Invision Community Blog

IP.Content 2.3 Dev Update: Improved Relational Fields

IP.Content 2.3 development is progressing nicely. We are sticking to the four core points we wanted to address with the release of 2.3, namely: usability, consistency, SEO, and strengthening the existing feature set. All of these points tie in together and compliment each other nicely, and addressing these points together will allow for an easier to use and understand yet even more powerful product in the end. One of the existing features we have taken some time to improve with the release of IP.Content 2.3 is the relational database field capability available in any database (and in the articles system).

If you are not familiar with relational database fields, they allow you to easily "link" two databases together. A common example I like to give involves having a database of actors and a database of movies. Rather than typing out the actor names every time you add a movie, it makes more sense to add all of the actors to an actors database, and then simply select the actors when you add a new movie. Doing this allows us to link the database records behind the scenes, maintaining an association between the movie and the actors in the movie, in this example. While this association has not been capitalized upon to date, IP.Content 2.3 now provides some new functionality to make the relational fields much easier to use and much more useful.

Linked field is not the displayed field

One common complaint with relational fields is that no matter which field you select to link to, the title field is always what is displayed on the front end. Keeping with our actor database example, you might have the title field set to the actor name, but allow a separate field for stage name (which would often be the same as the actor's real name of course). When configuring your relational field, you choose to link to the stage name, as this is what users are going to know and look for, yet the dropdown/multiselect option on the submission forms and the displayed value when viewing the record after submission always show the actor name (because it is set as the title field in this database). This is not what our clients are expecting when they link to the specific field in the relational database, and we've heard you loud and clear. Beginning with IP.Content 2.3, the field you link to (in this example, the stage name) is what will be accepted on the submission form, and is what will be displayed when viewing the record upon submission.

Dropdowns and multiselects not always ideal

Naturally when you have specific allowed inputs, you have to implement a way to enforce the values sent are values that are allowed. If a user is adding a movie and you use a relational field to accept the actors for this movie, you want to ensure that they only supply names that are in your actors database. Dropdown fields are ideal for this purpose (or when accepting more than one value, multiselect fields), however what happens as the actor database grows? Eventually, you may have thousands of actors stored, at which point a dropdown or multiselect field will become virtually unusable.

Enter the type-ahead field. Relational fields will now have a third option for "Type of field" called "Type-ahead". When choosing this option, instead of a dropdown field or a multiselect field, you will see a regular text field. As you begin typing in an actor name, suggestions that match the characters typed will be displayed and will be selectable for the user. The new type-ahead field accepts more than one value, so after you select your first value and it is inserted into the text field, you can start typing the next value you wish to insert and select it as well.

Upon submission the values will be verified (to ensure that the names are valid for the relational field configuration), so you don't have to worry about random values that are not found in the remote database being stored.

Linking

Some users have expressed interest in linking the displayed relational field values to their associated records in the remote database. To continue with our actor and movie database examples, if you associate 3 actors with a movie, when viewing that movie it would be nice if the actor names linked back to the actor bio page automatically. Some users have attempted clever workarounds to generate the links themselves in the templates, only to find out that natural sorting is performed and thus ids and displayed values do not necessarily line up.

We have added a new option on relational fields (when configuring the field in the ACP) to automatically link the selected values back to their records in the related database. You should only enable this option if your related database is actually accessible on a page via the front end (remember that you can create databases that are ACP-only), however in this configuration (which is most common), this new option will make it much easier to cross link the values, giving much more value to linking to related databases.

As you can see in this screenshot, the values I submitted from my last screenshot are automatically resorted to be in alphabetical order, and they are linked to their related records in the actors database.

And reverse linking

So far the improvements described are all about fleshing out the relational fields to make them more useful and easier to understand. The last thing I want to talk about, however, will really enhance the usefulness of relational fields. You can now have records in the related database automatically reverse cross-link back to records pointing to them. As with the descriptions of the above changes, let's use a move and actor example to clarify what we mean by this.

You have a movies database and an actors database. When adding movies, you use a related field to point back to the actors in the movie. When viewing the movie record, it can now even link to the actor pages. Reverse linking takes the next logical step - it will automatically show all movies that the actor is associated with when viewing the actor page. This is a per-relational-field setting, so you do not need to make use of this feature if you don't want to, however it now gives relational fields much stronger value beyond their current implementation.

The future

Relational fields are a very powerful yet under-utilized feature of databases in IP.Content. We have been evaluating much feedback related to this feature, and as you can see above we have implemented many of the most commonly requested changes for this specific field type. We hope you find value in these updates, and look forward to your feedback and further suggestions on how to make this field even more powerful and useful.

Please feel free to share your suggestions for further improvements to relational fields or other areas of IP.Content in our feedback forum. Otherwise, if you have feedback about the changes described in this blog entry, we look forward to your comments below!

7,812 views

bfarber

January 13, 201214 yr

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: Reputation Enhancements

IP.Board has featured a reputation system since 3.0, allowing users to give positive or negative reputation to posts, as well as content in other apps in the IPS Community Suite (blog entries, gallery images, etc.) as well as content in third party applications.
In IP.Board 3.2, we enhanced this by adding a new way of viewing the reputation system, in terms of "liking" content as opposed to giving reputation, which is a more common social feature on websites today.

In IP.Board 3.3, we're adding two features to utilise the reputation system in content discovery.

Reputation in user's profile

We've added a new tab to the profile which allows you to see both the content that the user has most recently liked, as well as content the user has made which has been most recently liked.

This of course supports both reputation modes (the "Like" system and the traditional reputation system).

The tabs at the top allow you to choose which application you want to view content from (in the screenshot only Forums and Calendar are viewable, but of course, support will be added for other apps and 3rd party developers can also add support), and also toggle whether you want to see reputation given or reputation received.

Content with the highest reputation

In addition to the profile tab, we've also created a new page (the link to which appears in the footer next to the top posters, etc.) which shows the content which has the highest rating, or has been liked the most.

Just like on the profile tab, you can toggle between which application you want to view the content for.

Both systems of course also work exactly the same with the traditional reputation system:

Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum.

18,901 views

Mark

January 5, 201214 yr

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: Miscellaneous Enhancements

With every release of our products, we like to spend some time identifying areas which can be improved slightly, and small feature suggestions we can use. 3.3 is no exception, and I wanted to write a quick blog entry to highlight just some of the smaller enhancements we've made to 3.3 to make the product more powerful and easy to use.

Login autosave

In 3.2, we introduced a login popup box when you click "Sign In" to make logging in faster. Previously, the content for this popup was loaded by AJAX which meant some browsers would not automatically fill in your username and password like they normally would.

In 3.3, we've changed the way this is loaded so that this is no longer the case. It still works exactly as it did before, except browsers will now be able to autofill your login details.

Emoticons in sigatures

Emoticons (smilies) are now supported in signatures.

Log in as member

Sometimes it is useful to log into your community as a member if they're experiencing issues, or to check you have set permissions up correctly.

Previously, you would have to change the user's password and then log in as them normally in order to do this.
In 3.3, we've added a button to the "edit member" page in the Admin CP which will log you straight into the community as that user, without you needing to know their password.

This is of course protected by Admin CP Restrictions, so you can choose which of your administrators have access to this function.

Duplicate forum

Sometimes you want to set up several similar forums. This can be a real hassle having to create every forum, and set the settings and permissions for that forum manually.

In 3.3, we've added an option in the drop-down menu in the forums management screen which allows you to "duplicate" a forum, so that you can easily create multiple forums with similar settings and permissions.

Remove ability to create status updates

Sometimes, you might want to remove a user's ability to post status updates. Previously, this could only be done in the Admin CP, however, in 3.3, we've added this option to the "edit member" screen on the front-end, so moderators can toggle this setting without having to log into the Admin CP.

Tasks as cron

IP.Board features a powerful task manager which is used to run certain tasks throughout the day to perform cleanup, send emails, etc. The task manager has always supported running tasks using cron for sites which would prefer to do so or perhaps do not receive enough activity for tasks to be triggered by users.

Previously, each task had to have its own cron job set up. In 3.3 however, you can create a single cron which will execute any tasks that need to be ran.

Delete guest posts

IP.Board has always had the ability to delete all posts by a certain member. However, if you allow guests to posts, there was no tool to delete all posts made by a particular guest. In 3.3, we've added this feature.

Rebuild reputation

When you delete a post, the user's post count does not go down as this is representative of how many posts the user has made. IP.Board however, does have a tool to rebuild post counts based on what's currently in the database to set the post count for each user to be the current number of posts on the community.

Reputation has a similar problem - when a user receives reputation, if the post which received reputation is deleted, their reputation does not go down - this is by design. Up until now however, there was no way to "rebuild" this like you can do with post counts.
In 3.3, we've added a tool to rebuild reputation based on what's currently in the database, just like the tool to rebuild post counts.

Upgrader custom script

This is a change which only applies to application developers. In 3.3, we've added support for two scripts which are executed before and after an upgrade, respectively. Developers can use this to verify the application is compatible with the IP.Board version, and to run any post-upgrade rebuilds that may be necessary.

Email tester

We've also added a tool in the "Support" section of the Admin CP which will send a test email so that you can verify your community is sending emails correctly.

Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum.

21,426 views

Mark

January 4, 201214 yr

IP.Content 2.3 Dev Update: Navigation Bar

We hope that everyone is enjoying reading about the upcoming changes you will see in IP.Content 2.3. As we outlined originally, our focus is on four primary goals: usability, consistency, SEO and strengthening our existing feature set. One common usability issue our clients have pointed out is that after they create a page, there is not an easy way to link to the page in the primary navigation bar. While you can certainly edit the skin to accomplish this (and indeed, this is what most clients ultimately do), we have decided to build into IP.Content 2.3 a more robust and easier to use solution.

Our new primary navigation menu manager

Beginning with IP.Content 2.3, there will be a new link under the IP.Content 'Settings' module labeled "Navigation Menu". In order to use this new feature, a hook (provided in the IP.Content download and installed automatically for you) must be enabled - if it is not, the page will show you an error message indicating that the hook must first be enabled before you can utilize the navigation menu manager. Otherwise, you will be presented with a list of the applications installed in their current positioned order (which determines the tab order on the front end).

You can edit these applications from here to perform the following functions:
Change the tab 'title' (the text that shows when you mouse over the tab) Change the application's public title (be aware that third party language packs can override this) Toggle whether the tab is hidden or not Change the tab permissions (who has access to see the tab) Add custom attributes to the anchor tag that is drawn. This is a feature unique to IP.Content, allowing you to add custom onclick handlers, rel attributes, and other similar attributes to your tabs if you have a need.

In addition to being able to manage your existing applications, you can add custom tabs to your navigation bar from this page. Your custom tabs can be normal tabs that link to a page, or a dropdown menu (and you can choose whether to activate the dropdown menu when clicked, or when moused over). If you choose to make the tab a dropdown menu, you will be presented with an area to provide the links to display in this dropdown menu. As with applications, you can define the text to display on the tab, the 'title' or mouseover text, which groups can see the tab, and custom attributes to append to the HTML anchor tag. Additionally, you will need to supply the URL as well.

You can reorder your tabs in any order you like, putting them before, after, or intermingled with your regular application tabs. A handy preview window at the top of the screen allows you to quickly and easily see what the end result will look like, without having to visit the community front end and refresh the page. This preview is shown inside an iframe and is updated automatically whenever you reorder your tabs.

Tabs will automatically highlight when you are viewing that page, and disable associated application tabs from highlighting, if appropriate. For instance, if you link to an IP.Content page, the 'Pages' tab will no longer highlight, since a more appropriate tab has been lit up. Database strings are ignored, so any category or record you view on that page will still cause the tab to light up. Additionally, if you view a page that is linked to within a submenu, the submenu tab will light up.

Here are a few screenshots to give you an idea of the interface

Here is the overview screen, showing the tab bar preview, list of applications, and list of custom tabs you may have added.

Editing an application allows you to manage tab and link related details

Adding a custom tab allows you to create a submenu if you wish to, with an unlimited number of links in it

New tab bar on the front end, complete with custom tabs and a dropdown menu

Wrapping up

And no, that's not a pun based on the fact that Christmas just passed. :wink: It's a natural action for a new client to add a page and proceed to want to place a tab link to that new page on the front end, only to find that this requires navigating to the template manager and jumping into the HTML code to accomplish. This new module in IP.Content should make it much easier for new users and advanced users alike to quickly add navigational tabs to their custom pages (or any link they want!) in IP.Content. We will be monitoring feedback on this new module to look for ways to improve it in future releases, so please share your thoughts in the IP.Content feedback forum. And we look forward to your comments on this new feature below!

21,207 views

bfarber

December 29, 201114 yr

IP.Content 2.3 Dev Update: Tagging

Tagging is a powerful feature made available through the IP.Board framework that allows you to collect "tags" for submitted data, either through an ad-hoc system whereby the members provide tags at will, or through a closed system where the available tags are pre-defined. Tag support in IP.Content is, arguably, the number one requested feature, and since we try to listen to our customers and deliver software with the features you have asked for, we have chosen to include tag support for IP.Content in version 2.3.0. Read on to learn about how tag support will work in the next release of IP.Content.

Configuration

While your global configuration serves as the basis for IP.Content tags (just as it does elsewhere throughout our suite of addon applications), you can override the global options on both a per-database and per-category basis. When configuring your databases (or your articles section), you can choose to enable tags, disable prefixes, and specify the pre-defined tags to use if you wish to use a closed system. When configuring categories in your databases, you can optionally override the per-database configuration. That is to say, all of your categories by default inherit the configuration from the database, but you can disable tagging, prefixes, or specify different pre-defined tags (or none at all) on a per-category basis if you wish. You can do this for individual categories, or for all of your categories - the choice is yours.

If you do not disable prefixes, they will be available to you and your members based on your global configuration in the System Settings. Similarly, if you do not define per-database or per-category pre-defined tags, the ones you configure globally in the System Settings will be utilized instead (or the system will be an open system where users can submit whatever tags they want). Global group options and per-member overrides (for instance, disabling tag abilities for a specific member) are all honored in IP.Content.

These options will allow you to enable and disable tagging as you see fit throughout your article and database sections, giving you full control over how tags function.

Tag Collection

Tag collection on the front end works just the same as it does for topics. The input capabilities are dynamically set based on your configuration, so the "Use first tag as prefix" option is shown if allowed, and the tag input field will turn into a select box if you have a closed tagging system. The same input capabilities are available in the ACP when you add or edit articles or database records from there, instead.

Additionally, the tag input field is available if you promote a post to an article, and taking the system one step further - we even default the tags associated with the topic on the new article form for you. You can of course remove them, add to them, or change them, but you won't have to try to remember what tags were used for the topic, and neither will your members.

Display and Searching

Just as with topics, the tags will display in the database record listings (including the article "Archive" view). If a prefix was set, it will show before the article or record title. When you mouse over a tag, a helpful tooltip is shown to let you know you can click the tag to search for it.

The tags will also display in frontpage templates in a similar fashion.

When viewing an article or database record, the tags are of course shown here as well

And to round everything off, we show the prefix and tags when viewing records in the ACP as well

Tags are also displayed in search results, if applicable. And, of course, you can search for tags within the IP.Content application in the global site search, allowing you to easily find the articles and other database records that you have tagged.

New Plugin Block: Tag Cloud

With the introduction of tagging in IP.Content, we decided to go ahead and include a new plugin block to allow you to display a tag cloud block anywhere throughout IP.Content or IP.Board that you like. This plugin block could, as well, be included externally on any webpage on the internet using our external widget code if you so wished.

The block will display exactly as it does on the forum board index.

More To Expect

We are happy to be able to deliver one of the most requested features for IP.Content 2.3, and we hope you are looking forward to the release. We have a lot more in store, so stay tuned for future blog entries outlining other changes you can expect to see with IP.Content 2.3. If you have suggestions for other improvements to IP.Content, please don't hesitate to share them in our IP.Content feedback forum!

13,521 views

bfarber

December 25, 201114 yr

IP.Content 2.3 Dev Update: New Toys

Development of IP.Content 2.3 continues, and while we have many more great things in store for this release, we wanted to take a moment to tell you about two new features you can expect to see in this release. Many of the recent blog entries have described consistency improvements, SEO improvements, and other integration changes, but we wanted to make sure you knew that this release would have a couple of new "fun" features that you can use on your site as well. Certainly, we are not yet done with our IP.Content 2.3 changes, and you can expect several more blogs detailing further improvements you will see with this release, but to tide you over until then, here are two new features that we hope you will find useful.

New Plugin Block: Currently Viewing

Many users have asked us to add a "Currently viewing" block to our database and article pages, perhaps even to other IP.Content pages. If you are not clear on what I am referring to when I mention a "currently viewing" block, it is the block you see in many applications (the forums included) that tells you who is also viewing the current page.

Rather than give you an option to add this capability to individual databases or pages, we decided to take it one step further. We have implemented a new plugin block that you can create in IP.Content to generate a "currently viewing" block, which you can now integrate onto any page you like in IP.Content (databases/articles included), as well as any other page throughout the entire IP.Board suite! Remember that IP.Content blocks can be embedded into any IP.Board skin template, allowing you to easily add "currently viewing" blocks throughout your site, at your discretion.

Note that while blocks can be embedded into external pages using a javascript widget, this particular block will not properly track page viewing on those external non-IP.Board pages (because it relies on session data in IP.Board), and we do not recommend using this block on external pages as a result.

With that said, you can now add a currently viewing block to your databases, articles, other IP.Content pages...and anywhere else throughout IP.Board you feel it would be useful! You can even use this block in your third party applications, though support for viewing individual pages will vary by application based on how they have configured their session plugins.

Shared Media Field

The shared media button, available in the WYSIWYG editors throughout IP.Board, is a powerful tool that allows you to quickly and easily insert content from across your entire suite of applications (and many third party applications!) anywhere you can post content with the WYSIWYG editor. You can share calendar events, attachments, gallery images, download manager files, and more anywhere that you can post.

We have decided to make use of this powerful functionality and take it a step further with IP.Content 2.3. You can now add a "Shared Media" field to any database (including your articles section), which will act as a separate way of inserting these shared resources into your submission. The items do *not* insert into the available RTE (you can already do that by using the button available on the editor) - instead they show and list separately. You can use this powerful new capability to link your database records logically to any other content in the suite - link a database record to a calendar event, or link it to a particular file in your download manager. Reuse your attachment or gallery images in your articles. Link to blog entries about upcoming software changes in a particular version when posting an article about that version. The possibilities are vast.

We have taken a quick video to show you the functionality in it's most default form - this is a brand new database with no template customizations, to give you an idea how the feature will work right out of the box.

http://screencast.com/t/reRAhmzC0yE

More To Come

We have a lot more in store for IP.Content 2.3, and we can't wait to tell you about some of the other changes you can expect to see. We are working hard to better integrate the features available in the IP.Board framework, allowing you to make use of some of the great capabilities the framework offers in unique and powerful ways. We hope that you find these two new features useful, and we we welcome your feedback about them in the comments below. If you have other suggestions to enhance IP.Content, please be sure to leave them in the feedback forum.

8,501 views

bfarber

December 22, 201114 yr

IP.Content 2.3 Dev Update: Commenting & Other Consistency Updates

Commenting is a powerful and important feature available with all of your IP.Content databases, 'Articles' included. Not only can you allow your users to comment on the database records, you can require approval of comments before they become public, you can moderate the comments as needed, and your users can get notified of new comments made on database records that they follow. Still, commenting in IP.Content was missing some important functionality that we felt was overdue to be implemented.

In the process, we wanted to implement some other functionality changes to make the databases and article sections of IP.Content more powerful on the front end, and to better integrate the entire software package with the IP.Board suite. Read-on to learn about these changes, available in IP.Content 2.3.

Full-Featured Comments

In earlier versions of IP.Content, your users could comment on articles and other database records, and that was about it. Moderators could delete, approve, and unapprove the comments from the front end, but if you wanted to edit a comment you had to go into the ACP to do so.

We are happy to announce that we have fully fleshed out the commenting system in IP.Content to make it consistent with every other application, without losing the flexibility you enjoy now (that is to say, you can still use the forums to host your comments if you so choose). We have integrated the IP.Board framework global commenting system into IP.Content, which gives us many of the capabilities you expect from a powerful commenting engine:
Your moderators and your users can now edit comments on the front end, where permitted. A new per-moderator permission option has been added to let you determine which moderators are allowed to edit comments. Your users can now report comments in IP.Content (as well as database records and articles!) The commenting engine now allows the AJAX-powered "quote" option, the same as you see with the comments below this blog entry Multi-moderation has now been implemented, allowing you to check off the comments you wish to moderator and act on them all in one go. Keeping in line with the moderation changes coming in IP.Board 3.3, an unapproved comment can be either "approved" or "deleted". An approved comment can either be "hidden" or "deleted". A hidden comment can now be "unhidden" or "deleted". Commenting is fully AJAX-powered (when available). This means quoting, adding, editing and other actions all get processed by an AJAX request, rather than traditional page refreshes, creating a smoother user experience for your users

For our technical-minded and modification author readers, we are now using the central commenting system plugin capability to it's fullest. Indeed, because of the multiple-database capability and the forum options for storing comments available in IP.Content, we needed to implement some small but useful changes in the central comment handler to achieve this. And, on a related note, IP.Content 2.3 will now be fully using the IP.Board classPost API to post topics, update topics, and post comments to those topics, allowing for more consistent back-end handling of data being sent to the forums.

Note that there is some more work to do with comments, and we are not done just yet, but the above changes should prove useful for any site that allows comments in IP.Content.

Guests Welcome!

Since version 1.0, IP.Content has not allowed guests to comment on database records and articles. We are happy to report that as of IP.Content 2.3, guests will now be allowed to comment on these database records, where-permitted. As with other areas that allow commenting, guests will be prompted for a username and to fill in a CAPTCHA (if enabled), when submitting a comment on a database record.

Similarly, guests can now rate database records and articles, where-permitted. If you allow guests to rate an item, we will use the IP address of the guest to verify they only rate the record once. With these two changes in place, we have removed the notice displaying above the database permission matrix in the ACP, alerting you that the permissions for rating and commenting are not honored for guests, as it is no longer needed.

Database and Article Improvements

As mentioned above, we have integrated the ability to report articles and database records in IP.Content 2.3. Your users will now be able to report objectionable content so that moderators can be alerted and more easily track and handle these items.

Additionally, we have implemented the reputation system (e.g. the "Like" button available throughout IP.Board, or the plus/minus system if you opt to use that instead) for database records and articles. You can now issue likes and reputation against these items, beginning with IP.Content 2.3.

Many of our users have asked for a way to allow more data collection for articles and database records on the front end. Specifically, you cannot collect meta tags, change an article's author, or provide a static FURL name for these records, while you are able to when submitting the same record from the ACP. We are happy to announce that this will now be possible beginning with IP.Content 2.3. There is now a per-moderator/editor option to allow extra data collection from your moderators/editors (keep in mind that super moderators on your site get all moderator capabilities automatically). If you wanted your members to be able to submit this data too, you could add your members group as a 'moderator' and only give them this permission, however we feel that these sorts of capabilities are usually best left to your site staff in real-world use. After all, you can't care about the SEO of your site on one hand, and then leave these SEO tools to use your members' discretion.

The data you can now allow to be collected on the front end are: author, meta description, meta keywords, static FURL name and article template (for articles only). Authors still must be members of the site, and the field utilizes the auto-complete type-ahead available elsewhere in IP.Board.

Finally, with regards to our database and article systems, you can now view, compare, edit, delete and restore revisions right from the front end! When viewing articles and database records on the front end, moderators with permission to "restore revisions" (again, super moderators already have this permission) will now be able to fully manage the revisions without anyone ever having to visit the ACP. And, as before, you can add any group you wish as a moderator, and give them only this permission if you wanted to allow members or other special users on your site the ability to manage article revisions. Front end management of revisions will allow you to better utilize IP.Content as a wiki, where desired.

Quick Navigation Panel

The quick navigation panel, a great new enhancement in IP.Board 3.x, allows you to easily jump around the site to areas you wish to reach without having to navigate there page by page. All applications can integrate into the quick navigation panel if they desire to, and we are happy to report that IP.Content 2.3 now makes use of this central functionality.

The quick navigation panel will now show all of your pages (that you have permission to access), followed by all of your databases, and all of the categories in those databases (again, where permitted to access). Because our feedback and focus groups indicated that some pages, while technically accessible, should not necessarily show in the quick navigation panel, we have added a new per-page option that you can uncheck if you wish to exclude a page from the quick navigation panel, regardless of the user's permission to access the page.

Consistency Is Key

As you can see, we are working hard to ensure your IP.Content user (and moderator) experience is consistent with the rest of our software suite. At the same time, we want to ensure common actions that moderators should be able to perform, but must currently be performed by administrators, are available through the front end with IP.Content 2.3. No longer will you need to visit the ACP to tackle routine duties, or provide extra details, or edit user comments - everything can now be handled inline on the front end utilizing the powerful tools available to you and your moderators.

We are working hard to bring other consistency and functionality improvements to the IP.Content front end, many in the form of better integration with the IP.Board framework. We will be blogging about these changes in due-course, and in the mean time, we hope you look forward to the improvements already discussed in this and other blog entries.

If you have suggestions on how to improve the software, please post them in our IP.Content feedback forum. If you have comments about the changes discussed in this blog entry, please provide them in the space below!

7,433 views

bfarber

December 20, 201114 yr

Converter Update and Suite Promotion

Since the very start of our company IPS has offered free scripts you can download to assist in converting from other forum or community software to our platform. Thousands of you have taken advantage of this over the years and we are happy you have chosen to be part of the IPS family.

We have put great effort into modernizing our community suite and that, combined with clients able to make clear comparisons with how IPS approaches community solutions against others, has resulted in the pace of conversions seeing a marked increase. As you can imagine we are thrilled and honored by this increase!

Updates to Converter Scripts

We were fortunate to have some clients with complicated conversions recently who were gracious enough to allow us to work with their database to make improvements to our conversion scripts that will benefit all of our clients.

Converting from another data source is a complicated process and is never an exact science. In addition to fixing many minor issues with the converter, we were able to greatly increase the speed a conversion takes to complete.

Example 1: 170,000 post community conversion reduced from 3 hours to 20 minutes
Example 2: 10 million post community conversion reduced from a week to 2 days

Of course these numbers will vary based on the hardware of your server but these are significant improvements we are happy to be able to bundle in the software.

Beyond speed improvements, these changes also mean less memory and processing power is used by the converter scripts so it impacts overall stability of your server less than before.

The bundled redirection scripts we include for popular forum softwares for SEO purposes are also updated to take advantage of other structural changes in the conversion routines to mean faster lookups of old vs. new locations so the redirect takes place with less delay. Though a small change every bit counts when you may have just moved millions of posts!

New features in a a converter script are rare since it is, let's be honest here, a pretty boring bit of software :smile:. However we were able to include support to transfer vB tags to the new IP.Board tagging system by popular request from the incredible number of converts we receive each week from that software.

Conversion Service

For many years IPS offered free converter scripts but also offered a paid conversion service if you preferred for our staff to do the conversion process for you. Because of the great increase in conversions I mentioned above (good thing), we also of course saw a huge increase in paid conversion service requests. The problem was we had so many our level of service dropped to the point we were not proud of what we were offering (bad thing) so we decided to stop offering paid conversion services a couple months ago.

The good news is that our great client community has stepped in and many clients who are long-term clients of IPS are now offering conversion services for those of you considering switching and would like some help. Check out our custom services directory for this information and for other services provided by our client community. There is a lot of great talent in our client community!

Full Suite Promotion

Are you ready to jump in and join the IPS family? We have made it technically easy to convert to IPS, now we want to make it even more enticing for you...

When you purchase multiple IPS products at one time you always get a bundle discount. When purchasing our entire Suite at once this discount is 25% off the total price (calculated as 5% off per-suite app you purchase). We are increasing the discount you get for each bundled app from 5% to 7% through the end of the year. That equates to an extra 10% or $43.99 off when purchasing our entire Suite!

This is a great time to purchase a brand new full license of IPS Community Suite and join or expanding client base and modern community software!

Feel free to email [email protected] if you have any questions about IPS software or services. You can also post in our pre-sales forum to get impression from existing IPS clients.

10,731 views

Charles

December 14, 201114 yr

Pricing Changes and Volume Discounts

IPS is making some changes to our pricing to streamline our offerings and recognize changing business needs.

That Pesky One Cent

It gets pretty old saying "it's nine ninety nine" so we are going to round up all prices to their nearest dollar. So, for example, our community hosting Basic 10 service will now be $10 rather than $9.99 or IP.Blog will become $50 instead of $49.99.

Yes, we realize it's only $0.01 but really you have to admit $10 looks so much cleaner than $9.99. Rikki, our interface designer, is very happy at being able to clean up the web site design accordingly.

Business Needs

We introduced the IP.Board Standard and Business licenses toward the end of 2006 and have not adjusted the prices since then. That was over 5 years ago and as with everything else in the world, the cost of doing business for IPS has increased.

In addition to costs, we offer more free services included with the licenses (spam monitoring service, IP.Chat 5, IP.Tracker, Marketplace, free installs/upgrades, etc.) than we certainly could have dreamed up 5 years ago. Therefore, we are changing the price of the IP.Board Standard license to $175 and the IP.Board Business license to $400. The renewal pricing for these two licenses remains unchanged for all existing clients.

We will not be actually implementing these pricing changes until January 2012 so if you are considering using IPS software now is the time!

Multiple Licenses

We introduce a discount program for those with multiple licenses back in 2009 and it has been a huge success with clients purchasing often dozens of licenses to our software. The program we introduce in 2009 has remain unchanged and is simply if you have more than two full price licenses then the third and so on is $99.

That has worked great but we want to change it up so more clients can benefit. The new multiple license discount structure is as follows:

License 1: full price
License 2: 10% off
License 3 - 5: 30% off
License 6 - 25: 50% off
License 26+: contact us for special pricing

Best of all these discounts apply to all product licenses!

All of the changes listed will go live in January 2012.

14,155 views

Charles

December 14, 201114 yr

IP.Content 2.3 Dev Update: SEO Improvements

Development of IP.Content 2.3 continues, and as mentioned in the introductory "What To Expect" blog entry, one area of the software we wanted to place a focus on was search engine optimization. While this particular subject can bring about heated debates regarding what is "good" and what is "bad", there are a few areas of IP.Content that we felt could use some specific improvements. Today we're going to discuss a few of the SEO improvements you can expect to see in IP.Content 2.3.

Header Codes

There is no denying that sending the appropriate header response code based on the results of a page request is important. If the page loads normally, as typically happens while browsing around a website, a 200 response code is returned to the browser (and spiders) to let it know everything is ok. When the page cannot load correctly for some reason, a more appropriate response code is required. If the content cannot be found, this response code should be 404, and if you do not have permission to view the content it should be 403. As Matt reported in the IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: SEO Improvements, other non-specific errors will now return a 401 header code. This is the default that IP.Board uses, so if a more specific response code is not specified, an error page automatically issues this 401 response code now.

We have taken the time to go through all IP.Content actions to update the response codes that are returned. Previously, no response code was specified, so all error pages would return the default (previously a 500, though this has changed with IP.Board 3.3, as mentioned). Now, pages that are "not found" will return a 404 response, and pages you do not have permission to access will return a 403 response code. Pages, by the way, also include database categories, articles, and other database-specific views that can be delivered (such as a request to add a new article).

Meta Tag Configuration

While this change really relates to improving the usability of the product more than SEO, we'll include it here since the change we are discussing relates to configuring your database meta tags. In IP.Content 2.2, each database (including the articles database) allows you to configure meta tags for that database specifically. The problem here is that you can also configure them at the page level (e.g. you can specify the meta tags for each individual page in the Page Manager area). So, once you embed a database into the page, which meta tags should be used? The ones you configured for that page, or the ones you configured for the database? When viewing categories and articles (or other database records), there are specific meta tags available for these areas as well, although they are still relevant and there is still value in customizing these separately.

The decision has been made to remove per-database meta tags, and instead utilize the meta tags you configure for the page itself, in an effort to clarify the interface and remove duplicate configurations that have proven to be unnecessary and confusing.

Page Titles

One of the more relevant and controllable areas of search engine optimization is your page titles. IP.Content utilizes your "Page Name" as the page title (the text inserted into the <title></title> tags of the page), which works well in most scenarios. When you embed a database into a page, however, IP.Content 2.2 uses the database name as the page title. When navigating further down into the database, the category name or article/record name is instead used as the page title.

Customers have requested a change in this behavior and better control of this experience, and we are happy to announce there will be several changes coming in IP.Content 2.3 to allow you better control of your page titles across the software.

Beginning with IP.Content 2.3, the default page title format for databases will be as follows:
Index page: Database name - Page name - Website name (or board name, if no website name) Category page: Category name - Database name - Page name - Website name (or board name, if no website name) Record page: Record name - Category name (if available) - Database name - Page name - Website name (or board name, if no website name)

We have not stopped there, however. We have separated the function that handles this out so that it is now possible to write hooks to override this functionality, allowing developers to come up with other ways to enhance or modify the page title formatting. And, additionally, we have also built in a custom formatting system that power users who require further control or refinement, or simply believe a different format works better for page titles, can now utilize for complete control. If you wish to change the format of the page title beyond the default, you can now do so by adding 3 constants to your conf_global.php file, and within these constants you can use macros to create different page title formats. While more information will be posted in our documentation section on this closer to release, here is the general code to give you an idea:

* define( 'CCS_PAGE_TITLE_CAT', '' ); * define( 'CCS_PAGE_TITLE_RECORD', '' ); * // Following variables will be replaced: * // {page_name} = Page name * // {database_name} = Databae name * // {category_name} = Category name (only available for CCS_PAGE_TITLE_CAT and CCS_PAGE_TITLE_RECORD) * // {record_name} = Record name (only available for CCS_PAGE_TITLE_RECORD) * // {website_name} = Website name as configured in ACP * // {board_name} = Board name as configured in ACP
* define( 'CCS_PAGE_TITLE_HOME', '' );

You could thus specify "(Website Name): Record Name - Category Name" for records, or you could have "Record Name - Page Name (And some custom text here)". Ultimately, if you wish to redefine your page titles, you can now do so with relative ease, and without having to worry about future updates reverting your tweaks.

But wait, there's more! We didn't want to make a few minor changes to the format of the page title and call it a day. Many users have explained that while they want to name a page something simple (i.e. "News"), because that name is used in many places across the software, they may want their page title to say something different (i.e. "News - everything you need to know about my website subject matter"). How can we accommodate this as well?

We have added a new option to the page form that allows you to optionally specify a page title that is different from the page name. To be clear - the page name will continue to be used throughout IP.Content, while the page title you specify will ONLY be used in the <title></title> tags, allowing you to completely control it. It should be noted, as well, that this new field is optional, so you aren't required to fill in the same name twice for all of your pages, or edit each of your pages upon upgrade to give it a separate title.

When you uncheck the box, you can now specify a separate page title

We have implemented this same new functionality for categories as well, so you can now define a category page title separate from the category name, should you wish to do so.

In the process of making these changes, we noticed that the breadcrumbs within databases would use the page name on the database home page, however once you navigated within the database, the database name was used in the breadcrumbs instead. We have changed the breadcrumb navigation to always use the page name, and not the database name, to improve consistency and maintain hierarchy definition of the site.

Redirecting Duplicate Page Requests

While working through the system we found that page requests that are different, but load the same page, do not redirect to the correct form of the URL. For instance, if I have IP.Content at "www.site.com" and my default index page is "index.html" (and I have not enabled the option to remove the page name from the URL for this page), then I can access the same page via the URL "www.site.com" or via "www.site.com/index.html". The same page is loaded from two different URLs. As a general rule for SEO, this is bad, and all URLs that point to a page should redirect to the correct form of the URL for that page. We have enhanced IP.Content to detect this scenario and it will now 301 redirect these duplicate requests to the correct form of the URL.

Pages Tab

The "Pages" tab in IP.Board, if you have not hidden it, links to "index.php?app=ccs" by default. The system is designed to load your default page (with a fresh install, this would be "index.html" in the root of your Page Manager), and while we have already implemented a feature to redirect duplicate URLs to the correct form of the URL as described above, we took this one step further for the Pages tab. A new hook will be included with IP.Content 2.3 that rewrites the "index.php?app=ccs" URL used for the Pages tab by default so that it links to the correct form of the URL for your default page. This will reduce the number of duplicate URL requests that have to be redirected and help ensure only one URL is used to refer to any one given page (especially your index page, likely the most important and trafficked page of your IP.Content installation).

Memory System

IP.Content gives you a lot of flexibility and control, allowing you to fully define the URLs of your pages. You can define the full folder and page name structure for your pages; you can define the FURL string to use for your database categories; you can even define static FURL strings for your articles and other database records. This allows you to remove any ids from all of your URLs, but the tradeoff is that if you ever change your mind and rename a page, or a category FURL string, or an article FURL string, the system has no way to know where an old URL should point.

For example, say you gave a database category a FURL string of "information". Your URL to this category is "site.com/articles/_/information/". A year down the road, you want to change this information page to an FAQ, and you want to update the FURL string to reflect this. The URL to this category becomes "site.com/articles/_/faq/". After a year, search engine spiders have surely indexed the previous URL, and visitors may click it in a search engine listing to reach your site. The problem is, that old URL no longer exists, and because it was a static piece of information without an ID, IP.Content has no way of knowing where the request should be pointed to now.

We have eliminated this problem with a URL memory system, automatically available for pages, categories and records/articles with a static FURL string (if you do not explicitly define a static FURL string for articles a dynamic one is used with an ID, so this problem does not exist in this scenario).

If you rename a category/page/article in IP.Content 2.3, it will remember the old URL behind the scenes. If a request is received and cannot be processed, IP.Content checks it's memory system to determine if the URL previously was valid, and if so, where it pointed to. IP.Content will then 301 redirect the request to the new URL, eliminating problems with broken links when you change your pages after they have been indexed. This was a highly requested feature, and we hope it makes managing your URLs easier, and more forgiving when you change your mind later on.

Wrap Up

We are continuously monitoring feedback we receive from clients, and we understand that SEO is important to you. We wanted to take the time to implement useful functionality changes in the software that will help your site grow. At the same time, we want to focus on proven areas that have a real measurable effect, and that will benefit all of our customers. We believe the changes discussed in this blog entry will improve both the user experience, as well as the experience search engine spiders have while indexing your website. It should be noted, as well, that every single one of these ideas stemmed from feedback suggestions in our IP.Content feedback forum, where we encourage you to share your thoughts with us! We welcome your comments on these changes below!

8,756 views

bfarber

December 9, 201114 yr

Help Wanted: Mobile App Developer

IPS is looking for a mobile app developer to assist us in greatly enhancing our presence in the mobile application space.

Key Requirements
Experience in iOS and Android development (Windows phone a plus) Working knowledge of IPS community suite software Examples of previous application development

Other RequirementsWorking knowledge of SVN or similar revision control systems Self-starter who can take a project plan and make it a reality Ability to work with a team toward a larger goal Time management skills to be able to deliver a goal on time

If interested, please contact [email protected] with information on requirements listed.

4,145 views

Charles

December 5, 201114 yr

Hosted Communities Update

We made changes today to the way we meter and track data and media storage on our hosted communities. Previously our main limiter for a package was online users. This normally works fine as it's a simple formula of the more people you have online the more server resources your community consumes. However, there are some long-established communities that have been lucky enough to accumulate thousands (sometimes millions) of posts over the years with only a small number of online users. Those types of accounts were causing unfair resource usage when compared to other clients on our system.

To ensure fair resource usage and good service for all of our clients, we will now start counting database storage along with file storage toward the storage quota for our packages. This will ensure that those accounts using more resources are not impacting those with smaller communities unfairly. It's our end goal to ensure all of our clients receive the best service possible.

Increase in Data and File Storage Limits

Of course we do not want these changes to be an unnecessary burden for any client. So, although we will now start counting database storage in our storage quotas, we are also raising our package quotas!

Package Name: Old Limit to New Limit
Starter 5: 200MB to 300MB
Basic 10: 350MB to 700MB
Standard 25: 500MB to 1GB
Plus 40: 800MB to 1.5GB
Super 65: 1GB to 2GB
Ultra 100: 1.5 GB to 3GB
Advanced 175: 2GB to 5GB

These new limits will benefit all our Hosted Communities by giving them lots of room to grow!

Yes, talk of file and data storage space is a dry subject many of you will not be too excited about. But wait there's more:

Overall Network Improvements

After months of planning, countless network diagrams, visits to network provider data centers, waiting on hardware deliveries, and hours of migration planning: IPS has started the process of a network-wide upgrade! Every piece of hardware - from network switches down to the actual server hardware - is in the process of being updated. We are already in the process of transferring client communities to the new hardware. Depending on the nature of your Hosted Community we may be able to do this with no intervention on your part. If we do need your assistance we will contact you.

Those of our who choose to take advantage of our Hosted Communities will see noticeable improvements in the speed and reliability of your community. Even if you do not host your community with IPS, our other services such as IP.Chat, Spam Monitoring Service, the license system, client area, company forums, etc. will all be faster and more reliable.

We are very excited to be starting this upgrade process and look forward to its completion. It is work that will benefit every IPS client!

3,947 views

Charles

December 4, 201114 yr

IP.Content 2.3 Dev Update: ACP Interface Improvements [Part 2]

In our last IP.Content blog entry, we discussed some of the major interface changes you can expect to see coming with IP.Content 2.3. These interface changes represent improvements to your work flow and enhancements to the usability of IP.Content in the ACP. As mentioned in that blog entry, thousands of changes have been made, and while we obviously cannot detail every single one of these changes, we did want to outline some of the other major changes you can expect to see. Please read on to discover further improvements made to IP.Content 2.3.

Fewer steps, quicker workflow

IP.Content pages and blocks utilize a wizard-based approach for adding new pages and blocks, allowing you to proceed through the process one step at a time. This is largely implemented out of necessity - certain options will change depending on earlier options. For instance, if you choose to create a plugin block you will need to select which plugin (out of the available options), while if you create a custom HTML block you will need to provide your custom HTML. While this approach works well, and we've improved parts of it over various past releases, we have identified further improvements to speed up the work flow in IP.Content 2.3.

For pages, the wizard steps are now down to 3, with the 3rd step being "Done" (i.e. no action on your part needed). We have combined various steps to reduce the time it takes and number of steps you must walk through in order to create pages. This should greatly improve the amount of time it takes to create pages compared to earlier versions.

For blocks, we have also combined steps to reduce the time it takes to create blocks. With feed blocks, the "Sorting" and "Limiting" steps are now combined into one. With all blocks, the caching options have been combined into an earlier step. The end result is that all of the wizard-based interfaces now have a reduced number of steps needed to complete the wizard, which means less work and waiting on your part, and ultimately quicker setup.

Redesigned Media Manager

The media manager page has been completely redesigned, and while we are still putting some finishing touches on this area, we feel it is far enough along to give you a sneak preview now. The same functionality as before is available, with a more intuitive and refined interface.

Again, please note that this is an early preview and there are still some areas here we are working on, but hopefully this video gives you an idea of the changes to come.

Preview Video: http://screencast.com/t/DjwK9flzuEDe

Small changes that add up

Many small changes have been made throughout the interface to provide you with a better and more useful experience when working within IP.Content.

Revision and comment counts are now shown for the appropriate menu items. This allows you to know right away (before clicking through to those pages) if there are revisions or comments for a particular item. While comments are only supported in databases and articles, revisions are supported for pages, templates and blocks (in addition to databases and articles); this change has been implemented throughout the ACP interface everywhere.

A small indicator badge has been added next to articles that are set to display on the frontpage. While you could always manage these articles from the "Frontpage Manager" page of the ACP, many customers have indicated they would prefer to be able to see which articles are flagged to display on the frontpage right from the Article Manager page itself. Mousing over this badge shows a tooltip, explaining what the badge represents.

The filter bar available in the Manage Articles page has been added to all database 'Manage Record' pages. This feature was available in earlier versions of IP.Content, but was removed while updating the software for IP.Board 3.2. We are happy to see it back, and we know many of you will be too.

When adding a page previously, you had to specify the page FURL name and the page folder separately. It was hard to visualize the resulting URL based on the pieces of data you were supplying. We have improved these options in IP.Content 2.3 to better allow you to visualize the end-result from the values you supply.

When adding pages, the option to "Only edit page content" has been hidden unless you have selected a page template to use. The setting is otherwise ignored, so hiding this setting will reduce confusion and clean up the interface, only showing you relevant options to the configuration you are specifying.

Some further improvements have been made to the add/edit page form.

When "Cache this page" is not checked, the cache lifetime options are hidden, reducing clutter on the form. Clicking "What is caching" will show a modal box explaining how caching works so that administrators can better understand the available options.

Similarly, when "Available to ALL users", the permission multi-select field is hidden, further reducing unnecessary configuration options when you are managing your pages. By showing less options unnecessarily (but not removing the functionality), we believe adding and editing pages will become easier for novice users, but just as configurable as in earlier versions.

We have removed the following options from the add/edit database forms:
Allow user modifications Allow comments Database open Allow ratings

All of these features can already be controlled by database (and category) permissions, and having separate on/off options for these features was extraneous and unnecessary. If you don't want users to be able to rate, just don't give any of them permission to rate (we automatically hide ratings on the front end in this scenario). If you don't want users to add or edit records, don't give them permission to. There's no need to have extra settings to control these things when you can already control them elsewhere.

A button has been added to the revision pages for articles, records, templates, blocks and pages to quickly clear out ALL revisions for the respective item. While you could previously click the delete button for each saved revision, a button to clear all revisions can help you more quickly clear them out when desired.

When viewing templates, the number of pages or databases using the templates are shown to let you know if the template is in use. We have made this number a link, and when clicked a modal box is shown listing the pages or databases using the template, with a link to the form to edit that page or database.

We have added some inline help text on some of the major pages in the ACP to better explain how you can use certain features and what options are available to you. We will continue to evolve this inline help on an as-needed basis.

Consistency

We identified many inconsistent areas of the ACP that we spent time bringing in line with the rest of the software to provide a more reliable and stable experience when working with various features of IP.Content. Most of these changes don't warrant much discussion, but we felt you may be interested in hearing about them nevertheless.Hundreds of language string and verbiage changes have been made to provide a more consistent experience. Cancel buttons have been added to all forms to allow you to more easily 'cancel' your action without having to rely on browser navigation or other page links. Cancel buttons displaying in the "action bar" at the top of the page have been removed, and instead moved to the bottom of all forms. The navigation bar entries on every single page have been reviewed to ensure they provide correct, reliable and expected navigational breadcrumbs. Add folder/Add category buttons throughout the ACP now show the form inside a modal box. Previously, some pages used a modal box while some of these buttons would take you to a new page to supply the category/folder title. Minor styling inconsistencies have been resolved, ensuring the interface looks the same no matter where you are. A button to jump to the 'Manage Moderators' page has been added to the database field/category/record pages. The same jump bar has been added to the manage moderators page, allowing you to easily jump back to the record/field/category management pages. Dropdown menus used when creating blocks have been changed to radio buttons. This allows you to more quickly see all of the available options without having to open the dropdown and close it to confirm the option you have selected is the one you want. On the Databases page (where your databases are listed), the name will now take you to the edit database form. This is much more consistent with the rest of the IP.Content (and IP.Board) ACP interface. The number of records and fields are now links to take you to those pages, respectively. Additionally, the number of categories and moderators are now shown, also linking you to their respective pages for thatspecific database. Codepress as an editor option has been removed. The javascript editor has not been updated in several years and no longer works with current modern browsers, so we have decided to drop it as an option. Having an option that doesn't work is worse than not having the option at all.

And more...

As we mentioned before, we've made thousands of changes to the ACP and can't possibly detail each and every one. Every single change made has been part of an effort to improve consistency or usability. These first round of changes will all help improve your work flow, make existing processes quicker and clearer, remove clutter and confusion from the interface, and generally help you to get on with the task at hand. We welcome further ideas to improve the interface, workflow and consistency of the application in our IP.Content feedback forum, otherwise please leave your comments below!

5,855 views

bfarber

December 3, 201114 yr

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: Applications & Hooks Enhancements

Parts of this entry may only apply to those who create hooks for IP.Board. Feel free to skip the sections that may not interest you.

For IP.Board 3.2 I made several changes for both applications and hooks and now with this new major version I went ahead and made some more changes that I hope will simplify things for everyone.

Applications Ordering

Very often customers asked us for a simple way to reorder applications in the ACP, and subsequently in the front end, without having them split in 3 different categories (Root, IPS Addons and Third Party Addons) which for example prevented having the Blog link before the Forums one without having to manually modify the templates to add it. I am pleased to inform you that this is now possible without having to edit anything!

This image shows the old layout with the split categories in IP.Board 3.2:

While this one lets you see the new and updated layout in IP.Board 3.3:

As you can see from the image above the System application (which is hidden for the front end) is always listed at the top but all the others can be re-ordered. Let's now take a look at the main navigation in the front end which properly displays the applications in our chosen order:

Applications Status & Restrictions

From the image above of the new layout you will have surely noticed that now the applications page has 2 tabs which list enabled and disabled applications, the disabled page looks exactly the same except for the first button which is a green plus to enable it opposed to the red cross in the enabled list. Note also that the uninstall button has been replaced with the enable/disable button and has been moved in the dropdown where the less used options are available, after all if you install an application on your community you want to keep it!

Another change is the "Tab Restrictions" column which displays an icon to inform the admin that the front end tab may not show to some (or all) members depending on the chosen options:

Application Details

Unlike for hooks which already have a page to view all their details, applications had nothing and the list itself doesn't have any information about the application author, website and similar data. I have gone ahead and added a new view for that which lists most of the known information for the application:

Hooks List

For consistency with the new applications layout and the recent changes introduced in IP.Content the hooks listing now has two tabs to list enabled and disabled hooks while the old "Install a New Hook" tab is now replaced by a button which opens a modal popup to import the file:

Hooks Settings

Several hooks being released include new settings or whole new group settings but those settings are not always where you expect them. To help admins find those faster we have included a new link in the dropdown that takes you directly to the settings page once clicked.

Since none of our default hooks add settings the example below is from one of the hooks I've released for free:

Since hooks also support multiple groups or even individual settings in the image below as a test I have added a setting from the "Spam Prevention" group in IP.Board in the hook, as you can see both groups are now listed:

Hooks Development

Sometimes a developer might need to run code before allowing the admin to install or uninstall a specific hook, starting with IP.Board 3.3 this is possible adding the functions "pre_install" and "pre_uninstall" in the custom installation file. A simple example with the basic structure can be found below:

<?php class myHookSetup { public function __construct( ipsRegistry $registry ) { // Your constructor code here } public function pre_install() { //This is run BEFORE the hook is installed on the board, nothing is added in the database or in the files yet } public function install() { //This is run AFTER the hook is installed on the board } public function pre_uninstall() { //This is run BEFORE the hook is unistalled from the board, nothing is changed/removed in the database or in the files yet } public function uninstall() { //This is run AFTER the hook is unistalled from the board } }

Furthermore to make development of hooks easier the requirements page now provides an easy-to-use dropdown menu with the versions of the chosen application, there is no need anymore to search manually in the XML files the ID for the version you want to specify!

Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum.

12,979 views

teraßyte

December 2, 201114 yr

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: Moderation

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry discussing our efforts towards moderation features, and specifically the new warning system.
Today I wanted to talk about another area of moderation, perhaps the most important area - managing content - and how we've improved that in IP.Board 3.3.

Unapproved, Soft Deleted, Deleted

IP.Board has some great functionality when it comes to managing content - you can set any user, group or forum to require manual approval before posts are made, and once content has been posted you can edit it, hide it, or delete it.

The way that this is presented though can sometimes be confusing. Currently, the ability to hide a post (which we refer to as "soft delete" or "remove from view") is accessed by clicking "Delete". I see on a lot of communities, a moderator wants to hide a piece of content, but not delete it, and clicks "Unapprove". This of course works in that the content is hidden, but it re-enters the moderation queue and is indicated to moderators that it needs their approval when browsing the community or the moderator control panel, when in fact, moderators are aware of it, and have deliberately chosen not to approve it.

We've made some changes to make this a little clearer:

Currently when viewing a post, the options are:
Unapprove Delete
Remove from View (Soft Delete) Delete from topic (Hard Delete)

[*]Edit
This presents a few issues - firstly, as mentioned before - it's not immediately obvious that the "Delete" option contains sub-options, and in addition, "Unapprove" and "Remove from View" perform almost identical actions.

In 3.3, we've merged "Unapprove" and "Remove from View" into a single action called "Hide", and "Delete" now simply moves the post to the Trash Can (accessible in the moderator control panel) without any additional dialogues.

So the options now are:Edit Hide Delete

All the same functionality, but much simpler.

This change also applies to both topics and posts, and also the comments system used by Blog/Gallery/Downloads/Calendar/Nexus, which currently does not allow content to be hidden in any way once it's been approved.

Interface Enhancements

We've also moved a few things around to make moderation tools easier to access.

The drop down menu

When viewing a topic, there is currently a drop down menu at the bottom of the screen allowing you to perform moderator actions on the topic. The problem is, not only is it below all the posts, it's hidden behind a "Show Moderator Tools" link:

We've moved this up the top, next to the reply button, and made the options a little easier to understand:

We've also moved the drop down in the forum view to the same location.

Multi-mod

Also in that "Show Moderator Tools" bar is a long select box - when viewing a topic, there are little checkboxes next to each post which you can check, then select an action from that box to perform an action on several posts at once.

This isn't great though because it isn't always obvious that it is that select box that the checkboxes are about, and also, even if you do know it, you have to scroll all the way down to get to it.

The comments system used by Blog/Gallery/Downloads/Calendar/Nexus has a much better way of dealing with this - when you click the checkbox, an overlay appears in the bottom-right corner of your screen. We've implemented this same design:

This is used both for the checkboxes next to each post when viewing a topic, and next to each topic when viewing a forum.

We've also made it so that the options available are aware of the options you check - for example, if you check a post which is hidden, you'll see the option to unhide it, but not also to hide it (since it's already hidden).

Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum.

18,651 views

Mark

December 1, 201114 yr

IP.Content 2.3 Dev Update: ACP Interface Improvements [Part 1]

IP.Content, by it's nature, is largely managed via the admin control panel. While there are front-end capabilities available to allow you to distribute some of the work load to your moderators (and, in some cases, members), the majority of the setup and management is performed via the admin control panel. Additionally, because IP.Content is a framework tool designed to allow you to build your website utilizing features and APIs made available through the IP.Board suite framework, sometimes the available options can become a little overwhelming for new users.

We have literally made thousands of changes to the IP.Content admin control panel interface for version 2.3, and we wanted to take some time to explain some of these changes you can expect to see with the next release.

Template Help Improvements

IP.Content has had a built-in help function for pages, templates and blocks for many releases now. A small button above the template editor opens a sidebar to show you the available template tags based on the area you are editing (a page, a template, or a block). We identified several ways to improve the template tag help for IP.Content 2.3 to make it more noticeable and usable, and we think these changes will make editing templates much easier in the next release.
In reviewing feedback and requests, many customers seemingly did not even realize the template tag help feature was available. They had overlooked the buttons, causing them to miss this extremely valuable feature. The styling of the help was inconsistent with the rest of the ACP There was inline help and advanced help available. The advanced help showed descriptions and additional information about the inline help tags, but was otherwise duplicative of the existing inline help panel. The database help always opened a popup and often felt clunky in real-world use.

Beginning with IP.Content 2.3, the buttons have been removed entirely. The inline template tag help panel will be open by default, helping you to know it is available immediately without having to discover this very useful feature. You can still close the panel if you are familiar with the available tags; closing the panel will minimize it to a small clickable vertical bar to the right of the editor, which you can then click to reopen the panel. If you close the panel, this is remembered via a cookie so that you will not have to close the panel on other pages or when working with other blocks within the ACP.

For database templates, the help panel is tabbed, with one tab showing the regular template tags and one tab showing the available database variables you can utilize in the template. Database templates are context-sensitive, showing different available tags based on what kind of database template you are working with.

Additionally, we have implemented "click to insert" functionality for all of the tags now. This means there will be a small button next to tags within the template tag help panel that, upon being clicked, will insert that tag into the editor for you automatically. This has been an oft-requested enhancement we are happy to announce will be available in IP.Content 2.3.

Video: http://screencast.com/t/ZAZR55GJic

Field auto-population

What does that even mean? Well, in IP.Content 2.3 we identified many areas of the software where a value was needed, but often times you were not required to supply one, or one could be extrapolated from other data automatically. For instance, templates, fields, blocks and databases all require a unique key that is utilized throughout the software to refer to that object. Categories require a friendly URL key, and articles and other database records allow you to (optionally) specify a static FURL key. You use the database key to refer to the database when inserting it into a page; same with blocks. Generally speaking, however, most administrators don't understand what a "key" is, why it is needed, or why they need to manually supply it. Indeed - they shouldn't need to manually supply one in most cases. The software can figure this out for you.

In IP.Content 2.3, we have hidden many of these fields (for non-developers, at least) and will now auto-populate the key based on the title of the content. For example, when you add a template you will no longer be prompted for a template key (unless you have enabled developer mode) - one will be set for you automatically behind the scenes. For areas where even non-developer administrators may want to specify the key, we have made the field hidden by default (and auto-populated for you), but you can still override the automatically set key manually if you wish. We have implemented this method of value auto-population in many areas of the IP.Content ACP. Additionally, when you opt to manually specify this key (where available), an AJAX callback is triggered that will ensure it is unique and automatically append a unique string to the end of it if necessary.

Video: http://screencast.com/t/y5WOpYvL7xb

In this video you will see the new implementation available when adding a database. The database key is automatically determined based on the name of the database you specify. When you enter a name that would result in a unique key (such as "Articles", as an articles database is provided out of the box), a unique string is automatically appended to the key real-time. Finally, you can manually override the automatic key and specify one manually, should you wish to do so.

Specifying title and content fields

When you create (or edit) a database, you must specify which field in that database represents the title of records submitted, and which field represents the record content. These options are available on the bottom of the second tab when adding/editing a database. When you are adding a new database, however, you run into a chicken-egg scenario - you are asked to specify these two fields, however you cannot create fields for a database until the database itself exists. Many users will finish creating the database, then create the respective fields, however they forget to go back and update the database configuration to set these field mappings.

This situation creates an issue some users have run in to - your friendly URLs in that database do not work correctly, redirecting you back to the database index. We have resolved this issue in IP.Content 2.3, ensuring that the URL still works if the title field is not correctly specified (and you are using friendly URLs). However, that is not what this blog entry is about. :wink:

We have added new checkboxes to the add/edit field forms to allow you to specify if a particular field represents the title or content for the database right from the field form.

If you check one of these boxes while adding or editing a field, the database will be updated for you automatically. If you edit a field already marked as the title or content field, the checkbox will be checked (to indicate this to you), but disabled (to prevent you from deselecting a field as the title field and inadvertently leaving the database with no title field specified).

This should help your workflow immensely when creating new databases. You will no longer need to create the database, create the title and content fields, and then update the database to specify these. Now, you can set these special fields right from the field addition form, saving you from having to do something manually which you will be likely to forget.

More to come

This is part 1 of a two part blog outlining some of the major interface and workflow changes you can expect to see coming in IP.Content 2.3. Stay tuned to read about further changes you can expect to see in IP.Content 2.3, with our next blog entry outlining some of the other major ACP interface changes. If you have ideas to enhance the software, please post them in our IP.Content feedback forum. Otherwise, we welcome your comments below!

8,008 views

bfarber

November 30, 201114 yr

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: SEO Improvements

Over the past few years, we've invested a good amount of time into ensuring that your forum content is spidered well by various search engines. We've created a crisp clean skin with good semantic mark-up, introduced a friendly URL system and made numerous enhancements to ensure that search engines read your content and spider it effectively.

Search engine optimisation is an organic process and it is always evolving. I feel that even though IP.Board 3.2 maintains good practise, more can be done to better tailor content. Of course, we'll always steer well clear from the murky waters of HTML cloaking and other dubious techniques but with the help of a small focus group, we have identified areas that can be improved and I'd like to take you through those today.

Problem: Dead End Links
One thing that was identified very early on was the number of 'dead ends' that IP.Board gives to search engines. Let me elaborate a little. Lets say that you don't allow profile viewing for guests. Search engines are shown the same content as guests so this is very relevant. Now, imagine you're a search engine and you now see the board index. It's content rich with hundreds of links of which a good proportion are for user profiles. Google happily follows these links to end up on an error page served with a "permission denied" error. This clearly does not have a good affect to how Google treats your forum. What's worse is that the default error code is 500 which is designed for a generic "Internal Server Error"; now Google is getting a high number of permission denied errors and some internal server errors.

The solution
Now, if you don't have permission to view a profile, then the username is not hyperlinked and neither is the photo thumb on the board and forum indexes. This dramatically cuts down on the number of dead end links and even reduces bandwidth for large busy forums.

We have also changed the default error code to 401 which is less severe than ISE 500 and we've ensured that we use 403 and 404 appropriately.

We've also added a per-group setting to disable the display of online lists reducing further bandwidth through mark-up and reducing 'noise' in your content.

We snuck in another per-group setting to remove completely the "last post" information for those that want a really focused clean look with only keyword rich text on display for guests and search engines.

Problem: Scary Error Pages
We admit it. Our existing error pages are a bit scary. The red/pink background below the screaming proclamation that "AN ERROR OCCURRED" not only intimidates people but can also confuse search engines who are relatively blindly sucking up words to attribute to your site.

The solution
Our error pages have had a complete makeover to reduce the technical jargon and make the messages friendlier. Even better, the title is header code context sensitive so if it's a 404, then the title reflects that to reduce confusion.

Problem: Poor use of 'bread and butter' mark-up.
IP.Board has had meta description tags for a long time now but they've not been especially optimised. Likewise the <title> tag that is possibly the most coveted piece of mark-up for search engines. The meta description just contained 155 characters of the first post with no real context.
Worse still, at no point was the forum name and topic title written in the same tag. For example, if you had a forum called "Halo 3" and someone started a topic called "Cheats!", IP.Board would not often return "Halo 3 Cheats" unless it was explicitly written in the post.

The solution
Meta descriptions now contain a proper brief description that contains both the topic title, the forum name and some of the post.

The <title> tag now also takes the format of NAME - FORUM - BOARD NAME. Putting together important keywords in richly spidered areas.

We've noticed that a lot of forums rank highly for benign keywords such as "photo", "topic", etc. We've made several improvements to reduce the frequency of these keywords.

For example, the little photo thumb on the board index used to have an alt tag of "Photo" - so no surprise that "photo" was spidered a lot! This has now been changed to something better suited contextually: TOPIC TITLE - last post by NAME.

Problem: Poor Bounce Rates
Very briefly, the bounce rate for your site is the percentage of visitors who 'bounce' right out of your site. This could be because they found a link to your site via a Google search but the actual page itself doesn't have relevant information for the visitor so they back right out.

The solution
We've already reduced content to code noise and we've reduced nonsensical keywords such as 'photo' and we've increased visibility of vital keywords so already Google should do a better job of attributing keywords to your pages which will help in 'false' matches via a Google search.

We've also taken this a step further by being a little more polite: The slightly huffy "You cannot reply" buttons have been replaced with "Please log in to reply".

Better still, we've introduced a killer new feature "Also tagged with". This pairs up perfectly with IP.Board 3.2's new tagging system to show a list of topics that share tags from the current topic. The matches are forum wide, so it doesn't just return matched topics from the forum you're in.

Consider the possibilities for this feature! If you tag a lot of topics up, they'll now show cross referenced below the topic. This should further entice visitors into your site if the topic they found via Google doesn't have the information they need. Better still, it adds more rich keywords onto the page which further strengthens the existing keywords.

Let's recap
The takeaway message from this blog is that we're committed to improving search engine optimisation within IP.Board. It's a constantly evolving process and we'll continue to monitor and improve. We feel these changes will drastically improve how search engines view your site and also benefit those with large and busy sites by removing excess mark-up. Of course there is always more to do so use our feedback forum as appropriate if you have specific suggestions. We're very excited about these changes and we hope you are too!

19,292 views

Matt

November 29, 201114 yr

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: Archive System

One of the many pleasures of running your own forum is watching it grow as the years roll by. Sometimes it's fun to go back and look at old topics but they just get pushed further and further away from the first page until you end up with a large database full of posts that rarely get seen.

Perhaps you run a massive forum with 10 million posts or more and you're starting to reach MySQL database limits and considering pruning back posts from 10 years ago just to free up some space. Maybe you just want to keep your number of active posts as low as possible for ultimate efficiency.

IP.Board 3.3 has a new an innovative way of handing these problems!

Introducing the archive system
Brand new to IP.Board 3.3 is the archive system. This is a very easy to use system of archiving off old posts. You get complete control over what is archived too but more on that a little later. The archived posts are moved to a different table but it doesn't have to be in your current database or indeed your current server (though of course it can be too)! You can set up a new server just for older posts and move them all there thus freeing up your forum post table again. This means less overhead for MySQL to manage when people are browsing your community.

Searches are faster, look-ups are faster and everything zips along.

Archived topics still show in the forum view as normal. You can still view them as normal. They still get all the skinning as normal so everything works just like a regular topic. Their URLs do not change so SEO is not impacted.

However, as they are archived, you cannot reply or follow the topic, so all that is removed from the display which actually saves your server a lot of work! It doesn't have to load up the editor javascript or load up any follow data from the database. In testing, it actually saves 30% database access showing an archived topic. The topic title isn't changed and the URL isn't changed so there's no need for complex 301 code redirects for search engines.

If you change your mind or archive a topic without meaning to, you can unarchive a topic.

The Admin CP Interface
The Admin interface consists of just two screens. The overview deals with a snap-shot of stats and data and the manage rule screen is where you set up which topics to archive off.

Let's start with the overview screen. Here you can see how many topics have been archived already via the big progress bar at the top. Underneath is the number of topics to unarchive. In this screen shot, I've decided to unarchive all topics that have had a post within the last 600 days.

Here's where you can set the unarchive preferences:

Now let's take a look at the rules screen. It's simple enough. There are two tabs "Archive Where" and "Don't Archive Where". This allows you to either set up an inclusive or exclusive list of rules.
The green strip at the top shows you how many topics the current settings will archive. This is automatically updated each time you change a setting so you get an on-the-fly update of how many topics to archive when configuring this form.

A quick look at the forum filter:

And the topic starter filter:

The public interface
So how do you know when a topic is archived? Simple!

When viewing the topic as an administrator, you get the option to selectively unarchive a topic - and this will exclude it from being archived again.

A regular member or guest will just see:

Summary
We really feel that this feature will benefit everyone.
You can effectively lock older topics to prevent confusing 'bumps' or replies after a few years Free up your forum post table so it runs speedy again by giving MySQL less old data to have to work with all the time Use a remote server to house the archives so it can freely grow over the years Get a 30% reduction in SQL usage when viewing archived topics which is great news if you get a lot of good search engine placement. Quick and easy to configure Archives are done via a task that runs at regular intervals. It does a small number of posts each execution to prevent timeouts. It doesn't confuse search engines as the title and URL don't change (and even the H1 tag doesn't change).

We hope you enjoy using the new archive system!

30,169 views

Matt

November 25, 201114 yr

IP.Board 3.3 Dev Update: Warning System

Any community administrator knows how important moderation features are to a successful community, and the IPS Community Suite offers some great features in this area. The Spam Monitoring Service, for example, a unique feature that is completely unmatched anywhere else, keeps your community safe from spam content. Also in IP.Board 3.2, we introduced the Moderator Control Panel feature, giving your moderators a central location to manage all of their moderation tasks.
In IP.Board 3.3 we wanted to spend some time researching what could be done in this area to even further help your moderators to keep your community running smoothly.

One moderation feature which has remained largely unchanged throughout IP.Board's life is the warning system. It's a fairly simple system - if a user behaves in a way that is inappropriate for your community you can issue them a warning and along with that warning give a punishment, such as requiring moderator approval of their content or even banning them from your community for a certain amount of time.

So how can we make it better?

We set ourselves a few goals for how we could improve the warning system for all of your users:
Control. Many administrators prefer to have more control over the way moderation happens on their communities. You may want the first time a user is warned to always be a verbal warning only; you may then want to the second warning to always be a 1 day suspension, etc.; you may want different punishments for different infractions. Or perhaps you want to allow your moderators to choose punishments themselves as they do currently. We wanted the warning system to be able to handle both of these setups so you can be as fixed or as flexible as you like. Communication. At the moment, if a moderator gives a member a warning, no other moderators know about it unless they happen to be looking at a member's warn logs. We wanted communication between the system and the moderators to be better. Moderators should be able to know when a member is warned. They should be able to see who warned them, why, and what post caused the warning. They should know looking at a member's profile if they're currently serving out a punishment for a warning, and if so, which warning. Clarity. If a member is warned, they need to know why and what the punishment is. They shouldn't be put on mod queue and not know about it and then wonder why their posts aren't showing up.

Points, Reasons and Actions

The new system works on a points based idea. When a user commits an offence (for lack of a better term) they will receive a number of points appropriate for the severity of the infraction. As an administrator, you will set up these different "Reasons" in the Admin CP.
For each reason, you can determine if moderators are fixed to a certain number of points, or if they can change the number of points to give a member. You can also choose whether or not to allow moderators use of a generic "Other" reason, for which they can set any number of points.

For each reason, you can also set how long the points last for - whether they stay on the user's account forever, or if they are removed after a certain period of time, and if that is set in stone or something moderators can change when issuing a warning.

You can then also set up Actions. Actions are the punishment that a user receives when they reach a certain number of points. There are 3 different punishments you can give:Moderation queue - all posts the user submits must be approved by a moderator before they are shown. Restricted from posting - the user cannot post at all. Suspension - the user cannot access any area of the community at all.

And each can be for a specified period of time or indefinitely.
Again, you can specify if this rule is set in stone or if moderators can have free control over the punishment.

If a moderator issues a warning and it gives the user a number of points that does not have a corresponding action - you can choose if that means moderators can set whichever punishment they like, or if that constitutes a "verbal warning only".

Through this advanced level of control - you can allow the system to be as rigid (in that moderators have to give a certain number of points for each type of infraction, and punishments for each number of points is defined) or as flexible (in that moderators can give whatever number of points and whatever punishment they choose) as you like.
Since points can also automatically be removed after a period of time you can also be as forgiving or not as you like.

So this is what the warning screen looks like (you can get to it from a link in the member's profile or next to any of their posts):

After selecting a reason, the punishment will be filled out and you may or not be able to change it as per the Admin CP settings:

If a moderator has control over the number of points, they can also click the "?" icon which will explain all of the points levels and warning actions.

Notifications

As you will have noticed in the above screenshot - when warning a member, you can specify both a note for the member (in which you will presumably explain why you are issuing the warning) and a note which can only be viewed by other moderators. Neither are required, but will show up in the warning log.

After issuing a warning, the member will be sent a notification which will take them to their warnings log page from which they can see the warning and what punishment they were given:

Users and moderators can access the warning log from the profile or from any post. When a moderator views the log, they will see the note for moderators in addition to the note for the member.

In addition to members receiving notifications when they are warned, all moderators who have the ability to view warnings can set their notification options to notify them when any other moderator issues a warning.

Warning and Punishment Information

Note that the details popup includes a link to the actual post which caused the moderator to issue the warning. When a moderator clicks on to the warning page, it remembers where they came from - this allows both them to be taken back there once the warning has been issued, and it allows other moderators to see the exact post the warning was issued for.
When another moderator is viewing that post, it will also be indicated there with a red icon:

This allows moderators to see that a warning was issued for the post and that they do not also need to issue a warning.
Clicking the icon brings up the details popup:

In addition, when viewing a user's profile, moderators will be able to see if they are currently serving out any punishments:

And again, clicking on that badge will show the details:

Acknowledgements

Another additional feature is the option to require that all members "acknowledge" their warnings. If enabled, after a user is issued a warning, they will not be able to post again until they acknowledge it. When they click the reply button, they will be shown a screen like this:

After acknowledging the warning, the user will be taken straight back to the post screen.

If you have not enabled acknowledgements, or even just to remind the user even if you have - when a user is on moderation queue, a message above the post editor will remind them of this, so that they don't wonder why their post isn't showing up after they post:

Integration

Although we have talked about this feature from within the forums app - the integration you see will be included in all applications, and developers can add easily add support for their own. The integration will allow the following features in every app:The link backs to the content from the warning log, wherever that is. The red icon within the content if a warning has been issued for it. Honouring of the punishments given - moderation queue and restricted from posting. The message showing above the editor if on moderation queue. Prompting the user to acknowledge warnings before posting.

We hope that the new warning system helps you to manage moderation on your community more easily. This is just the start of our plans for IP.Board 3.3 so watch this blog for more updates coming soon.
Feel free to comment on this blog entry below or, if you have feedback unrelated to this blog entry, start a new topic in our feedback forum.

26,108 views

Mark

November 23, 201114 yr

IP.Content 2.3: What To Expect

IP.Content, our popular content management and creation tool, allows administrators to manage content throughout their site. You can create templates, pages, blocks that can be embedded anywhere (even outside of IP.Board!), and databases of custom data with many easy to use yet comprehensive tools built into the software. Development is underway on the next major version of IP.Content, version 2.3, and we wanted to take a moment to let you know what you can expect to see in this release.

Please keep in mind that all specific features and release schedule time frames are subject to change depending on circumstances outside of our control. With that in mind, let's take a look at the areas we will be focusing on for IP.Content 2.3.

Usability
One of the most important areas of the software we are focusing on with 2.3 is usability. We have received and reviewed much feedback regarding the way IP.Content users utilize the many features in the software and will be placing a very heavy focus on streamlining the interface to make your work flows quicker, easier and more intuitive. Every word, button, link and form option for every page of IP.Content has been scrutinized, and we have found many areas we feel we can make more intuitive without removing functionality for advanced users.

To go along with improving the ease of use of the software, we are intending to include some new functionality to help novice users get started using the software quicker. Certain requests in the forums show a pattern, and we've been paying attention to these patterns. IP.Content 2.3 should prove much easier to use, for beginning users, average webmasters, and developers alike.

Consistency
The IP.Board framework offers a vast array of features and functionality that can be utilized by applications tied to it, including IP.Content. While IP.Content makes use of many of these features out of the box already, we are going to be expanding the use of existing framework functionality, which will serve many important purposes:
Consistency helps users better understand how the software works, and learn how to use it quicker Better use of framework functionality will improve moderation and administration of the software Expanded use of built in functionality of IP.Board will allow you and your users to utilize more features in the software

There are some specific areas we will focus on with this release, and we are sure that you will be pleased with the expanded feature set and improved consistency between IP.Content and the rest of our addon applications.

SEO
Search engine optimization can be a challenging task with software such as IP.Content, primarily because you are in control of the majority of the final output. Nevertheless, some specific areas of focus have been identified and we will be improving some various aspects of the software to help ensure the software itself is not a hindrance in allowing you to target your site as you see fit.

Strengthening Existing Features
We want to take this opportunity to also strengthen some of the existing feature set of IP.Content. Certain features do not always work as some of our customers expect, and we want to ensure your experience with the software is intuitive, and produces the outcome that you expect. We are going to focus on some of the existing features that we have received feedback about to ensure they work as you expect. Before we move on to brand new features in the software that will blow you away (and we have internally identified several we wish to explore further), we want to be certain that the existing features work perfectly for you first.

Stay tuned for future blog entries outlining details of the specific changes to come. We wanted to give you a high-level overview of the direction we are taking IP.Content, and the areas we are focusing on, so that you can know what to expect when we start talking specifics in the coming weeks. We are targeting spring of 2012 for a release, and in the mean time will be working closely with focus groups, alpha testers and developers to ensure the release we deliver is as great as we hope it will be. Please ensure you post feature requests in the IP.Content feedback forum, otherwise we welcome your comments in the area below!

10,231 views

bfarber

November 22, 201114 yr

IP.Board 3.3: What to expect

IP.Board 3.2 was a major new version boasting a new sleek skin with a major overhaul to the user interface. We also added in long requested features such as tagging, the shared media panel, and a brand new moderators control panel along with many more improvements.

We have been thrilled with the overwhelmingly good feedback since 3.2's release and we are ready to take IP.Board to the next step by targeting specific needs with laser-like precision.

The next version of IP.Board will be 3.3.0. But what is in a number really? Do not worry, we are revising our version numbering so that a major increment reflects any added functionality. The development cycle between 3.1 and 3.2 was lengthy because of the massive changes we made. This cycle will be much quicker.

We want you to think of IP.Board 3.3 as improving and refining what we already do - not as a huge update that will require extensive changes. In fact, unlike the 3.2 update, the 3.3 update will not have a new default skin or sweeping code-base changes that impact existing hooks/apps. So lets look at the areas we are targeting.

Search Engine Optimization
We have had lots of feedback about this area of the software. We have made huge strides in the past by ensuring the correct headers are sent and the HTML is as clean as possible. We even have our free-to-customers product IP.SEO.

We are taking this a step further in IP.Board 3.3. We set up a small focus group earlier this year and asked them directly where we can improve and we received some great responses which we will work on.

Moderation
Key to running your community efficiently is good moderation tools. IP.Board has tons of functionality but sometimes there is a little overlap or areas that are not crystal clear. We will be working on some of the moderation tools to improve that and we are also introducing a major overhaul to a popular moderation feature!

Admin CP
Our admin control panel is incredibly comprehensive but we are looking to make it a little smoother and easier to use in common areas. We have some specific ideas on how to speed up common tasks which we will implement in 3.3.

Large Boards
Many of our customers have grown with us and taken their small community into new territory with millions of posts. Other customers have converted to us from a large established community. Either way, there are some specific needs that larger community owners have that we are working on for 3.3. We have an innovative cool new feature currently being written that we know large community admins will love!

Refinement
As always we continue to refine existing areas of the software. Our development staff continually works through our bug tracker and support tickets to fix reported bugs. Beyond bugs we often make little changes that make a big difference. Simply rewording the text of a button or moving a link to a more logical location can make things work more smoothly. All those little changes add up to the overall polish of the software.

We are happy to say that IP.Board 3.3 will not mean a complete new skin and neither should your custom skin need reworking from scratch. Existing modifications and hooks should operate just fine too.

Everyone at IPS is very excited about this release and cannot wait to start blogging about the new features and improvements we have implemented. We are shooting for an late first/early second quarter 2012 release date (a release date from IPS!). Keep an eye on our blog for more news soon!

16,142 views

Matt

November 22, 201114 yr

IP.Gallery 4.2.0: Functionality improvements

IP.Gallery is our popular photo and movie sharing platform for IP.Board. We've been working on updates and I wanted to take you through several today.

You've already read about the bigger features for IP.Gallery 4.2.0 such as tagging, quick navigation, moderators' control panel, album selector and the Admin CP updates.

This entry covers a few of the smaller updates - most of which have been requested via our feedback forums.

Image View Updates
We've made a few cosmetic changes to the view image page to bring it inline with IP.Board 3.2's look and feel. The image title /follow image button is now in the same format as a topic title for consistency.

Image Only Global Album
We've now made it possible to have a global album that only accepts images and not albums.

Sort by title
You can now sort an album by image title. This can be set when adding or editing an album as well as being available dynamically.

Like and Reputation
We've added in the like / reputation button. The screen shot shows the system in the 'like' mode. If you chose reputation mode, it would display the plus and minus buttons as normal.

Member's Album
We've added in an enforced global album named 'Member's Album'. This is the default parent for any new member albums. This helps to separate the global albums a little and allows you to better set permissions. If you only want your members to create albums in your existing global albums, then you can deny permission via the edit album feature.

This wraps up our series of IP.Gallery updates. I hope you've enjoyed them!

6,472 views

Matt

November 6, 201114 yr

IP.Gallery 4.2.0: Admin CP Improvements

IP.Gallery is our popular photo and movie sharing platform for IP.Board. We've been working on updates and I wanted to take you through one today.

The IP.Gallery 4 Admin CP Album Manager streamlined down the various Admin CP functionality for managing albums but it was hard to locate specific albums and to drill down through the global album structure.

I've completely rewritten the Album Manager and put the focus on finding the albums you need as quickly as possible. I've broken the Album Manager down into two tabs: Global Albums and Member Albums. Each has a context sensitive search bar so you can quickly search through your albums.

The global albums display. It now shows sub-albums under the parent album and also shows if the global album has any member albums attached to it. As you'd expect, clicking "Contains X member albums" takes you to the member tab with those albums displayed.

The member albums display. Clicking on the owner name will bring up all their albums. It also shows the full parent tree so you don't end up confused if two albums have a similar name but in different areas.

You can quickly search for a member's albums via the member tab.

The album selector we wrote about previously is also in the Admin CP and works in the exact same way when you need to select an album.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog entry. I'm sure you'll all love this feature and it'll make your album management much more enjoyable!

3,617 views

Matt

November 5, 201114 yr

IP.Gallery 4.2.0: Album Selector

IP.Gallery is our popular photo and movie sharing platform for IP.Board.

Today, I wanted to take you through an important part of the IP.Gallery 4.2 update; the album selector.

At various places within IP.Gallery, there is a need to select an album. This may be because you're creating a new album; choosing an album to upload into; moving images or moving albums. In the current version, this is achieved with a simple drop down list to allow an album selection.

This isn't ideal because it's unclear which albums are yours and which are global albums and when you have a lot of albums, it produces a very long and confusing list of album names.

IP.Gallery 4.2 introduces a dynamic album selector that is used everywhere you need to select an album.

It offers a much better view of available albums:
The selector separates out global albums from member albums. You can also search for albums which is great if you're performing moderation tasks. You can quickly select from recently selected albums easily. It is context sensitive and displays only albums available for the task you're performing.

I've recorded a short video so you can see this in action.

I hope you've enjoyed this update. It'll certainly make your day to day Gallery tasks much easier! It's also available from the Admin CP too.

4,773 views

Matt

November 4, 201114 yr

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