I really enjoy writing about the new features the development team have been slaving over for weeks (and sometimes months.)
It's a real joy to be able to share the finished product after we've seen it through inception, discussion, planning, assigning to a developer, coding, peer reviewing and final group testing.
Although sometimes, the features can be explained in a few screenshots, wh…
It's easy to think that email is a relic from the past; from simpler times long before social media and the rise of phone apps.
And it's reasonable to think that way. Your phone constantly pings at you, and your laptop OS constantly pings at you, so why bother with email?
Because it's still a hugely powerful medium to get and retain attention.
In 2017, over 269 billion emails were s…
It's been said that the best place to hide a dead body is on page 2 of Google.
While we can't promise to get you to page 1 for a generic search term, we have taken some time for Invision Community 4.4 to do an SEO sweep.
Moz.com defines SEO as "a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. SEO encompasses both the technical and creative…
Sun kissed beaches or snowscapes? Bustling cities or quiet villages?
The question we posted this month was: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
In theory we could work from anywhere in the world that has a decent internet connection, but where would we choose to live? Mark Wade
It was only a few months ago that I was asking myself this exact question! I've alwa…
Ever since its first release, the REST API built into the Invision Community software has proven to be a very powerful and well-received feature.
We love seeing what our clients and modification authors are able to do with the level of integration afforded to them through this capability, and so it is only natural that we have looked to expand the functionality in our upcoming 4.4 release.
…
It might seem a little odd starting a blog on increasing Invision Community's speed with the word "lazy", but I'll explain why this is a good word for performance shortly.
Earlier this year, Google announced that page speed is a ranking factor.
Simply put, if your site is slow, it will be ranked lower in Google's search results.
It is always a challenge making a large application l…
Allowing your customers to find exactly what they need as fast as possible will no doubt increase sales.
A good number of our customers use Commerce to sell physical items. Until now, it's always been a little tricky to set up the store to allow customers to drill down into specific items within the store.
In Invision Community 4.4, the sidebar in the store now includes filter options to…
This month, I thought I'd ask a trick question. "What is your favourite movie?"
I fully expected to be told "but Matt, we work so hard on Invision Community, we don't have time to watch movies." just so I didn't have to complete this month's entry.
But no. Apparently, most of our team have MULTIPLE favourites. Hmmm.
And here they are.
Jennifer
Favorite movies are a pain to choo…
It's very easy to focus on a single metric to gauge the success of your community.
It's very common for community owners to look at page hits and determine if their SEO and marketing efforts have paid off.
Getting traffic to your site is only half the equation though. The most valuable metric is how many casual visitors you're converting to engaged members.
Invision Community alread…
Who remembers the earlier days of the internet? Back when you popped your logo at the top left of your site and you were largely done?
Invision Community has continually developed to account for all the new services that have been built during our 16 years.
We now have social media sharing images, favicons and more to consider.
Invision Community 4.4 also adds mobile application ico…
Communication has come a long way since those very early humans grunted at each other to determine if they wanted more mammoth for lunch.
The course of human history has seen cave paintings, hieroglyphics, the written word, emoji and now GIFs.
GIFs have been around since the dawn of the internet. Many websites proudly displayed a 'man at work' animated GIF when they were under constructi…
It's not often that we get to blow our own trumpets. That's not just because we don't own trumpets, but also because we like to keep our heads down and focused on producing fantastic software [Ironic trumpet blowing - Editor].
Many of our team also run their own Invision Communities.
So this month, we asked:
What is your favourite Invision Community feature?
Here's what we said.
…
Do you recall that scene in Harry Potter where young Harry is sitting in his Uncle’s living room when hundreds of letters from Hogwarts burst through the fireplace, filling the room?
Sometimes, when you log into the administrator’s control panel, it can feel a bit like that.
As the administration control panel has evolved, there has been more of a need to display notifications, alerts an…
This month, we ask the team the age-old question: If you won a million dollars (or denomination of your choice), how would you spend it?
The question was almost guaranteed to bring a raft of hilarious replies that showcase our amazing humour and wit.
Once again, we fall short and instead worry about taxation and retirement.
You can't give it away these days.
Marc S
I couldn't dec…
In between complaining about the temperature of the United Kingdom, a hot topic in staff chat was what jobs we've done in the past, and which jobs we'd be terrible at.
Mark said that Matt would be terrible at being a software engineer. Once all the laughter and clearing desks and leaving the building immediately had finished, we settled on these answers.
Jennifer
I'd be a terrible runw…
Benjamin Franklin once wrote "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." Fortunately for me, he'll never see this blog entry.
The Invision Community team are a smart bunch. When they're not being support heroes, fixing code or writing cool new features, they occasionally like to pick up a book, although I guess download a book is more apt these days.
Here's what…
You have probably spoken to us in support tickets and on our community forums, and you've likely seen our photos.
But what about our workstations? What do they reveal about our personalities? Do none of our team have lights in their office?
Mark H
This is an old picture [Not as old as your Facebook photo -Ed], I now have a 4K monitor in the center, attached via Thunderbolt to my MBP. B…
Unless you've been living under a rock, or forgot to opt-in to the memo, GDPR is just around the corner.
Last week we wrote a blog answering your questions on becoming GDPR compliant with Invision Community.
We took away a few good points from that discussion and have the following updates coming up for Invision Community 4.3.3 due early next week.
Downloading Personal Data
Invisi…
For most of us, at some point in our lives we've been told we look like someone famous. Maybe it's an actor from a favourite movie, or a member of a popular band.
This has certainly come up a few times among the team in chat. We often joke about our more famous doppelgängers. We've often wondered who'd play us in the movie version of Invision Community. I'm holding out for Ryan Reynolds [Keep…
We're thrilled to announce that Invision Community 4.3 is available to download now.
After months of development, over 2500 separate code commits and quite a few mugs of coffee you can now get your hands on the final release.
You can download the final release from your client area.
If you need a recap of what was added, take a look at our product updates blog which takes you …
Invision Community has been going strong for over sixteen years now. Many of those who work for us were customers first before they signed away their souls and became staff. This month, we part the mists of time and ask:
How did you first come across Invision Community?
Andy (Developer and man of mystery)
Way back in 1998 I was involved with an online investment club in the UK (of cour…
We're thrilled to announce that Invision Community 4.3 Beta is available to download now.
After months of development, over 2500 separate code commits and quite a few mugs of coffee you can now get your hands on the beta release.
You can download the beta from your client area.
Be sure to read the full information on support and service limits that go along with beta releases.…
Cue the music; switch on the dramatic lighting, we've got fantastic news!
We're now running Invision Community 4.3 on here for some advanced testing before we unleash the first beta release.
There's a subtle hint above
If you need a recap of what was added, take a look at our product updates blog which takes you through the highlights.
As this is a pre-beta releas…
We, at Invision Community, love nothing more after a relaxing day writing PHP code, making commits in git and fighting with jQuery to indulge in a little therapeutic "me time".
Given that we've all chosen to work in a nerdy industry (nerds are cool now, we checked) it's no surprise that our down time is spent on nerdy pursuits.
Here's how our team spent their allotted and begrudgingly gi…
