Over this summer we have put a lot of work into the IPS applications to get them up to the same level of modern code that IP.Board itself features. If you have been following our blog you will have read about all the new features and enhancements coming to the applications. More blog entries on updates to other applications are coming so keep reading our blog for updates.
You may have noticed th…
Arguably the most crucial part of the gallery system is the upload system. A cumbersome and slow upload system deters people from uploading new images.
Certainly, the current Gallery doesn't make it very easy to upload multiple images and filling out the meta data such as caption, etc is a chore. We've had a lot of feedback over the years on the Gallery's upload system and I wanted to take the o…
One of the benefits provided to IP.Board license holders is the skin generator which allows you to automatically generate an IP.Board skin using the colours you choose.
If you're not familiar - have a look at our previous blog entry on it.
Something which is frequently requested by skinners is a way to move the member box in the IP.Board header to a different location, so it isn't overlaying …
Alongside the new articles system introduced in IP.Content 2.0, we redesigned and included a default demo site to showcase some of the core functionality in IP.Content. This default demo site utilizes the concept of page templates, custom database templates, custom databases, custom blocks, and all of the useful functionality you will probably make use of yourself. The idea behind this is that w…
Blocks, a core feature of IP.Content, provide you with an easy way to create static and dynamic widgets that can be embedded anywhere in IP.Content (and indeed, anywhere in IP.Board itself). There are three core block types: custom blocks (where you can effectively embed any HTML or PHP you want into a widget), plugin blocks (these blocks execute a PHP script to generate specific output, such as …
Late last week I left a teaser image of the 'view image'.
I have taken a short video to explain some of the larger changes and features of this page for Gallery 4.
I recommend clicking the full screen icon and ensuring the "HD" icon is blue to avoid excessive squinting.
This video will also give an indication for the direction of future IP.Board releases as we'll integrate "ajax" replies i…
While we continue to work on polishing IP.Content 2.1 to make it easier to access and easier to use, we wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the changes we have already made which we believe will allow you to better make use of all that IP.Content 2.1 has to offer. One major goal we are continuing to work towards with IP.Content 2.1 is to make it easier for everyone to use, and we believe…
Starting from next week I'll be going into more detail about the user interface changes for Gallery 4.0, but until then, enjoy...
I'm sure you'll have a lot of questions, so to keep things ordered, please leave feedback for this blog entry in the Gallery feedback forum.
See you next week!
The article and database functionality in IP.Content helps you manage content on your site in many ways, so one goal we work towards in each release is balancing functionality and capability with ease of use. We don't want to remove functionality to make the software easier to use, but we also don't want the functionality available to inhibit how you use the software. We also work towards integr…
Following on from my manifesto blog entry, I wanted to discuss some of the changes to structure that Gallery 4.0 introduces and explain why we have made those changes.
This blog entry does get a little technical, but even if you are not a technical person, please bear with me and feel free to skip over sections that are not relevant to you. I feel it is important to explain in detail the challen…
IP.Content features robust integration with IP.Board, allowing you to promote posts to articles and allowing you to use your forums to host the comments for your articles and other database records. This functionality is important to many administrators, helping integrate these two areas of your site closely. We have enhanced the IP.Content and IP.Board integration in IP.Content 2.1.0, giving yo…
Evolution
Six years ago, before Twitter existed and before Facebook became popular we launched "Invision Gallery". It was a simpler time. Not everyone 'surfed' the web with javascript enabled and in general interfaces were fairly basic. The Gallery mimicked a forum structure. It had categories which the administrator set up and allowed members to upload images. Other members could comment on thos…
Every administrator wants to have complete control over the web pages on their site, and this is what IP.Content is all about - allowing you full control over your site's content, right from your admin control panel. While IP.Content is already extremely configurable, we have taken the software even further with IP.Content 2.1, giving you finer control over some key aspects of IP.Content. More …
Blocks are a core concept in IP.Content, allowing you to easily create widgets that you can embed on any page (within IP.Content or otherwise). IP.Content 2.1 introduces several useful updates for blocks that we believe will help you customize your pages even further than before. Status Updates Plugin Block
IP.Board 3.1.0 improved status update functionality greatly, adding multiple status up…
Improvements to Template Management
Development of IP.Content 2.1.0 is well underway, and we've reached the point where we are ready to start sharing with you some of the things you can expect to see updated in IP.Content 2.1.0. We hope you are as excited as we are about the upcoming update, so without further ado, let's cut to the chase... Revision Support
Have you ever been editing your p…
Since we announced IP.Nexus back in May, the interest shown has been phenomenal. We have held two limited pre-sales of IP.Nexus providing participants with a beta version of the product to provide feedback and testing beyond our internal QA team.
The ideas presented by the participants of these pre-sales has been invaluable. By using Nexus in real-world situations, users have provided some great…
We are very excited to be nearing the first public beta release of IP.Nexus! There has been much interest in the community for this new product and we cannot wait to get it out the door so everyone can start to enjoy its ecommerce, support, and other features.
As this product deals with monetizing your community, we are being very careful with its release. We do not want to release a product tha…
IPS is constantly looking for ways to improve, and one area of focus is documentation. We get a lot of feedback regarding documentation, and quite frequently the feedback we receive is, unfortunately, too vague to act on specifically. It's always a pleasant delight to get specific, focused feedback on how we can improve.
Last week I happened across a topic on our forums with just this kind of …
We are very excited to be nearing the first public beta release of IP.Nexus! There has been much interest in the community for this new product and we cannot wait to get it out the door so everyone can start to enjoy its ecommerce, support, and other features.
As this product deals with monetizing your community, we are being very careful with its release. We do not want to release a product tha…
In IP.Board 3.1.0 we added a 'step through' form that users registering via Twitter and Facebook were prompted to complete before being fully registered. This was so that the user could choose their own display name and complete an email address when it wasn't available from the service (such as Twitter).
If a member chose not to complete this form then their registration would not be complete…
One of the most commonly used features in the Admin control panel is the live search feature. This is a great way to quickly locate settings and even Admin CP pages.
In IP.Board 3.1.0, we did have quick search boxes for forums and members on the dashboard but these were not always to hand. Often you need to search for a member or forum and have to navigate through to the correct section.
In IP…
Moved topic redirect links
A common request from our customers over the years is the ability to have those redirect links that are added when moving a topic to automatically 'expire' and be removed. This is one of those features that was on our lists for years but never made it into the feature set due to time constraints and other factors.
Happily, we found time to implement this for IP.Board …
It's an unfortunate fact that something may go wrong with your hosting environment at some point. MySQL is sensitive to many things and often this results in an error being thrown. This can be confusing for you and your members and getting support for this can take time as our technicians often have to request FTP details so they can log in and check the error logs written to disk.
A lot of the …
In previous blog entries, we've talked about various things the user can do: generate and pay invoices, purchase packages, have custom packages, purchase advertisements, file support requests, etc. IP.Nexus features a centralised customer page from which you can view all the data the user has made.
This is what it looks like:
The buttons you see along the top allow you to send the user an Ema…
