like any other category that allows album creation. This is the default setting. When you display images, all images within all albums in the category (that you have permission to view) are displayed, just as if the category allowed direct image submissions. To the end user, they will be looking at an image listing, and will be unaware that the images are coming from albums within the category (although this is noted in both the lightbox popup and on the full image details page in the right hand information block).

When you choose to show members instead, however, all members who have submitted an album to the special Member's Gallery are displayed, and clicking on the member will show that user's detail page (which in turn will list their albums and image submissions). For sites who wish to group by member within the category, this option allows you to do that, similar to earlier versions of Gallery. The last 10 images the member has uploaded into an album within this category will also be displayed.

You will note there is a "Show Me" dropdown button at the top right. Members can override the administrator-defined default if they prefer to view the listing differently (e.g. if they just wish to see a stream of images), and their preference is stored in a cookie so that it is remembered if they leave the page and come back.

And still more
We have yet more to announce for IP.Gallery 5.0 and hope you are enjoying the updates. We are taking all feedback in and are looking forward to being able to show you the new release as soon as possible.

IP.Gallery 5.0: Smaller Changes

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 02:31:00 +0000

We have taken the time with IP.Gallery 5.0 to implement some smaller changes that help to round off the functionality of the software and bring it more in-line with the rest of the suite. While these changes individually are all quite small, collectively they help to make Gallery easier to use and more intuitive for the average user.

pInterest Integration
For those of you not familiar with this new service, pInterest is a popular new image tagging website that allows users to "pin" images from across the web to a "pinboard". They can create multiple pinboards to classify their images. IP.Gallery will now show a pInterest sharing button with the rest of the social sharing options.

Shared Media
Currently when you share an IP.Gallery image via the shared media plugin, a small box with the image details is shown, linking the user to the full image page. Here is an example (note that this example will change once our site is updated to IP.Gallery 5):

http://community.invisionpower.com/gallery/image/1854-test/

Many users have requested that we instead simply embed the thumbnail directly and open the full image in a lightbox. We've updated IP.Gallery 5 to do just that. Here is a quick video showing this in action.

http://screencast.com/t/YOlreAnC6Bi

Set as Profile Photo
In recent past versions of Gallery, members were required to create an album that they designate as a "Profile Photos Album", and then they are able to set an image within this special album as their profile photo. While functional, we have determined that the restrictions here are largely unnecessary. We have removed the "profile photo album" functionality within the software, and now members will be able to set any image they can view as their profile photo.

Hidden vs Unapproved
Keeping in line with the distinction between hidden and unapproved implemented in other areas of the suite, IP.Gallery has been updated to recognize this distinction. When an image requires moderator approval upon initial submission, it will be in an "Unapproved" state, and you can either "Approve" or "Delete" the image. After it has been approved, you will be able to "Hide" or "Delete" the image. When it is hidden, you will be able to "Unhide" or "Delete" the image. You will no longer unapprove a previously approved image. While this does not affect the functionality of the software greatly, it does serve to separate the actions.

A new moderator control panel plugin has been added to show "Hidden" images.

IP.Content
The Gallery feed blocks in IP.Content have been updated to reflect the changes in Gallery, namely the distinction between Albums and Categories. The feed blocks will be available immediately upon IP.Gallery's release, as IP.Content blocks are now part of the individual application's package instead of the IP.Content package (in other words, you won't need to wait for an IP.Content release to enable these new changes).

SEO Tweaks
We have reviewed the on-page optimization of many pages in IP.Gallery and have made small tweaks to enhance the software. We have implemented canonical tags where appropriate to point all URL variances (such as sorting changes) back to the parent page. We have made certain duplicate page titles unique and clearer as to what they represent for the page in question. We have forced the true "page title" (e.g. the name of the category, album or image you are viewing) to an

tag, and have cascaded down other tags as appropriate. We have forced some of the on-page javascript and CSS code into the head of the HTML document. These small but useful changes will only serve to better clarify to search engines how pages relate to one another and what pages are the authority source for specific requests. We are listening to feedback and suggestions regarding SEO, and we encourage you to let us know if you spot something that doesn't seem right in the appropriate feedback forum.

More to come
These small changes will work towards better consistency between suite applications, and bring some minor but useful updates to existing features in IP.Gallery. We have more changes to announce yet, and hope you are looking forward to hearing about other updates to IP.Gallery 5.0. Stay tuned!

IP.Gallery 5.0: More Administrator Control

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:00:00 +0000

One of our big goals with Gallery 5 is to restore a level of administrative control that allows different sites to dictate how their users and moderators will interact with the software. Some sites wish to allow their users to have control over their submissions. Some sites wish to control the submissions their members contribute once the file is uploaded. In order to accommodate the myriad of needs our clients have, we have implemented many new controls to IP.Gallery, and reworked how some existing controls function.

Moderators
One change we have made is to remove moderator-style permissions from the group management area and implement a full "Moderators" area of the ACP. When managing your categories in the IP.Gallery ACP, you can now add moderators to one or more categories. These moderators can be groups or individual members. You can specify the following permissions for your moderators:

Can approve images
Can approve comments
Can edit images and albums
Can hide images
Can delete images and albums
Can move images and albums
Can set cover images
Can edit comments
Can delete comments

Members will be allowed to move their own images between their own albums, but will not be able to move images from their albums to another member's albums, or to categories. You can still specify on a per-group basis if members can edit their own images and comments, delete their own images and comments, and you will also now be able to specify whether they can delete their own albums or not. This will allow administrators to control what their members can and cannot do in IP.Gallery.

Controlling Albums
In addition to the aforementioned moderator permission updates, administrators will now have more control over how users manage albums. You can now specify whether members can create public, private and friend-only albums separately (so you can allow members to create all 3 kinds, only public albums, or disallow members to create albums entirely). As with previous versions, you can also limit the number of albums they can create, and the number of images they can upload into each album.

Further to this, however, you can control the defaults for new albums and which of those default options members can override. Under the Album Manager area of the IP.Gallery ACP, there is a new page: Album Defaults. When you visit this page, you will be able to control the album default options and determine which of those options members can change.

To lock or unlock a field from being editable, you simply click on the green or red icon to toggle it. Fields that are locked will still display to users on the front end, but will be disabled and uneditable. This allows users to know what preferences are being enforced.

You will note in the screenshot that there is a message under the watermark field advising that the option is only honored when a category is set to "Allow members to choose per-album". When you create a category that allows album submissions, you can choose one of three options for the watermark preference:

Do not watermark
Force watermark on every image
Allow members to choose per-album

The first two options are self-explanatory. The last option allows members to specify whether they use watermarks or not when creating their own individual albums (and of course can also be restricted by the album default preferences discussed above).

It is important to note as well - you can enable and disable ratings and comments at the category level. If you disable comments or ratings at the category level, this preference cascades down to the albums within the category. If comments are disabled in a category, they are disabled for all albums within that category. If a user does not have permission to comment in a category, they will not have permission to comment within albums contained in that category.

Image Control
Administrators have fairly good control over images in IP.Gallery already, however we are expanding this control in IP.Gallery 5.0. Some new options include:

Ability to shut off "medium" and "small"-sized images. You cannot shut off the thumbnail or large-sized images, as both are used throughout Gallery in many different places.
You will be able to shut off cropping of thumbnails.
Instead of "unapproving" images, you will now "hide" images. These will show up in the Moderator CP when hidden. Members who can delete their own images will actually be "hiding" them, giving moderators a chance to review the deletion before it is carried out completely.

You will of course retain all of the previous image control options available in Gallery 4, and many minor interface changes will make handling your images easier and more intuitive.

Up Next
We realize control of your Gallery installation is important and we are working towards giving administrators sensible options to enable them to configure IP.Gallery to their needs. We have a lot more changes in store and will be discussing some of the more interesting changes in our next blog entry. Stay tuned!

Gallery 5.0 Goals

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 12:20:00 +0000

Development of Gallery 5.0 is well underway, and while we are not quite ready to reveal the product just yet, we wanted to give our clients an outline of what they can expect to see when the new version becomes available. Gallery 5.0 will build upon changes in the 4.x series, while restoring some of the functionality of the 3.x series, delivering a product you can easily understand and navigate that is both modern and fun to use. The next version of Gallery will not see many new features - instead, we are focusing on the existing functionality to ensure the released product is flexible, intuitive and dependable.

Goals

While our goals for Gallery 5 are simple and focused, don't let this fool you. A lot of changes are being implemented to accomplish these goals, and you will notice many small changes that add up to big differences in how the product is used.

We can outline our high level goals as follows:

Redesign the navigation, structure and hierarchy Gallery makes use of.
Terminology notwithstanding, many users find navigating the current release of Gallery to be confusing, and do not understand the relationship between "global" albums and "member" albums. Many changes in the previous iteration of Gallery were made to ensure the software could scale effectively. We have taken many of the concepts of Gallery 4 and merged them with concepts in Gallery 3 to present an interface we think is easy to understand and navigate, and allows the administrator to control the setup of their Gallery.
Give administrators more control over their Gallery.
We have implemented or reinstated many software options that allow administrators to better control what members can do and where. Administrators will now be able to define what types of albums members can create, whether they can delete those albums or not, which album options members can customize, and much more.
SEO and efficiency improvements.
In virtually every release, we review the search engine optimization and code-level optimization of the software, and this release is no different.
Interface updates.
Much of the interface has undergone a complete overhaul as a part of the navigational restructuring of the software. In addition, some new functionality has been added to make navigating through images quicker and easier, and minor feature improvements or additions will be noticed.

By keeping our goals list short and focused, we can put more emphasis on the high-level things that matter most to our clients.

More Information

More information about each of the goals outlined above and changes made to the software to implement these goals will be forthcoming in future blog entries. The software is still very much under heavy development and we are not ready to show off everything just yet. Nevertheless, we wanted to highlight the higher level goals you can look to in the next release, and give everyone a small update on development.

A Teaser

For now, we will leave you with a teaser - the new index page.

Here you can see the top of the index page. In the right hand sidebar we have a block identifying the latest comments and a block identifying the most popular tags used in Gallery. The top of the content area is filled with a featured images slider (if you have any featured images - if you do not feature any, this block disappears, as expected). You can feature as many images as you like, and up to 20 will be displayed in a javascript slider. The slider will display the image (with some details along the bottom of the image), and will automatically show the next image after a couple seconds, cycling through them (and restarting when the last featured image is displayed).

You will also note that the upload button is available. In fact, it is available on every page throughout Gallery, if you have permission to upload images somewhere.

Further down the index page, you will see the category listing. Global albums have become categories in Gallery 5.0. More information will be available on this in a future blog entry. For now, just know that categories are administrator-defined containers that can be set up to [*]Allow albums to be created in them [*]Allow neither (useful if you create subcategories and don't wish for images to be accepted within the category itself, but rather in a subcategory) Categories allow you to specify cover images, and allow you much of the same control you had with global albums in Gallery 4. You can think of categories in Gallery 5 as global albums, renamed, in part to help alleviate confusion and to clarify the relationship between the two different types of containers Gallery allows. You can see from this screenshot that the hierarchy and navigation of Gallery right from the index page has been restored to a more traditional container listing. Finally, at the bottom of the page you will see the 20 most recent images that you have permission to see, in the same slider that was used to display the featured images at the top of the screen. You can see the hint of arrows on either side of the image, allowing you to manually navigate to the next or previous image in the slider (although, as with the featured images, it automatically cycles through each image).

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Miscellaneous Enhancements

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:27:00 +0000

To wrap up our blog entries on IP.Nexus, there's a few more additional features and enhancements that we haven't previously covered:

Custom Advertisement Zones

IP.Nexus allows you to create advertisements and even sell advertisement space on your community.
There are several different areas where the IPS Community Suite has built-in advertisement spots where Nexus can place advertisements.

In IP.Nexus 1.5, you can create your own custom "zones" and then add tags into your skin templates, IP.Content pages or even external websites outside of your community to display the advertisements in the zones you have created.

Expected Output Monitoring

IP.Nexus can monitor your servers and report to you if any of them are not responding.
Sometimes though, a site can be having issues, but not actually be reporting as down - for example, if a database table had collapsed, the server would be reporting as online, even though the site isn't actually usable.

In IP.Nexus 1.5, you'll be able to create custom "Expected Output Monitoring" rules. IP.Nexus will then call the URLs you provide at regular intervals, and if the page output is not what is expected, will notify you that there's an issue.

Transaction Review

Details on the items being purchased is now available in the transaction review screen without having to click into the invoice.

Voiding Customers

IP.Nexus has a tool to quickly ban a customer, refund their transactions, close their support requests, etc.
Sometimes however, you might want to only perform a select few of these actions. In IP.Nexus 1.5, each "action" now appears as an individual toggle when you go to void a customer.

Resource Improvements

When we work on a new release of any application, we look at the resource usage to see if any improvements can be made.
We've made several changes to improve the resource usage of IP.Nexus.

The most significant of these changes is a change to how package data is cached.
Some communities use IP.Nexus with lots of packages in many categories. Up until now, IP.Nexus stored all packages in a cache so that they didn't need to be fetched from the database on every load. However, for communities with lots of categories and packages, this can result in a large cache which ends up using more resources to process than is necessary.
In IP.Nexus 1.5 we've reworked some of the logic to make this method of caching data no longer necessary, and as a result, Nexus is able to scale much more efficiently when there is a large number of packages.

This wraps up all of the changes we're making in IP.Nexus 1.5. Keep an eye on our pre-release testing forum over the next couple of weeks for public betas :smile:

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Store & Billing Enhancements

Thu, 31 May 2012 11:41:00 +0000

Our last few blog entries on Nexus have talked about some of the larger changes we've been making to the storefront and how billing is handled.
In this blog entry, I wanted to go over some of the smaller changes we've made in these areas :smile:

Gift Vouchers

Starting with Nexus 1.5, customers can purchase gift vouchers, which can then be redeemed in your store.

If you have enabled this, when in the store, they'll see two new options underneath the package categories:

Customers will then be able to select a gift voucher amount from the options you have set in the Admin CP, or, if you have enabled it, enter their own amount:
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Vouchers can either be emailed straight to the recipient or printed off. The voucher is given in the form of a code, which can then be entered into the store to redeem.
Nexus will keep track of who used vouchers purchased by whom and will show all this information in the normal customer history screen.

And of course, all this can be done from the mobile skin too:

Multiple Billing Cycles

IP.Nexus allows you to create recurring packages with whatever renewal terms you specify.
Sometimes though, you might want to give several different options - for example, let's say you wanted a package which costs $10 per month or $100 a year (or whatever).

In IP.Nexus 1.5, this is now possible. You can create as many different renewal options as you like:

When a customer goes to purchase a package which has more than one renewal option, a drop down will be displayed for them to select their desired renewal option:

Self Purchase Management

You're probably very familiar with getting support requests from customers who want to renew their purchase for a period of time in advance (we, for example, often get people asking to pay for a year's hosting) or cancel their purchase.

In IP.Nexus (provided you have enabled it), customers will be able to renew purchases for any length of time up to what you have allowed, and cancel their own purchases.

Bulk Discounts

Nexus currently has several options for providing discounts to certain customers:

Usergroup discounts can be used to give customers in certain groups a discount.
Loyalty discounts can be used to give customers who already own (or are purchasing) some of your products a discount.
Bundle discounts can be used to give customers a discount on their entire purchase if certain items are purchased in combination.

In Nexus 1.5, we're adding a new discount type which we call Bulk discounts. Bulk discounts can be used to give customers a discount on an individual product if they are purchasing it with certain other products.

In this manner, it can be used for "Buy one get one free" type deals:

In this example, the first of this item the customer adds to their cart will be full price, the second will be free, the third will be full price, the fourth will be free, and so on.
You could also do "Buy one get second half price" or "3 for the price of 2" style deals, and so on.

Grouped Renewals

Let's say you have a setup where you want to adjust the renewal fees for a product based on additional products that a customer has purchased.

Currently, there are two ways to do this.
You can set up add-ons as product options which adjust the renewal price of the package - however this isn't feasible if the add-ons also need access to support, downloads, etc.
Alternatively you could set the add-ons up as packages which must be associated with a parent and have their own renewal costs - however, this means that if a customer purchases an add-on at a later date, their renewals won't be at he same time, which can be inconvenient and confusing.

In IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding the option for packages which can be associated with a parent package to have grouped renewals. This means that rather than having their own renewal dates, the renewal fees for add-on packages will be added on to the parent package.

Latest Products

The storefront in Nexus allows you to view featured products, popular products or browse by category.
In IP.Nexus 1.5, we've added an option to view the latest products.

Thumbnail Sizes

The thumbnails used in the IP.Nexus store are hardcoded to 100x100px. In IP.Nexus 1.5 you'll be able to set whatever thumbnail size you'd like to use.
When you adjust the setting, Nexus will set a flag on your products that the thumbnails need to be rebuilt, and this will be done on the fly as they're requested, so you don't need to sit around waiting for the images to rebuild.

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Selling Domains

Fri, 25 May 2012 12:55:38 +0000

IP.Nexus allows you to sell hosting packages with using integration with CPanel/WHM.
In IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding support to sell domain names too using integration with eNom.

Once set up, customers purchasing hosting accounts will see a new option to purchase a domain name:

The TLDs available and their prices can be set in the Admin CP.

When selecting this option, the domain will be added to the cart like a normal item:

When the customer then pays, the domain will be registered through eNom. The domain then shows as a normal purchase associated with the hosting account:

A renewal invoice will be generated as normal when the domain is due to expire, and when renewals are paid, the expiry date will be updated with eNom.

This feature requires an eNom reseller account. In future versions of IP.Nexus we will add additional registrars based on interest.

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Gateways & Payments

Thu, 24 May 2012 13:57:40 +0000

IP.Nexus currently provides support for a number of gateways: Authorize.Net (with ARB and CIM support), PayPal (Website Payments Standard and Pro), 2CheckOut and manual payments (check, bank wire, etc.)

In IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding more gateways and extending the functionality of some existing gateways.

Gateways

Stripe

Stripe is a relatively young payment gateway. They support all major cards and have no monthly or setup fees which makes them great for smaller companies wanting to accept card payments.

One of the more interesting aspects of Stripe is that they have a clever solution where although the customer can enter their card details right in Nexus, these details never actually hit your server - which is great for security.
Those interested in the technicalities of this - the card form elements are displayed without having a 'name' attribute, meaning that their values are not sent in the POST data to your server. Instead, Javascript on Stripe's server extracts these details and provides Nexus with a token which is what is then sent.

In addition, Stripe supports "storing" card details (again, technically, Nexus only actually stores a token) meaning when paying your customers will be able to tick a box to save card details, and these details can automatically be used for renewals, future purchases, etc.

Authorize.Net DPM

Nexus already provides support for Authorize.Net's AIM (that's "Advanced Integration Method") service. This allows customers to enter card details directly into Nexus.

The way this works is that the card details have to be sent to Nexus - this is a concern for some as it means that, even though it's very briefly, your server has the customer's card information, which means that certain security precautions need to be considered.

Authorize.Net now have a new service called DPM ("Direct Post Method") - to the customer, this seems to work exactly the same, however, rather than posting the card data to your server, and then Nexus sending that data to Authorize.Net, the form submits directly to Authorize.Net's server - meaning your server never deals with the sensitive card information.

Unfortunately, due to the way this works, Authorize.Net's ARB and CIM services (both of which are a form of recurring billing) are not compatible with DPM. Those who need recurring payments can keep using the AIM method.

Sagepay

Nexus 1.5 also adds support for Sagepay.

Refunds

Currently, Nexus allows you to refund transactions right from the Admin CP for Authorize.Net and PayPal transactions.
In IP.Nexus 1.5, PayPal Pro and 2CheckOut can now handle this too. Authorize.Net DPM and Stripe, which are added in 1.5, also support it.

2CheckOut Improvements

2CheckOut payments are now handled with their INS service. Not only is this more secure and reliable, using it has also allowed us to add support for recurring payments.

So where does that leave us?

IP.Nexus now supports 7 different payment gateways (8 if you include manual payments like check and bank wire), each of which have their own features and merits over one another.

We've created a little table to show the key differences between each gateway:

As always, we'll continue to gauge interest and add additional gateways to Nexus over time.

But wait.... there's more!

Split Payments

Sometimes, people might want to pay for an invoice using two different cards (or other payment methods). In IP.Nexus 1.5, this is now possible:

You can set a minimum invoice amount before this feature is available, or disable it completely if you don't want to use it.

Package Methods

In IP.Nexus 1.5, you'll now be able to set which payment methods can be used to purchase a particular package:

License Changes, IP.Board 3.4, and the Future

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

We have started work on IP.Board 3.4 and this blog entry will give you a general idea of our goals and also introduce some important license changes and future plans from IPS. It's an important entry so read on!

IP.Board 3.4

As always we will be blogging about specific features as they are completed. IPS does not post traditional roadmaps as roadmaps are subject to change. Instead, we post blog entries when a topic is completed and include screenshots and details so you know what you see is for sure going to happen. Here are the three high-level areas of interest for IP.Board 3.4:

Very few front end changes so version 3.3 skins will work with little changes on 3.4.
Focus on back-end improvements (AdminCP user experience, SSO integrations, SEO options, and so on). Versions 3.2 and 3.3 were more about front end experience so now it's time for the AdminCP and other areas to get some focus.
Work will be put into making areas that are difficult for non-technical/non-designer clients to use. Examples include skinning system, Visual Skin Editor, and upgrade system.

Three areas of focus will result in a lot of great changes and of course we will be doing other, smaller changes outside of those three areas but these will be the focus. Beyond this we have some bigger things planned but that will be revealed later. In addition to IP.Board: IP.Nexus and IP.Gallery are receiving large updates and other apps will receive smaller updates for maintenance and consistency.

We do not currently have a release date for IP.Board 3.4 (and if we did ... well you know :smile: ). Our continuing goal of offering the most stable platform possible will see continued maintenance releases on the 3.3 series and other applications. Expect to see an IP.Board 3.3.3 release coming out soon.

License Changes

To make our licensing system easier to manage for everyone we are going to be restructuring how they work and are displayed.

Here is how licenses show now:

IP.Board Standard License

IP.Blog
IP.Gallery
IP.Nexus
IP.Content
etc.

Here is how the new structure will be implemented:

IPS Community Suite

IP.Board
IP.Blog
IP.Nexus
etc.

The main change is that IP.Board will no longer be the "root" license item. You will instead have a license to the IPS Community Suite and will then have the various applications as additions under that root license. Anyone with a current IP.Board Standard License or IP.Board Business License will see this change happen automatically in their client area in the coming weeks. There will be no change to your services of course.

Another change we are making is consolidating renewal dates. It's very cumbersome for both IPS and our clients to have the various apps under a license have different renewal dates. So we will be changing this to prorate purchases so they all have the same renewal dates. Of course the renewal frequency and amount will not change from how it is now. For example, if you choose to add IP.Nexus to your existing IPS Community Suite license the order system will automatically give you a credit based on the number of days until your next renewal cycle so everything balances out.

When we switch over to this new setup your existing purchases will also be prorated and your renewal date for your licenses will adjust based on a formula that gives you credit for all days remaining on all of your licenses. Said formula is a bit involved so check out this topic if you are so inclined to pull out your calculator :smile:

Finally, if your license is currently expired then you will still be put into this new structure but just in an expired state so nothing will change. Legacy license holders will see no change to their license terms but will also see an adjustment in the structure shown here.

This will all be implemented soon after IP.Nexus 1.5 is released which offers many great enhancements.

So why are we doing all this?

Future Plans

IP.Board 3.4 will be a milestone in the history of IPS because it will be the last release of IP.Board as we know it. It's pretty amazing to think that after 10 years this will be the last time IP.Board is released on its own as the flagship product.

After IP.Board 3.4, we will introduce the IPS Community Suite. The new Suite approach will see IP.Board become an application under the Suite just as IP.Gallery, IP.Nexus, and all of our other apps are today (hence the license structure change). There are some huge advantages to this way of doing releases:

Of course beyond these changes we have lot of exciting changes in store for IPS Community Suite 4.0 but that's for the future after IP.Board 3.4, new versions of IP.Nexus and IP.Gallery, and continued laser-focus on stability.

Summary

To clarify everything here is a summary timeline:

Very soon: IP.Board 3.3.3 maintenance release
Near future: Blog updates about IP.Board 3.4, new versions of IP.Nexus and IP.Gallery, and working toward releases
After next release cycle: Changes to the license structure

Then we will start work on IPS Community Suite 4.0!

The good news here is that we are not talking a long period of time. Since the IP.Board platform is very stable we can develop these releases in months rather than years.

We have disabled comments on this blog entry as a lot of various subjects were presented that clients will surely want to discuss and comments would get overlooked. However, feel free to start topics in the Client Lounge. Thank you for your support and continual feedback!

Only one version

Currently we have a version number for each of our products. This gets very confusing for everyone to know what version works with what other version. When we release IPS Community Suite 4.0.0 at that time all of our Suite will also be on 4.0.0. No longer will each application have its own release cycle and version numbers. Just one version number for you to look to when you are checking to be sure you're up to date!

Suite consistency

As we will be releasing our entire Suite at once for both new features and for maintenance releases you will always know everything is consistent and up to date. For example, if we add a new feature to moderation in one area it will be available in all areas without having to wait for a separate update.

Tighter integration

IPS community products have always had great integration with each other. Our new Suite offering will further this integration by offering total uniformity and compatibility between all the features of the Suite.

No forums requirement

Currently if you want to use IPS products you are required to buy IP.Board even if you don't need a forum. Even though you might just need a commerce platform or a CMS you have to buy IP.Board as it is also the "core" application. No more with IPS Community Suite. You will be able to run a community with just a gallery, blog, and member list if you so choose. Maybe you are just looking to run a site and need a CMS and commerce system. The ability to mix and match our great product line will finally be here!

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: FedEx Integration

Tue, 22 May 2012 11:30:00 +0000

IP.Nexus allows you to set up shipping prices with customisable rates, destinations and tax. Once an item has been shipped, you can then provide a tracking number which will provide the customer with a link where they can view tracking information.
While this solution allows complete control over shipping prices, it can be tedious to set up methods, and arrange shipments with couriers - particularly if you receive lots of orders.

In IP.Nexus 1.5, we're introducing direct integration with FedEx. In future versions of IP.Nexus we plan to integrate with other providers like UPS and USPS in a similar way.

The setup

To get started, you simply need to enter your FedEx account details in the Admin CP. You can also specify which services to use (if you don't want to use them all), add a surcharge to FedEx prices and more:

Once that's done - you're all setup. FedEx options will automatically become available when a customer selects a shipping method - you just need to make sure you have provided an accurate weight for shippable products. You can of course disable FedEx services for any individual product.

Purchase

When a customer goes to purchase a product they'll now see FedEx services in the shipping methods select box:

You'll notice that each option shows the price as well as an estimated delivery date. This data is coming straight from FedEx based on the customer's shipping address and the items being purchased.

The customer can also edit their shipping address on this screen which will adjust the prices accordingly - the shipping address can be different from the billing address provided in step 1 (but will be automatically filled out with that data). The address entered is also validated with FedEx to check for any mistakes in filling it out.

Shipping

In the Admin CP, you'll now see a button on the shipping order to arrange the shipment:

Clicking this will show you a screen like this:

As you can see, there are several options for how you want to provide the package to FedEx. The nearest FedEx drop boxes and service stations are listed and clicking on any will provide the opening hours:

You can also have Nexus schedule a courier to come to you to pick up a package which will present you with this screen:

Once shipment has been arranged you'll be able to print a shipping label. When the package has been delivered, you'll be able to see a proof-of-delivery with the signature that signed for the package. Both of these are provided by FedEx:

Tracking

The shipping order page in the Admin CP provides tracking information from FedEx:

The customer also has a page in the client area where they can view the same information:

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: More New Support System Features

Mon, 14 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Our last two blog entries have focussed on large new features to the support system in IP.Nexus.
But we're not stopping there! In this blog entry I wanted to talk about some of the smaller new features and enhancements we've made to the support system for IP.Nexus 1.5.

Pay-Per-Incident
IP.Nexus 1.5 adds the ability for you to define a support department as "Pay-Per-Incident".
Each department allows you to enter a Pay-Per-Incident amount. When a customers tries to create a support request in this department, they'll see a message like this:

Clicking the "Submit Request" button will take them straight to the payment screen to provide payment for the support request. After submitting payment, they'll be redirected straight back to the support request submission form - the title and department will even be remembered and filled in:

Contact Us
Nexus allows guests to create support requests which can be used for sales enquires, etc. Currently, this is usually done through the incoming email support, however in 1.5, we've added an optional "Contact Us" link to the footer which will allow anyone, including guests, to submit a support request:

Tracking notifications
IP.Nexus allows staff members to "track" support requests, tracked requests can be accessed quickly from the main support request list and are highlighted in that list.
In IP.Nexus 1.5 we've also added the option to receive email notifications when a customer replies to support requests you are tracking:

Staff members can reply to these notifications directly via email and their reply will be added to the support request.

Reply to notifications
IP.Nexus allows you to send a notification to any email address(es) for new support requests or emails within a particular department.
Previously, the notification just said that a support request had been created or replied to, and gave you the title and ID number. In IP.Nexus 1.5, the notification email will contain the full body of the message and can be replied to directly by email.

Improved Incoming Email Handling
IP.Nexus supports the ability to receive incoming emails as support requests and replies. In IP.Nexus 1.5 we've rewritten a lot of this code to make it more reliable and secure.
We've also added a setting to allow you to control whether you prefer Nexus to parse emails as HTML or in plaintext. Each message now also has a toggle which allows you to quickly toggle (it uses AJAX) between HTML or plaintext on any message:

Merge
Staff members have been able to split a support request into two requests in Nexus for a long time. In 1.5, we've added the option you can merge two together into one.

Reminder Emails
IP.Nexus allows you to assign support requests to staff members. Staff members can quickly see all support requests assigned to them from the support request list, however, if you don't regularly check the list, you may not know a request has been assigned to you.
In IP.Nexus 1.5, if a staff member has any support requests assigned to them, they'll receive an email each morning with a list of the support requests that are assigned to them.

Edit Title
In IP.Nexus 1.5, staff members will be able to edit the title of a support request:

Stock Actions When Logging a Support Request
Stock Actions allow you to quickly set a department, status, assigned staff member and reply on a support request.
In IP.Nexus 1.5, when logging a support request in the Admin CP on behalf of a customer, you'll be able to use these Stock Actions in addition to when replying.

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Custom Support Fields

Fri, 11 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Those familiar with IP.Nexus will be familiar with the ability to create custom fields both for packages (so when a user purchases a package they can provide custom information such as the size, colour, etc. of the item being purchased) and for customer accounts (so you could add additional fields for customers to provide when making a purchase, etc.).

In IP.Nexus we're adding the ability to use custom fields with support requests.

You can choose from several different types of field, select the departments it applies to, and choose whether or not it is required.
Here I've created a field to ask users what "software version" they're using:

Now when a user goes to create a support request in the "Support" department, they'll be prompted to provide this information:

This works on the mobile skin too, of course:

The values of these fields can then be viewed both by the customer, and admins:

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Customer Satisfaction

Wed, 09 May 2012 13:27:00 +0000

IP.Nexus provides a great support system, allowing customers to submit support requests through your community or directly through email.
The support system also includes robust reporting tools allowing you to see the volume of support requests over time and audit individual members of staff to view how many replies they're making and the quality of those replies.

Ensuring customer satisfaction is important to anyone running a support system, and in IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding a feature that will allow your customers to rate, and provide feedback on, the support they receive.

When the system is enabled, customers will see a star rating system below each staff member's reply:

They can then click on their desired rating, which will bring up a popup where they can enter additional feedback. This is completely optional, and customers can just leave a star rating if desired.

In the Admin CP, you can control using ACP Restrictions if administrators can view the ratings given and optionally also view the feedback given.
If a rating is given and the administrator can see it, it will appear user the message, just like in the front-end:

If the customer left a note, and the administrator has permission to view it, they can do so by clicking on the rating:

IP.Nexus has a "Staff Audit" tool allowing you to view how many support requests each staff member has answered over time. The audit now has an additional column providing the average rating for their replies in that time period:

And of course, when you click on the number to view the staff member's responses, the rating and the note if available will display here too:

Finally, we've added an additional report page in the Admin CP which allows you to view the average rating for different staff members over time:

In this screenshot, I'm comparing two staff members average ratings throughout 2012 on a bar chart. But just like the other reporting tools in Nexus, you can select any date range, chart type (options are bar, line, pie or a plain data table) and can customise the series too (you could compare any particular staff members, group staff members by their department to compare departments, view everyone on one series, etc.)

As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Referrals System

Mon, 07 May 2012 11:30:00 +0000

IP.Nexus has for a long time included a referrals system, allowing your customers to refer their friends to your community and subsequently earn commission on any purchases they make in IP.Nexus.

The problem with this set up though is that you might not want referrers to continue earning commission forever, or you might want to specify different commission amounts depending on what the referring user is purchasing.

In IP.Nexus 1.5 we're adding much better control over the system - you can now create custom rules which control the commission amount which will be paid out to referrers. Nexus will loop through the rules you set up and give the highest commission amount out of the rules that match.
You can base your rules on:

The number of purchases that the referring user has made (as a number, or as a money amount)
The group that the referring user is in
The number of purchases that the user making the purchase has made (as a number, or as a money amount)
The group that the referring user making the purchase is in
The packages being purchased
The amount of the transaction

You can then specify a commission amount to give as a percentage, and optionally a hard limit on the maximum amount of commission that can be given.

Here you can see I've set up a rule which will give the referrer 50% commission on the first purchase that members they refer make, provided the purchase is at least $10:

We've also made some improvements on the front-end. Firstly, users can specify any URL to use as the URL the people they refer are directed to.
In addition, users will be able to see the commission rules that apply to them:

If however, you don't want users to be able to see details of the commission rules, you can replace the content of that popup with your own custom message, or remove it all together.

Just like before, you can also create banners and upload them in the Admin CP, which will provide users code for using your banners on that page:

And you can of course keep track of who referred whom on the customer pages and customer history page:

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Mobile Skin

Sat, 05 May 2012 11:39:28 +0000

As mentioned in our last blog entry, we're hard at work on our next version of IP.Nexus.

One of the more visual features we're adding in this version is an updated mobile skin - here are some screenshots!

Main store page:

Category listing:

Product screen:

Cart view:

Checkout screen:

Client area - menu:

Client area - invoice view:

New support request form:

IP.Nexus 1.5 Dev Update: Fraud Rules

Fri, 04 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000

IP.Nexus is our hugely popular eCommerce and business management application for the IPS Community Suite. Over the past few weeks we've been working on lots of new features and enhancements for the next version of IP.Nexus (version 1.5).

The first change we wanted to share with you is called Fraud Rules.

For a long time, IP.Nexus has provided integration with MaxMind for anti-fraud measures. However, this is limited only to holding or refusing transactions based on the MaxMind score. You might want to, for example, manually review all transactions where, for example, the user's billing address doesn't match their physical location (which MaxMind can detect) - or perhaps you don't want to use MaxMind and want to manually review all orders over a certain amount, or all orders from particular countries - this is where Fraud Rules comes in.

IP.Nexus 1.5 allows you to create as many Fraud Rules as you like based on a wide range of criteria - each Fraud Rule is checked in the order you specify and the last that matches is what is used.

This is what the management screen looks like:

Here you can see I've set up a number of rules (the names are assigned by you as a reference for what the rule does) - I've created rules so that if the amount is over $100 or the the customer is paying by PayPal and has not made any previous purchases, the payment will be held for manual approval, unless the customer is in the "Administrators" group.

This is just an example of what you might do - there is a wide range of criteria that you can base rules on. Here is what the add/edit page for a rule looks like:

If MaxMind is enabled, even more options are available:

The full list of what you can base rules on is:

The transaction amount (greater than, less than or equal to X)
Payment method used was (multi-select)
Customer is in usergroup (multi-select)
Customer's email address (is/contains X)
Customer's billing address country (multi-select)
Customer has made X approved transactions (greater than, less than or equal to X)
Customer has made X approved transactions which have been blocked by Fraud Rules or manually refused by an administrator (greater than, less than or equal to X)
Coupon was used (yes/no)
MaxMind: Score (greater than, less than or equal to X)
MaxMind: Customer's billing address is valid (yes/no)
MaxMind: Customer's billing address matches their IP address location (yes/no)
MaxMind: Customer's phone number matches their billing address (yes/no)
MaxMind: Likeliness that customer is using an IP address proxy (greater than, less than or equal to X)
MaxMind: Customer is using a free email provider (yes/no)
MaxMind: Customer's email address is considered "High Risk" (yes/no)
MaxMind: Customer's username is considered "High Risk" (yes/no)

You can then choose whether the transaction should be approved, held for approval or refused based on the conditions specified.
You can also set the rule to ban the customer if it used (which you might use, for example, to ban someone if they make X transactions which are blocked by Fraud Rules).

For each rule, you can specify any number of the conditions available - the conditions you don't specify will be ignored and the rule will only be used if all conditions specified match.

As mentioned earlier, the rules are checked in order and the last that matches is used, with this in mind and the ability for a rule to approve a transaction, you can add additional rules to specify circumstances where a customer can bypass a rule (in my example above, I've set it up so Administrators are exempt from all rules).

The new Fraud Rules feature gives complete control over your transactions and will hopefully ease some of the headache of manually approving transactions.

This is of course just the first of many features and enhancements we have planned for IP.Nexus 1.5 - stay tuned for more updates over the coming weeks!

As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions unrelated to this blog entry, please post them in the IP.Nexus forum :smile:

IPS iOS App Now Available

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Referencing our coming soon blog entry ... Apple was fast and has already approved our new app!

Download now

A few things to keep in mind:

The app will work on all IP.Board 3.3 versions for the most part but will be much smoother with the soon to be released IP.Board 3.3.2
Please submit bug reports as we will be releasing updates to address any issues often over the next few weeks. Be sure to keep your app up to date!
Your feedback on how to improve the app is appreciated.
There are some known issues with those using IP.Content as their front end that will be addressed.

We will be releasing frequent maintenance updates to polish this new app. Please let us know your feedback but we will not be adding new features until we also have our Android app released. Once both iOS and Android are out and working great then we will start adding many fun features on our roadmap. We think it important to keep iOS and Android on equal footing as much as possible.

Once we are happy with the quality and stability of the app we will start promoting it to the broader audience but you as an IPS follower can get a head start and let us know how we can improve.

IPS is very excited to be investing in our mobile services and we look forward to continued development on our mobile apps!

New iOS App Coming Soon

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: The app is now available!

We are happy to announce that the new version of our iOS app is in the Apple App Store review process now! Once approved, the app will be available for members to enjoy for just $1.99 one time. The new app will work with all IP.Board versions 3.3.2 or newer.

This new version has a native interface, push notifications, iPad support, and multiple community support. Check out this video for a walk through of the new app:

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Admin Control

As an administrator you can also upload new image packs for the app to use for the interfaces. You can change colors and such to match your community branding.

Another great option will be admob integration for administrators to monetize users browsing their community through our App. IPS will not get involved or take a cut so it's directly between you and your visitors.

More to come...

IPS is investing in the mobile space and has brought on new staff to continue development in this area. An Android version is in development and will soon follow this release (really it will). We have also opened a new forum for feedback and a bug tracker category so you can report any issues.

Features coming very soon include uploading files on your phone as attachments to posts, images to IP.Gallery, and camera shots directly to IP.Gallery. Future feature ideas include integration with IP.Nexus for on the go customer service, more push notification options, and more fun ideas!