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Invision Community Blog

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IP.Board 3.2.0 Preview: Round 2

Just a bit over a week ago we opened the first public preview of IP.Board 3.2.0 and the response was more than we could have ever expected. Most everyone reported they loved IP.Board 3.2 and could not wait to use it on their own community. We received a lot of great feedback and have spent the last week reading and organizing that feedback. While we cannot apply every bit of feedback received, we were able to go through all the feedback topics and make many changes based on what we saw were recurring themes.

Here are a few changes we have made since the preview...


User control panel pages updated to be simpler to use and understand Several 3.1-style elements updated and refreshed Topic icons tweaked for readability Ability to hide sidebar reintroduced Added support for Breadcrumb microdata Many editor updates and fixes, including a new skin that ties into the IP.Board skin system, for customization by skin designers. User profile default tab changed to overview Hundreds of bug fixes and minor tweaks based on feedback!



http://internal32.invisionpower.com

If you have not already, you will need to register an account to login on the preview site.

Note that the preview will go on and offline now and then while we process feedback and make changes.
  • 3,857 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: Editor Updates

Long before we threw the doors open to our IP.Board 3.2.0 preview board, we blogged about our new text editor. We reasoned that maintaining our own in-house post editor was becoming more time intensive due to the speed at which new versions of all the popular browsers are released. We chose CKEditor in the end because it's a very popular and capable editor that allows one to extend the core code.

We had a lot of compliments on the new functionality of our editor but most were put off by its look. We agreed that the default skin is a little ugly and not really suitable for a professional application like IP.Board so we took an afternoon to skin it to fit in better.

We're pleased with the end result. In a very short space of time, we were able to match it to the current editor which will give you and your members that familiar IP.Board feel.

Not only were we able to easily match the current IP.Board editor look and feel, but we made it easily skinnable via the normal Admin CP interface so skinners won't have to settle for the default look in their skins. After all, if you have a dark or strongly colored skin, you're not going to want to settle for the mundane grey default CKEditor skin.

Here's a few screen shots of our CKEditor implementation:





It's also worth noting that the CKEditor is 'hidden' in the fast reply area so that it when you're ready to make your post, a simple click into the area expands the textarea into a fully operational editor without it grabbing focus on the initial load.



We hope you've enjoyed this blog entry and we're thrilled to be able to make improvements based on your feedback so far. Keep an eye on this blog for some further entries about other tweaks and improvements!
  • 9,668 views
Matt

IP.Nexus 1.3.0: Customers and purchases

Following our IP.Nexus 1.3 updates, here are the changes made to customer and purchase management:

Screenshots shown are subject to design change.



Refunds

Occasionally, it may be necessary to refund a customer's payment. Authorize.Net provides an API for refunding transactions and as of IP.Nexus 1.3, transactions can now be refunded right from the Admin CP.

When you refund a payment, the transaction will automatically be refused and any purchases cancelled.


Redesigned "Transactions On Hold" page

IP.Nexus may place a transaction on hold for review for several reasons: if it has a high fraud score, if there was a possible problem with the payment detected, or if you have IP.Nexus set to hold all transactions.

Previously, you would see a list of transactions and click into each one to review and then accept or deny the payment.
We found in our own usage that this was a slightly long-winded process, especially if you have lots of transactions - approving pending transactions is something which should be done as quickly as possible to appease customers.

In IP.Nexus 1.3, we've redesigned the "Transactions On Hold" page so that all of the information for all transactions is shown on one page.



All of the information you need to make your decision, including information from the anti-fraud service, is right on that page. Clicking "Approve" or "Refuse" will cause the box to disappear using AJAX so that you can move right onto the next one.

We've also added a checkbox "Also ban customer" when refusing a transaction, which allows you to ban the member who made the transaction quickly - useful if the transaction is fraudulent for avoiding repeat attempts.


Alternate Contact Improvements

IP.Nexus allows customers to add "alternate contacts" which can view purchases and submit support requests to their allocated purchases.
We find many of our own customers, particularly in large corporate environments, may have several different people for paying invoices and interacting with technical support. In IP.Nexus 1.3, alternate contacts can now optionally be allowed to pay invoices as well, so the person paying the bills doesn't have to be the account owner.




Card Management

When purchasing an item using the Authorize.Net gateway, IP.Nexus allows customers to store their credit card information for future sales.
Card information can now be viewed and edited in the client area, allowing customers to update their card details without making a new purchase.




Associations

IP.Nexus allows purchases to be associated with each other. For example, here at IPS we allow addons (IP.Blog, Gallery, etc.) to be associated with an IP.Board license.
Previously, this had to be done at purchase or in the Admin CP. In IP.Nexus 1.3, customers can do this themselves from the client area.


Customer Search

The customer search feature in the Admin CP has been improved to allow more kinds of searching and improved handling of internationally-formatted phone numbers.


Purchase Expiry Warning

When editing a purchase, if you change the expiry date to a date in the past, you'll now see a warning message when saving the purchase to indicate that the purchase will expire immediately.



This is useful for avoiding accidental changes (which can be particularly troublesome if the purchase is, for example, a hosting account) and gives you a better idea of what Nexus is doing before it does it.

There is also a similar warning for setting the date to a date in the future if the purchase is already expired.


Auto-Charge Warning

IP.Nexus will automatically charge a credit card on file if one exists when a renewal invoice is generated.
There is now a setting to allow you to optionally send customers an Email before this happens to let them know in advance. You can specify how far in advance to warn the customer.




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. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic.
  • 5,523 views
Mark

IP.Nexus 1.3.0: Hosting

Following our IP.Nexus 1.3 updates, here are the changes to hosting integration:

Screenshots shown are subject to design change.


Improved Error Log

If a server experiences temporary issues, Nexus is unable to make calls to the server to create, suspend, terminate accounts, etc. When this happens, a log is made so that you can review and resend the failed commands.

In IP.Nexus 1.3, we've improved the interface for dealing with errors so that you can quickly locate the account it relates to, and view the full API call information.

On the subject of dealing with API errors - there may be times when an account cannot be created or it is manually edited on the server.
IP.Nexus now has an easy interface for associating a record in it's database with an account on the server. You can just enter in the username on the server, and Nexus will figure it out.


Improved Server List

IP.Nexus lists the current load average when viewing the list of servers in the Admin CP.
When there are lots of servers, this can sometimes cause the page to load slowly.

In IP.Nexus 1.3, the load will be fetched by AJAX after the page loads so that there is no delay.


Editing Account Information

Sometimes you may need to edit the Nexus database without calling the server, for example, if a username is changed on the server and you just need to update the Nexus database.]

In IP.Nexus 1.3, when editing a hosting account, Nexus will notify you which fields will be updated on the server and allow you to override that if you desire.



Along with the above, when cancelling a purchase, Nexus will allow you to optionally not terminate the account on the server (which it previously did automatically).


Partial Domain Search

I previously mentioned the Live Search support in IP.Nexus 1.3.
This supports partial searching for domains and account usernames which was not previously supported.



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. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic.
  • 5,252 views
Mark

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: Following Content

It is important that members be able to follow content that they are interested in within your community. This allows members to keep track of topics of interest, increasing the likelihood they will return to your site, especially when those topics are active and new content is added to them. It is equally important that following such topics is as easy and straightforward as possible. Users do not want to jump through hoops in order to be kept up to date about changes within your site, so it is important that we make it easy for users to follow the content they are interested in, and discover when this content has changes they are interested in.

We have made many changes to IP.Board 3.2 (and our addon applications) to improve the process of following content, making it easier and more consistent for your users to stay abreast of changes within your site.


'Like' System

In IP.Board 3.1 we introduced a new 'like' system for our addon applications, allowing users to express their interest in content of value to them. This like system was built into the IP.Board core, allowing any application to make use of it. It allowed users to like content publicly or anonymously, permit a way for users to view who publicly liked a given piece of content, and permit users to be notified when the content is updated.

While this system was a good start, we felt that it needed some basic improvements in order to be useful and clear for the average user. Firstly, the 'like' system incorporated the methods for subscribing to content - but what if you don't 'like' the content and still want to be notified? Many users would not understand that they needed to 'like' the content in order to receive notifications about it, and indeed would tell us "but I don't like it?". We recognized we needed to address this confusion concerning a core feature in order for it to be useful. Secondly, the like system was utilized for all of our addon applications, but not for forums and topics, providing an inconsistent experience for users when navigating the community as a whole. The process of following a blog entry versus following a topic was entirely disparate and inconsistent, which often leads to confusion for new users, and ultimately leads to the users feeling like they can't trust how a site will behave when they navigate from one area to another.

We have taken steps to address these issues in order to provide a better experience for your users in IP.Board 3.2.

We have renamed the 'like' system from 3.1 to 'follow' in IP.Board 3.2, providing a clearer association of what the functionality incorporates. Whether you like the content or not, you can follow it (publicly or anonymously) and elect to be notified of changes to the content. You can follow a content page without leaving the page, and you can still view the users who have publicly followed the content.

We have also changed over the topic and forum subscription systems to use the new follow system in IP.Board 3.2, providing a consistent experience for users across the entire community, and incorporating some new functionality not available in IP.Board 3.1.



The button that allows you to follow a piece of content is placed at the top of the page allowing quick and easy access for users to follow the content. When clicked, a small box will show up allowing you to choose how to be notified (if at all), and whether you want other users to know if you are following the content. In IP.Board 3.1 and prior when you choose to 'Watch this forum', you would first be directed to the user control panel to make your selection, and then redirected back to the forum once you were done. Now, you choose your options right on-screen and your selections are saved through AJAX, allowing you to easily follow content without having to jump through multiple pages to do so. This small convenience should entice your users to more frequently follow content they are interested in, increasing the likelihood of bringing them back to your site when content they follow is updated and they are notified about this.

You will notice a small icon next to the follow button with a number - this tells you how many people are following the content. When clicked, you will be able to see who is publicly following the content (the number of people anonymously following the content will be shown at the bottom of the pane to prevent confusion when the button indicates 5 people are following the page, but only 2 are listed because the other 3 are following it anonymously).



While this functionality was available in our addons released alongside IP.Board 3.1, as of 3.2 you can now also see which users are following a topic or forum (so long as they are not following anonymously), allowing you to get a better idea of who is interested in the content you are viewing.


User Control Panel

In IP.Board 3.1, users would choose whether they wanted to receive the post they were being notified about in their email notifications. We have removed this option and simply turned it always-on - an email notifying you that a topic is updated is largely irrelevant without the context that the new post provides. In our research, most users would enable this option (so long as they knew it existed), and there was little value in allowing users to get a notification email that did not contain the post they were being notified about.

We have moved the 'Automatically follow topics I reply to' option to the notifications area, as this was a better home for the option.



We have also removed the 'Manage Topic Subscriptions' and 'Manage Forum Subscriptions' pages of the user control panel. Because these areas are now covered by the global followed content management area, there is no value in having separate pages of the user control panel for this purpose. Lastly, we have taken the 'Content You Like' area of the user control panel from IP.Board 3.1 and pulled it out of the user control panel into a top-level search view for IP.Board 3.2.


Reviewing Content You Follow

Another shortcoming of the 'like' system in IP.Board 3.1 that we identified early on was that 'liking' content did not help you easily find and review that content later on. You could elect to be notified of updates to the content, but otherwise you were not presented with tools to easily see if there were updates to the content or review content you had liked to see if you should visit it again. Another issue was that the 'Content You Like' page is hidden away in the user control panel, an area many users do not regularly visit after they have set up their account. We felt that (1) this page was not appropriate to be included in a user control panel, and (2) was important enough to warrant it's own top-level page not hidden away by multiple clicks.

You can now access 'Content You Follow' from the user dropdown menu at the top of the page, allowing you quicker and easier access to review the content you are following to check for updates. Additionally, this area is now part of the global search routines (searching, view new content, my content) giving users a consistent experience in reviewing the content they follow.

Another important change we have made to this area was to entirely refocus it compared to IP.Board 3.1. In IP.Board 3.1, the 'Content you like' page is entirely focused on allowing you to manage the content. While you can quickly see what content you like, it is presented as a simple list, allowing you to update your preferences for that content (how to be notified and whether you wish to like the content publicly or anonymously). We felt it was much more useful to focus this area on the content itself, while still allowing users to update their preferences as and when they need to.

In working to achieve the above goals and resolve the issues we identified, we feel we have created a much more useful presentation of content that a user is following, improving the user experience, and making it easier for users to review content they are following for important changes.



The first thing you will notice when visiting your followed content page is that the content is presented like any other search result. You will be able to tell if topics have had new replies that you have not read, preview the topic, and generally interact with the topic like you would in other search areas (such as view new content). You can quickly jump between applications and sections within individual applications using the sidebar like you would in other search pages, providing a consistent way to review content between different applications, and even between different search views on your site.

If you need to change your preferences or stop following a piece of content, you can click the 'Display Edit Options' button at the top to toggle the view.



When you toggle the mode to allow updating of your preferences, you can now see how you have elected to be notified, whether you have elected to follow the content anonymously, and use the checkboxes at the right of the page to update your preferences. All of the same tools are available here as they were in 3.1, however we have simply shifted the focus for this area to the content, rather than the management of your preferences. We feel that this change will make the system much more useful for users who may need to occasionally update their preferences, but who will frequently wish to see which content they are following has updates they may be interested in reviewing.


Content Discovery

Our underlying goal with these changes, beyond improving consistency within the community, is to enhance the content discovery process within IP.Board. We have spent a great deal of time with IP.Board 3.2 improving our view new content, user content, and followed content views to make things simpler for users to use, produce more reliable and consistent results when used, and provide better functionality for finding the content they are interested in. Users use IP.Board in many different ways - some wish to return to the site and review topics they are following for changes, while some wish to return to the site and click 'view new content' to see what is new. Through improving the consistency between these areas, improving the options and functionality in these areas, making the available options clearer and easier to use, and ensuring the functionality works reliably and as expected, users can better expect to use your site in a manner most comfortable to their browsing style while having the tools available to them should they wish to start browsing in new ways they may have never used before. We believe the combination of the changes we have made to all of these areas will make discovering new and updated content much easier and much more enjoyable to your users, providing a better experience within your community.


As there is a lot to digest in this blog entry, please start a new topic in our feedback forum if you have comments. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 5,235 views
bfarber

IP.Nexus 1.3.0: Support

Following our IP.Nexus 1.3 updates, here are the changes to the support request system:

Screenshots shown are subject to design change.



New Reply Warning

Sometimes when working on a support request, the customer or another staff member will reply while you're in the process of typing your reply. This can be both an annoying and embarrassing situation.

In IP.Nexus 1.3, before your reply is submitted, Nexus will check if there has been any replies since you opened the support request (this is done by AJAX) and warn you if there has been.




"Viewed By"

Often when viewing a support request you might wonder who else has viewed it. This can be useful to see who forwarded a support request, or perhaps to see if anyone opened and didn't reply.

In IP.Nexus 1.3, a new button appears on the support request view which will open an AJAX popup showing you which other staff members viewed the support request and when.




"View My last Responses"

Sometimes, I'll reply to a support request and later remember some additional information. However, it can sometimes be difficult to find a support request again particularly if you can't remember the title or customer who submitted it.

In IP.Nexus 1.3, we've added a new button to the support request listing called "View My last Responses" which will list all of the support requests where the last reply was by you.


Staff Audit

When running a support desk, it is important to be able to monitor staff performance, both the quantity and the quality of the support being given.

In IP.Nexus 1.3, we've added a new tool called Staff Audit, which shows you the number of replies across time for a staff member:


You can click on any number to see the replies:



Email Bounce

IP.Nexus supports receiving support requests and replies by incoming Email.
We sometimes find that customers will send a new email to the "reply only" address, causing it to be bounced, which looks unprofessional and creates confusion for users.

In IP.Nexus 1.3, you can specify a message which Nexus will reply with if it receives an Email it does not know how to process.


CCs

Sometimes when a customer sends a support request by Email, they may CC another recipient on the Email.
In IP.Nexus 1.3, this is detected and indicated in the support request view - when a staff member replies, the notification Email will also be CCd to the additional people.


Signatures

Staff members can now use their signatures in support request replies.




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. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic.
  • 5,030 views
Mark

IP.Nexus 1.3.0: Global Changes

Development of IP.Nexus 1.3 is well underway and the time has come to share some of the new features and improvements we've been working on.

IP.Nexus 1.3 shall be released alongside IP.Board 3.2 - but is much more than a compatibility update. Our focus for Nexus 1.3 has been to examine and improve each component rather than making large changes. Many of you will have noticed our client area is now using IP.Nexus - the feedback and experience this change has provided, as well as the ever appreciated suggestions posted in our feedback forum have been invaluable, and we can't wait to show off the improvements.


I'm going to write blog entries focussing on each component of IP.Nexus in detail over the coming weeks, but for today, I'm going to focus on global changes that affect the entire application. In particular, there's a few little things which I've seen suggested a few times...



IP.Board 3.2

IP.Nexus 1.3 will be 3.2-compatible only and includes all of the improvements the IP.Board developers have been discussing in this blog over the past few weeks - the new ACP skin, language, hooks and search improvements are all of course in Nexus 1.3.


Live Search

IP.Nexus has always had a global search box displaying on every page allowing you quick access to type in an invoice number, customer name, or lots of other information and get access to it.
The search box currently appears in the left-side menu, and you are required to manually select what the information you're providing is.

In IP.Nexus 1.3, we integrate right in to the ACP Live Search - you can enter in the same information here you currently can and be given a list of items it could apply to - no need to select what information you're providing.

If you're in IP.Nexus already, that tab will even be automatically selected.


Attention Icons

There are several areas of IP.Nexus which might require your attention, such as transactions on hold or open support requests.
In IP.Nexus 1.3, any areas needing your attention are indicated by icons above the left-side menu. Clicking any of these will take you to the area in question.


From left to right, the icons are: open support requests, transactions on hold, pending shipping orders, payout requests and hosting API errors.
If the value is 0 or the user does not have permission to deal with it, the icon won't show and if they're all 0, the strip will disappear entirely.


2CheckOut Gateway

IP.Nexus 1.3 includes support for the 2CheckOut payment gateway.


Subscription Mode

I often see people using IP.Nexus for selling "subscriptions" - an item which can only be purchased by a member once, and then renewed. Sometimes, users find this confusing and end up buying a new item rather than renewing the old.

In IP.Nexus 1.3 you can set a product to be a "Subscription" - users will only be able to purchase it once, and if they try again, they'll be prompted to renew their current purchase instead.


Return Group

IP.Nexus has the ability to move users into a different primary group when a user purchases an item, and remove that group when an item expires.
In IP.Nexus 1.3 we've expanded this functionality to be more tiered - if a user purchases an item which moves them into "Silver Members", then another to move them into "Gold Members", when one expires, they'll still keep the group provided by the other, rather than being returned to the default group.


PayPal Subscriptions

IP.Nexus has an option to enable PayPal Subscriptions, which gives the user an option when checking out to pay normally or start a subscription.
Many users found the two options confusing and so as of IP.Nexus 1.3, if PayPal Subscriptions are enabled and the item has renewal fees, PayPal Subscriptions will be used automatically. This is the behaviour formerly used by IP.Subscriptions.


Notification Copies

Administrators often tell me they'd like to be notified when an order is made, or when an item expires.
In IP.Nexus 1.3, you can select any type of invoice notification and when it is sent to the customer, a copy will be sent to you. This allows you to easily keep track of expiring purchases, be instantly notified if a transaction is placed on hold, and lots more.






This is of course just the tip of the iceburg - stay tuned for more information on IP.Nexus 1.3!

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. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic.
  • 9,473 views
Mark

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: UserCP and Misc. Interface Updates

One of our main goals for IP.Board 3.2.0 was to revamp certain areas of the interface to make it easier to interact with the board. We also wanted to put controls at your fingertips rather than make you root through pages of settings. This blog outlines some of these changes.

User Control Panel
In many ways the user control panel follows the old computing convention of a special area for configuration and settings. The idea being that you keep all configurable elements in a single location. This works well for the most part but there are many times when you have to go looking for a setting to control how the board works often meaning you have to leave the page you're on, change the setting and then return to what you were doing. We wanted to move specific controls to their contextual location.

We've also merged a few areas together such as "Settings" and "Profile Information", "Email" and "Password". This reduces the number of links and allowed us to merge the "Profile" and "Settings" panes into one.



We've revamped the User Control Panel and stripped down many of the settings and put them in their relevant areas. For example, we've already moved the View New Content settings into the View New Content interface.

The attachment system now 'sniffs' out whether the user can use the better Flash based uploader and uses that if no other settings have been set. If the user decides to switch to the basic uploader, then this preference is stored and used on the next page load.



You can now disable your personal messenger from within the personal messenger itself. You can elect to do this if you do not want to receive PMs from other members. Once it has been disabled, you can re-enable it by visiting the personal messenger again at any time.



There was a single option to remove signatures from the topic view. We've enhanced this to allow you to remove a single user's signature if desired. When you mouseover a post, a little "X" appears in the signature. clicking this brings up a menu.



Ignoring a user's signature will add them to the 'Ignore Preferences' page so you can remove them.



Other Enhancements
The current "Mark As Read" found in the board's footer marks all applications as read which may not be the desired result. In IP.Board 3.2, clicking this link brings up a menu so you can mark a single applications or all applications as read.



We've removed the old style forum jump form drop down interface in favour of a much enhanced "Quick Navigation" link that is in the footer of every single page. This Navigation panel is extensible via the application's extensions folder so third parties can update their applications to take advantage of it.



The tabs down the side are loaded by Ajax, so you can quickly tab between all your applications to locate the page you want.

We've also gone ahead and updated all the areas where the mini profile card was activated with the green icon next to a user's name. Currently you have to click this icon to load the mini profile card.
Now, simply hovering over a user's name will make the mini profile card appear.



The main user drop down menu has also been enhanced. You can now update your status via the menu which means you can do this from any page on the board.



We feel that these small enhancements make a huge difference in your workflow and in the general feeling of the board.

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. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 13,074 views
Matt

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: Some VNC and User Content Improvements

The "View New Content" (commonly abbreviated to "VNC" on this community) and "My Content" search routines are important tools for most communities using IP.Board. While we have made improvements to these tools in 3.2 to improve both the reliability of both features, and the interface, we wanted to spend a little time enhancing the functionality of both tools as well. We realize that many of our customers have various suggestions and ideas for these tools, and while we cannot implement every suggestion put forth, we did want to implement some of the most useful and common requests where possible.


Search In Titles

In IP.Board 3.1, there is a global "Search in titles" checkbox available for all content types when using the advanced search form, however there is then an additional option for the forums content type specifically to search in "titles and posts" or "just in titles".



Naturally, this is somewhat confusing and contradictory. Additionally, it limits certain functionality to the forums application alone, functionality that may be useful in other applications. We have resolved this in IP.Board 3.2 by removing the forum-specific option (the second arrow in the previous screenshot) and enhancing the global option to allow you to specify "Search title and content", "Only search in titles", and "Only search in content".



This level of customization for searches in any application should help you better find content when you know where the search terms may be contained.


Moving and Merging Topics

In IP.Board 3.1 we added multi-moderation to the search results page, however many of our more astute customers noticed right away that the ability to merge topics and move topics was a glaring omission. This was not a mistake (there are additional challenges at the code-level with regards to forum permissions for moving topics), however we have overcome these limitations for IP.Board 3.2 and are happy to announce that you will now be able to merge and move topics right from the search results screen.


Sorting and Ordering User Content

In IP.Board 3.1, you are unable to sort or order a user's content, forcing you to review content from a user in a date-based fashion. While there is nothing immediately wrong with this approach, we have enhanced IP.Board 3.2 to now allow you to sort and order user content in any fashion supported by the application or content type.



We expect that this small but useful change will help you better find content individual users have submitted to the community.


Default VNC Method

A minor change, but one we have seen requested many times on these forums, we have added an ACP setting to allow the administrator to define the default "View New Content" method. You can now specify for your new users whether they should see "Content I have not read" by default, or "Content since my last visit". Users can still overide this when viewing the VNC results, but now you will be able to define the default that you feel is best for your community.


Content Filters for VNC

In the previous screenshot for "My Content", you will see that there are filters to drill down to "Topics I participated in", "Topics I started", and "Posts I made". This is a useful feature when viewing a user's content ... so we decided to expand it to the VNC search results as well.

The option "Posts I made" is not relevant to view new content (if you made the post, it will never be new of course), so this option is not present. However, you can now filter VNC results down to "Topics I participated in" and "Topics I started", allowing you an easy way to review new content on the community in topics that you are interested in. When combined with the new filter "Content I am following", you have a granular level of control over your content discovery process never before seen in forum software!


Forum Filtering in VNC

Another oft-requested feature, we have added the ability for user's to filter which forums they wish to see results from in the VNC search results screen.

Under the 'Other Filters' area in VNC, you will have an option "Filter by forum", which will launch a modal popup allowing you to specify which forums you wish to see content from. These filters are remembered (between sessions and across separate computers), with an indicator to let the user know when the filter is being applied.




We Hope You Enjoy!

While we realize that these changes do not necessarily satisfy everyone's wishes for VNC and My Content in IP.Board 3.2, we believe they will help resolve some of the most common limitations in the system, giving you greater flexibility and control over your searches. These changes should help members better find the content they are looking for and interested in, increasing activity on your site, and increasing probability of return for new users finding their way around. We will of course continue to improve VNC and all areas of IP.Board based on our client feedback.


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. If you have feedback related to changes beyond what this entry is referring to, please start a feedback topic. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 12,372 views
bfarber

IP.Board 3.2.0: Calendar

Back in February, we posted a series of blog entries about improvements to our Calendar application (part 1 2 3 4 5). To go along with these technical changes and improvements, we've completely overhauled the calendar interface to modernize it and improve usability. This blog entry will review those changes so you know what you can expect when IP.Board 3.2 is available.

Main Calendar View



When first visiting the calendar, you're presented with a refreshed calendar view. The main calendar now takes up the full width of the page, since it's the most important content on the page. Mini calendars now appear below - available, but not hogging space.

The new filter bar above the calendar allows you to switch seamlessly between month, week and day view.

The menu next to the page title allows you to switch the calendar you're currently viewing.

Week View



Week view hasn't changed substantially, but does continue the filter bar and mini calendar styling introduced on the main page.

In both the month and week views, you can double click a date as a quick shortcut to viewing that day.

Day View



Day view presents a much cleaner overview of events and birthdays taking place. In addition, a quick overview of members who have RSVP'd to an event are shown.

Event View



The redesigned event view shows full information about the event, together with comments and the RSVP list.


We hope these improvements to the Calendar application go down well with your community, and spark more use by members! The new interface together with new features and improvements have given the Calendar a completely fresh feel, and we hope you like it!
  • 7,490 views
Rikki

IP.Board 3.2.0: Sign In & Registration Interface

In this entry, I'll be showing the new streamlined Sign In and Registration process in IP.Board 3.2.

Registration in particular is a key interface in any community. Too complex, and users will be put off signing up and taking part, potentially costing your community dearly. We've known for some time that our current registration process has needed streamlining to improve user conversions, and IP.Board 3.2 has proven the ideal time to implement the changes.

Step by Step

Our registration routine (when IP.Nexus is used) is unusual in that it behaves as both a store and a sign up process (to enable users to select a subscription). While not everyone uses IP.Nexus, it's important for us to consider this aspect and find a suitable solution regardless of the products used.



To solve that, we've changed the registration routine to be a clear step-by-step process. First, a subscription is chosen if available. Next, account details are entered. Finally, the user gets confirmation. A step-by-step interface gives users clear expectations of the process they're about to follow, which is great for usability.

Reducing clutter and confusion

The current registration routine involves a number of disparate steps, collecting information that doesn't warrant an entire screen individually. This simply puts obstacles in the way of users trying to join.

The account details step now consists of just one screen. COPPA, terms and conditions and of course account information is all covered on the one screen.

COPPA, if enabled, appears as a modal popup. Instead of asking users to select their birthday (used only to verify they were older than 13), we now just ask the simple question: "Are you over 13?". Easy.



Once they confirm, the popup is dismissed instantly, and the form is ready for them to begin.



The registration form now consists of just 4 fields (6 if you use the Q&A and ReCaptcha features). So what's changed?


Display Name - we no longer show the display name field upon registration. Requiring users to choose two names invites confusion, and the difference is not apparent until the user is familiar with the community. But fear not, the display name feature hasn't disappeared. Instead, we set the display name to be the same as the log in name during registration, but users are free to change their display name later in their UserCP. Confirm Email - There's no need to confirm the email address field. It's plain text, and many users simply copy and paste the first field anyway, duplicating rather than fixing an error. Time Zone - Having the user choose their timezone simply adds to the burden of registering. Instead, we now try and determine their timezone automatically behind the scenes, and it can always be changed in the UserCP.


Another change is that the community terms and conditions are no longer presented on an entire screen. While important, they again present a roadblock to getting a user registered. Instead, they're now shown in an inline popup, and the user simply checks a checkbox to signify their agreement.

Custom profile fields set to 'show on registration' also appear on this page as usual. However, we urge you to consider whether a particular field is essential at registration! More fields equals more work for users, so the fewer the better!

Inline Sign In

Something that has been requested for some time is inline sign in, and I'm pleased to say it's now available in 3.2.



To simplify the process, users signing in with 3rd party systems such as OpenID will still be required to use the full sign in page. In our experience, though, the vast majority of users use the default IP.Board sign in, and the new inline popup should make the process a little easier for them.



We hope you find the changes give a boost to your community when IP.Board 3.2 is available. By streamlining registration and sign in, we hope to encourage your guests to convert to members and contribute to your community.
  • 21,433 views
Rikki

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: Minor Translation Improvements

With each release of IP.Board we try to give attention to every area of the software that our customers care about. This is a challenge, of course, because all of our customers have different needs and priorities. Some users want us to make interface improvements, while some customers want us to make it easier for them to edit the interface themselves. Some customers want new features, while some customers want us to cut out "bloat". Every customer has different requirements of the software, and those requirements are important to us as they help us to improve and focus the product for you.

While we do not always discuss every change we make in each release, we did want to take a moment to let our international users who translate the software via language packs know that we have made a few minor improvements that we think you'll be interested in hearing about. We realize this blog entry may not be as exciting as some of the previous entries, but rest assured that those customers who translate the software will benefit from these changes, and thus these details are important to share.


IPSLib::getAppTitle()

As mentioned in our recent Search/VNC Interface Improvements blog entry, we have taken some time to implement use of IPSLib::getAppTitle() throughout the search interface as appropriate. We are also updating all other areas of the software that display an application name to ensure it uses this same method, allowing us to be sure that the application title, as displayed, is appropriate based on the language pack in use.

For our English-speaking customers or customers with only one language pack installed, you can still edit each application in the ACP to change the application title without having to go into the manage languages area of the ACP. Simultaneously, our international translators can specify application titles in their language packs, and those translated titles will instead be used, allowing multi-language sites and distributed language packs to better customize the display for each language.

If a lot of this doesn't make sense or matter to you, don't worry about it. Ultimately this change will help translators better customize their language packs, and as this is important to our international users we are happy to work towards consolidating the application titles for this purpose.


Translatable ACP Menu

An issue that has long-plagued our international users has been the ability (or rather, inability) to translate the left hand menu in the IP.Board ACP. The strings that are used to generate the links in the left hand menus of the ACP are stored in XML files, which made it difficult to allow easy translation via the language system. We are happy to announce that we have overcome this limitation in 3.2, allowing translators the ability to fully translate this left hand menu in their language packs. Furthermore, third party applications can optionally make use of this new system, but will still function just fine if they don't.

Within the XML files that store this left hand menu system, a language key can now be specified. Core applications store these language strings in the global admin language file, while individual applications can provide a new language file which will be auto-loaded as needed for this purpose.


Translatable ACP Restrictions

Similar to the reasons that caused translating the left hand menus of the ACP to be difficult, ACP restriction details are stored in XML files and were not previously translatable. We have applied the same change just discussed for the left hand menus to the ACP restrictions so that they are now translatable as well. While the core applications store these language keys in the members_admin_restrictions language file, third party applications can (optionally) include these strings in the same additional language file they would use for the left hand menus.


Small Improvements

Of course we are also working hard to ensure any text that is not already language abstracted is properly put into the language files so that translators can adjust the text for their own languages.

We are also trying to consolidate some strings that are pieced together presently to instead use the PHP sprintf() function. This should help when translating the software to languages that might have noun or verb placement different from the English language.

We have moved the settings to define the prefixes for polls, moved topics and pinned topics to the language system. Moving them to the language system will not only allow regular admins to still edit these strings, but allow translators to adjust them as needed per-language pack.


And while we have not completely overhauled the language system in this release, we have plans to improve the language system as a whole in a near-future release. We recognize some of the issues our international users face using the language system (such as importing language files for individual applications) and we want to improve it for you to make using the software easier and more consistent. We hope these small steps will help you to better share language packs with the community in the mean time, while we plan bigger improvements in the future.

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 8,464 views
bfarber

IP.Board 3.2.0: Remote Skin Editing

IP.Board's Admin CP comes with many useful and powerful tools to edit your board's skin. You can edit virtually all of the HTML as well as the CSS from within the "Look & Feel" interface. This suits most people but sometimes you just want to use your own desktop editing tools so you can take full advantage of your text editor's syntax coloring, search and replace, merge and other tools.

We added a tool back in IP.Board 3.1 to enable this in a limited way. If you put the board into 'developer mode', you could export the templates into a PHP file per skin group. This worked reasonably well but many found it tricky to put the board into developer mode as it requires different folders and files to be created and exporting the templates into a single PHP file meant that an external merge tool wasn't effective.

We're pleased to say that we've overcome these issues in IP.Board 3.2 by using the popular WebDAV protocol. This protocol is already used by many popular applications like Dropbox to synchronise files between your desktop and their servers. We've used this existing technology to allow you to edit your board HTML and CSS in a totally native format right on your desktop. Indeed as far as your computer is concerned, these are local files!



I've taken a short video (sorry, no sound!) that takes you through a template and CSS edit. I've used the mobile skin for this demonstration as we're not ready to reveal the new skin just yet.




Here's a quick walk through of what you see on screen.

- I log into 'Transmit' which is an OS X FTP/WebDav app. You can use the 'Connect to server...' option in Finder for this task but I find Transmit faster as it caches requests whereas Finder does not.
- I use my forum ACP username and password to log in.
- I browse the template groups, select 'global' and then globalTemplate.html.
- I make a simple edit and save.
- I browse the CSS folder and open ipb_styles.css
- I make a simple edit and save.
- I then refresh the board and you can see the changes have taken instantly.

I hope you enjoy this great addition! You can use this with OS X, Linux and Windows and we'll prepare some guides nearer to IP.Board's release on how to make best use of this feature for your OS. I'm sure you'll agree that this offers an excellent way of editing templates outside of the Admin CP that doesn't need a special 'developer mode'.

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 17,731 views
Matt

IP.Board 3.2.0: Search/VNC Interface Improvements

We've gradually been revealing aspects of the new IP.Board 3.2 front-end interface, and naturally there's much more to come.

In this entry I'd like to preview the new interface for the Search, View New Content and User Content views, since all three of these views essentially share the same interface elements. We previously covered the changes and improvements to View New Content, and these changes have been incorporated into the new interface.

As always, please note that screenshots are from development software, and are subject to change before the final release.

Overview



The biggest change is of course a brand new filter menu, to replace the myriad dropdown menus that we currently use. Content can be effortlessly filtered with single clicks - whether it's changing the app you're searching, the sub-section, or the time frame.

Search sorting

In addition to the main filter menu, search results also make use of a new filter bar to enable sorting and ordering (again replacing dropdown menus). This is an interface concept that you can expect to see more of in IP.Board 3.2.



Language

Non-English users will be pleased to know that we're now making use of IPSLib::getAppTitle() for tabs and titles in the search interfaces, so that the correct translation is always displayed.



We hope you like this brief preview of the new search interface! The changes we've shown here and elsewhere are a taste of the improvements we're making across the product to improve usability and aesthetics. There's plenty more to come, in our blog entries and public previews.

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 6,982 views
Rikki

IP.Board 3.2.0: Notifications, Part 2

We recently blogged about the notification interface enhancements. I'd like to take a moment to go through some further enhancements we've made in this area.

We want the notification system to be something you and your members use regularly to keep updated on new events and new content. We've really re-designed the alert system from scratch to make it simpler to use and indeed more useful.

First up, lets take a look at a little interface update from the last blog entry:



You'll note right away that we're using icons instead of text links and that the 'tab' of the menu is correctly colored to give a full application feel to this system. We've also added a link to the notification 'options' so you can fine-tune your preferences quickly. The more eagle eyed among you will notice a few entries for "New topics" and "new replies" but we'll get to that shortly.



Here's what the notification system looks like with new alerts ready to view.

We've spent some time looking at the various uses of the system and made some improvements to the preferences form:



We've moved 'notification list' as the first column. This is the first stop for many people as they may only want to have a 'red alert' box show when something happens. We've removed the option to send a notification via personal message. We found that virtually no one uses this option and it creates a chain-effect when you have certain notification combinations. Now that the notification 'red alert' box works correctly by only showing an un-acknowledged count which disappears when you click to view the drop down, we felt that having a separate personal message alert just duplicated this.

We've also moved the "show an inline pop-up" option directly inside the "Private Messages" section. Now, you will only get an inline pop-up for a personal message and not for other alerts. This was a very popular request! Also, when you receive a new personal message, you no longer get a notification about this. The new inbox alert system works exactly like the notification alert system in that the list retains the most recent items but the 'red alert' box disappears when you click the list.

Now that we've moved the 'watched topics and watched forums' over to the 'follow' system, we can tie this neatly in with the notifications system. You can elect to receive an alert when someone replies to a topic you're following just as long as you've selected an 'immediate' notification. This will be great when you want to continue browsing the board but need immediate notification when someone replies to a topic or starts a new topic.

I hope you enjoy these further updates to the system and find it a very useful way to be kept up to date with new events!

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 11,395 views
Matt

IP.Board 3.2.0: Admin Forum Management

We've added a lot of exciting new functionality to IP.Board 3.2.0 already, such as tagging, shared media, enhanced calendars, "like" for posts and much more but we also haven't forgotten the most important part of the user experience: the interface.

A good example of re-working certain interface elements to improve work flow or to make a common task less daunting is the forum management screen in the admin CP.

We've not added a bunch of new features or radically altered how it works but we feel that we've made a significant improvement on the interface and thus the experience. We felt that the current forum management screen was very cluttered and the forms to create or edit a forum were a little confusing and not a little daunting as you are presented with a whole page of configurable settings and buttons.

Here's what the new overview screen looks like:

Better use of color and spacing makes it much cleaner and more readable.

The create a forum form is now split into three distinct sections to break down the information:




Of course, all the usual functionality is still present: the ability to re-order forums and categories, resynchronize data, etc. This is just a single example of our commitment to improve the user experience in all areas of the board.

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 13,402 views
Matt

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: Moderator Control Panel

Moderators fill an important role on your community: they help to maintain order, they help to filter content out that should not be made available, and they help to assist new users and keep the site moving in the right direction. It is important that moderators have the tools they need made available to them in a manner that is easy to use, and easy to understand. While the moderator tools in IP.Board are robust and powerful, we felt we could improve upon the existing functionality to make using and finding these moderator tools easier.

A common request over the years has been for a moderator control panel to be added to IP.Board. IP.Board 3.2 will now feature a new moderator control panel where most of the moderator tools are now consolidated into one area. No longer will your moderators need to jump all around the site to do their daily tasks.

For moderators, accessing the moderator control panel is a click away on any page:



(Please remember that all screenshots you see are of an early pre-release build and are very much subject to change before the final release).

(Please note also that we are aware of the bugs you see in any of the screenshots below - we will address them before release ;) )


Homepage



Upon entering the Moderator Control Panel the first thing you will see is a quick member lookup form. This form of course uses the member look-ahead feature to assist you with finding the member you are looking for, and clicking a result will take you to the screen where you can edit or warn the user, add a note to the user's account, and review past warn logs (see our previous blog entry on the new edit member page for more details and screenshots).


Reported Content



If the moderator has access to manage any area of the report center, they can quickly see from this tab the open reports from all areas they can manage. There is a link to the full report center at the bottom of the page, where they can perform additional duties, review closed reports, or multi-moderate reports. It is important to note that the report center now shares this moderator control panel wrapper, so if you click to view the full report center, you can easily return to any other area in the moderator control panel afterwards.


Unapproved Content



One of the most common duties a moderator has to deal with is approving content that is pending approval. Previously, in IP.Board, you would have to visit each forum individually to approve content that was not yet visible. Similarly, if you can moderate the calendar, or the download manager, or any other application, you have to visit that application directly and use it's own moderator tools separately. This creates a disparate and inconsistent experience in the software for moderators, forcing them to learn how to use each moderator tool and find each moderator area separately.

As of IP.Board 3.2, these moderator tools are now combined into one interface to make it easy to find content requiring approval, and easy to deal with said content. While you can still manage the topics pending approval within each forum, and approve calendar events directly from the calendar, you are not forced to go hunt these things down if you don't wish to.

You will note in this screenshot that there are button links on the title bar to access: Events Pending Approval (from Calendar), Posts Pending Approval, Topics Pending Approval, and Files Pending Approval (from Download Manager). All applications in IP.Board can easily plugin to this new system in order to allow it's content pending approval to be managed in a single location. Indeed, we plan to have plugins for Gallery and Blog also available with their associated IP.Board 3.2 compatibility releases. The content on these tabs can also paginate, in the event there are many items pending approval.




Managing Members


(please ignore the obvious formatting issues in this screenshot - they will be fixed in the final release)

We have created a page in the moderator control panel where you can now manage your members from a central location. You can see here that we have tabs for viewing banned members, suspended members, members on moderator queue, members who currently are restricted from posting, members who are banned from chat, and recently issued warnings. While banned members and members banned from chat cannot be managed from the front end at this time (banning is currently primarily an ACP-only option), for other tabs the restriction line is linked to the warn panel so that you can quickly redact post restrictions, suspensions, and similar punishments should you need to.



The recent warnings tab allows you to review all warnings and notes left by your moderators quickly from one page. While there are logs available in the ACP for this purpose as well, you can now review these warnings from the front end to ensure your moderators are not abusing their powers. Your other moderators can also access this page so that they are kept in the loop of all member actions that are occurring on the site.


IP Address Tools



The IP Address tools available in IP.Board for moderators have been moved to the moderator control panel to provide a single place for all moderator actions and tools. The IP Address tools work similar to those available in IP.Board 3.1 and earlier versions (they are currently available in the user control panel in earlier versions of IP.Board).


Announcements



As with the IP Address tools, we have moved the announcements management into the moderator control panel to provide a single point of reference for all moderator tools and actions in 3.2.


Deleted Content



We have made some exciting changes to IP.Board 3.2 with regards to deleting posts and topics that we think you will enjoy. Firstly, the old notion of a "trash can" forum is gone. Your trash can forum will still exist upon upgrade, of course, and all of the content will still be available there. You will be able to prune it, delete the topics/posts, and perform any other functions to the content within this forum at will just as you can now. However, this forum will no longer be "special", and any settings and options related to the trash can forum will now be gone.

Instead, when you delete a post or topic, a flag will now be set on that content in the database, but it will be left right where it is otherwise. It will be removed from view just as if it had actually been removed from the database, so for all intents and purposes, deletion still works the same way for moderators on the site. However, by keeping the content within the database temporarily, you and your moderators can now properly "restore" it from the moderator control panel. If you choose to restore deleted posts or topics, that content will be put right back in place as if it had never been removed.

A task in IP.Board will run periodically to remove deleted content permanently after a preset number of days to ensure your database does not fill up with content that was purposefully deleted.

We feel these changes will provide for a more natural flow of events for moderators, allowing them to restore deleted content properly without having to move and merge topics and posts as they do now using the trash can.

While you can ignore deleted content and allow the task to remove it automatically, you can also permanently delete it from the moderator control panel without waiting if you wish.

Modification Author Note: Developers who write modifications that retrieve posts and topics will need to make adjustments in their work with the release of 3.2 to ensure you do not mistakenly return content that is deleted. New methods have been added to class_forums to assist you with generating the appropriate queries, and a new class has been made available that can return posts for you easily. Here is an example of returning 5 deleted posts, for instance:


$this->library = new $classToLoad( $this->registry ); $this->library->setPermissionData(); $posts = $this->library->getPosts( array( 'postType' => array( 'sdelete', 'pdelete', 'oktoremove' ), 'sortField' => 'post_date', 'sortOrder' => 'desc', 'parse' => true, 'getCount' => true, 'limit' => 10, 'offset' => $st ) ); $total = $this->library->getPostsCount();
$classToLoad = IPSLib::loadLibrary( IPSLib::getAppDir('forums') . '/sources/classes/topics.php', 'app_forums_classes_topics', 'forums' );






Yes, that's really it. The library is quite flexible and should aid you in converting your modifications to 3.2, reducing duplicate code in your modifications, and reducing potential bugs with your code, especially as new features are added to IP.Board moving forward.


In Closing...

We have spent some time consolidating moderator tools and making them easier to understand and easier to use for IP.Board 3.2. All of the pages you see in the screenshots above allow third party applications to easily plugin to them so that even your third party applications can be managed from this single interface (note that third party applications can also add their own sidebar tabs, should they have moderator tools that do not fall under the existing generic categories). Also, while this was not discussed above, moderators will only see and be able to access tabs that they have permission to access. In my screenshots I am logged in as an admin/super moderator so I can access all tools, but the IP address tools (for instance) will not show to regular forum moderators. As new moderator tools are made available in IP.Board, we now have an obvious home to place them so you'll never have to hunt them down in the software again.

We hope you like these changes, and that they make managing your site easier than ever!


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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 23,614 views
bfarber

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: Editing Member Improvements

It is not an uncommon task that you or a moderator might need to edit a member of your community. Whether the member has uploaded an inappropriate personal photo, posted links to a competing website in their signature, or needs to be temporarily suspended so they can "cool down", managing members is a common task that moderators carry out on every community. We are happy to announce that we have improved this functionality in IP.Board 3.2.0 to make managing your members from the front end easier than before.


Some Background

In IP.Board 3.1.x, there is an "Edit Member" for those with permission on every user profile, allowing you quick access to a page where you can remove inappropriate content quickly without having to login to the ACP. On the profile as well is a link to view the member's warn logs, issue a new warning, and reduce the member's current warn level, and these same links are available on each one of the member's posts in the forums. The interesting thing we have determined through various feedback sources is that many of our customers are not even aware this functionality exists in IP.Board, because it is not obvious that you can click the + and - icons next to the user's warn level where-ever it is displayed.

IP.Board 3.1.x additionally allows administrators to leave notes on the user's account, but only through the ACP. These notes are then displayed in the warn logs along with any other warnings the member has received.

These tools are very powerful and very useful, but also very disconnected and spread about the software, while all serving the same general purpose: managing your members.


Combining The Tools

In IP.Board 3.2.x, all of these tools have combined into one easy to use page. Whether you click on the user's warn log link or the edit member link, you are taken to the same page. From this tabbed page you can do all of the same things you could previously:


Issue a new warning (or warning reduction) Edit the member's profile details View stored warn logs and notes Add a new note to the member account




You will note in the list above that we have added the ability to leave a note on the member's account to the front end of IP.Board now, removing the requirement for an admin to login to the ACP to leave such notes and expanding the ability to moderators who previously had no ability to leave notes.

Through this combined tabbed interface, you can now manage all aspects of the member from one area, making it easier than ever to deal with members that need to be dealt with, without making you skip from page to page to do so. We believe that these changes will also better showcase features in IP.Board that many customers were not even aware were possible, such as banning or suspending the member from the front end interface.


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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 10,777 views
bfarber

IP.Board 3.2.0: Notification Enhancements

We added a notifications system in IP.Board 3.1.0 and it's been a very popular addition allowing your members to select the type of notification they receive for specific events like a new personal message, quoted post, etc.

However, we've received a lot of feedback since and we wanted to make some enhancements to address some common issues. I'm happy to say that we've completed a lot of interface work in this area and we feel we have a much better system.

The actual functionality hasn't changed. You can still elect to receive and/or a personal message, email or inline notification for certain events and you can still elect to receive an inline 'pop-up' (it's actually an inline javascript modal box but we've retained the familiar phrasing) when you receive a new inline notification. Many members set their notifications up so they receive an inline notification with pop-up when they get a new personal message, for example.

Interface
As IP.Board 3.2.0 has a completely revamped skin, the actual "PM count" and "Notification" boxes have been removed from the drop down icons and placed with a high visibility count.

Please keep in mind that IP.Board 3.2.0 is still in heavy development so this interface may change between now and the first release.

Here's what you'll see with some new personal messages and new notifications:


And here's what you'll see without any notifications:


Regardless of if you have any new messages or not, clicking the inbox link will bring up a list of recent personal messages:


Likewise, regardless of if you have any new notifications or not, clicking the notifications link will bring up a list of recent notifications:


The inline 'pop-up' has been re-styled:


Enhancements
The eagle eyed among you may notice that the new inline pop-up contains the proper personal message text and not simply a copy of an email that could be sent out. We've made it so each notification can have 'meta data' attached to link the notification to the piece of content. This means that the pop-up can correctly fetch the live data without any additional mark-up or text.

More excitingly, we now mark the notification as read when the personal message has been read. This was a long standing complaint about the system and I'm pleased to say that we've now addressed this.

We've also changed how the 'red alert' counts work. In the old system, when you viewed the notification drop down, the count and the menu contents were removed so that on the next click, it would tell you that there were no notifications to view. We've now changed that so the count will disappear when you click the link, but the actual contents will remain so you can go back after a page reload and view it again.

Likewise, previously the 'new' personal message counter didn't vanish when you viewed your inbox. Now, when you click the inbox link the alert count will disappear but the drop down will show you the recent messages still. They are highlighted with a blue background in the screenshots above.

We feel this makes the alert system much more useful as you truly only get alerted when there is new content you've not acknowledged without losing the read/unread status of each item.

Recap
To recap the new functionality:
- Redesigned inline pop-up window
- Inbox link available at the top of the page at all times
- Notification link available at the top of the page at all times
- 'Alert count' for each only shows content you've not acknowledged.
- Once you've viewed the drop down list the alert count is removed until fresh content arrives.
- Reading a personal message will mark any associated notification as read.

We really hope you enjoy these enhancements and that you find them very useful to keep track of new content or items requiring your attention.

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 15,392 views
Matt

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: Report Center Improvements

Moderating your community is an important function that is carried out not by administrators alone, but often by community volunteers. For this reason, it is important to make moderating your community as easy as possible. To that end, we have made improvements to moderator capabilities in IP.Board 3.2.0, and in this blog entry we will describe some of those changes that relate to the report center specifically.

The report center is a central container that all reported content is sent to, allowing moderators a single destination to review reported content, and allowing moderators to communicate privately about the content that is reported. This functionality works well and has streamlined dealing with reported content since it was first introduced in IP.Board 3.0, but we wanted to take this time to make some minor improvements to further enhance the capabilities already available.


Open Reports Only

Beginning with IP.Board 3.2.0, when there are open reports in the report center, ONLY those open reports will be displayed. It can be confusing to visit the report center and see a list of 200 reports when there is only 1 or 2 to deal with. We have reduced this unnecessary clutter to allow you to focus only on what needs your attention. When this happens (i.e. when there are open reports the moderator can access), a message is displayed at the top of the page indicating that this is the case, along with a link to view all reports.

If there are no open reports, all reports will be shown as they are now in IP.Board 3.1.x.


Are There Updates?

We have also implemented topic marking tracking in the report center, allowing moderators who visit the report center to quickly identify which reports have had new activity since they last viewed the report. Additional reports from other users regarding the same content and comments made by other moderators all count as new activity, so you can now more quickly identify reports that may have further updates and may need to be reviewed again quicker than before.


Many, Many Performance Improvements

While working on the report center we reviewed resource usage, we profiled the database queries and PHP code execution, and we found many ways to improve performance without removing functionality. We have removed some unnecessary database queries, we have cached some of the data into cache stores (which can be stored in memcache and similar external caching engines with IP.Board), we have changed some database queries to retrieve the needed data in a more efficient manner, and we have removed and/or refactored code that we found was slower than optimal. The end result is that the report center has received many performance improvements that, combined, allow it to function faster and use less resources on your server.


Improved Access Configuration

Feedback we have received regarding the report center has indicated that it can be confusing or difficult to configure the access permissions for each individual plugin in the ACP. At present, you might create a new moderator group for instance, and upon doing so you will next need to visit the report center section of the ACP and edit each plugin one by one to configure the permissions for this new group (whether they can submit and/or view reports for each plugin). This functioned fine, but we recognized we could do a better job of making it easier to configure these permissions.

While we have not removed the ability to configure permissions in the report center plugins as you can in IP.Board 3.1.x (you may, for example, wish to remove all access to a specific plugin temporarily and it is easier to edit the plugin in that case than it is to edit each group individually), we have extended permission configuration to the group manager in the ACP. What this means is that when you edit a group in the ACP there will now be a new tab allowing you to set the permissions for each report center plugin from the group manager, quickly and easily. This is especially useful when you are creating new groups, as you can now specify the report center permissions for the new group right from the group creation form.




Conclusion

We believe these changes will help make managing reported content easier. We have also pushed the report center inside our new moderator control panel....which we will discuss in our next blog entry. Stay tuned! ;)

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 11,386 views
bfarber

IP.Board 3.2.0: Tagging and Prefixes

As work progresses on the new interface for IP.Board 3.2.0, we can now go into some more detail about the new functionality that's already been added.

I must of course stress that the only screen shots I can show are closely cropped to not reveal too much and please keep in mind that IP.Board 3.2.0 is still very much in development so some details may change before the public reveal.

Tagging
An incredibly popular request has been the ability to 'tag' content with special keywords and then find other content tagged with the same keywords. This gives a secondary way to organise data beyond the administrator defined 'categories' and 'forums' set up.

We're very pleased to say that this functionality is now available in IP.Board 3.2.0 and we've spent some time to make sure we have a robust and thoughtful implementation.

A tale of two modes
Our tagging implementation is available in two modes:
- Open Mode: Where allowed, your members can create new tags on-the-fly and add them to content.
- Closed Mode: Where allowed, your members can select from pre-defined tags and add them to content.

We feel this gives you the best of both worlds. Some communities may not need a full tagging system, but you may wish to enforce secondary categorisation via pre-set tags that you as the administrator control. Alternatively, you may wish to throw the doors open and let your members tag their content as they see fit. The choice is yours!

As you'd expect, this feature comes with many controls. You can define the minimum and maximum number of tags per item, the minimum and maximum length of each tag and more. You can even override the pre-defined tags on a per app (and thus per-forum) basis giving full control over the tagging system.

Prefixes
Another very popular feature request is the ability to assign a custom or pre-defined prefix to a piece of content such as a topic or blog entry. In many ways this works very similarly to tagging so we've created a single system that allows the use of a tag as a prefix!

As you'd expect, you can disable prefixes and tagging on a per member or per group basis giving you complete control over your members' permissions.

You can even set the system to be used solely for prefixes by limiting the number of tags to one and enforcing the use of pre-defined tags. It really is a very flexible system.

This screen shot shows how you add tags when creating a new topic. This is in 'open' mode with prefixes enabled.


This shows a topic that has been tagged and a prefix added.


This shows the search page which is shown when you click a prefix or tag.


This shows the Admin CP settings page.


This shows the per-forum settings.


We hope you enjoy this new functionality. We'll be rolling out tagging in our applications once IP.Board 3.2.0 has been released!

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 29,830 views
Matt

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: Shared Media

The ability to easily share content within your community is important to your members. If your members submit an image to Gallery, it's quite probable they'll want to include that image in a post at some point, and there needs to be an easy way to do this. Likewise, if your members submit a file to the Download Manager, they may want to link to that file when replying to a blog entry. There are many instances where it is crucial that members be able to quickly and easily share the content they have contributed to your site within the community, and the old-fashioned method of copying and pasting a link into their post just doesn't cut it anymore.

This is functionality that many of our members have requested, many times over, and that we have been eager to build into the software. It was important for us, however, to build this in an extensible manner that allows us to include support for all of our applications without having to reinvent the wheel each time, and without having to manage the functionality individually per-application. Users expect a combined and intuitive interface that allows them to share all of their content easily, without having to visit their content pages and copy links and other data manually.

IP.Board 3.2.0 will introduce a new shared media manager to fulfill this important need.

As always, the screenshots shared in this blog entry are of a development build of IP.Board and may not represent the full and final look that ships when the next release is declared final. What you see below is subject to change up until IP.Board 3.2.0 is released.


Sharing Media

With the new editor in IP.Board 3.2.0, we have built a plugin that allows your members to access and share their previously submitted content.



When you click on this button, your shared media popup will open allowing you to browse, search and include media you wish to include in your post.



As you can see here, you can include media from many areas of the board. Because we have used a plugin system, not only can we expand capabilities in the shared media system for our own applications, but third party modification authors can also easily tie into this popup to include their own media to be shared.

Each plugin defines how it presents its shareable content. Here are screenshots of the existing areas






(Gallery areas are still under development with the continuing development of Gallery 4.0, so these areas are not yet finished and presentable)

You will see pagination at the top and bottom of the templates. This pagination uses AJAX to provide the next and previous pages without requiring a page load or a messy iframe solution.

You will also see a search bar at the bottom of the window. The search feature also utilizes AJAX and is useful for finding content you wish to share without having to page through all of your previously shared media.



Your search value is remembered when you click through tabs, but you can easily reset the tab by clicking the "Clear Search" link next to the search form. This way if you search for an attachment and don't find it, but remember that you may have submitted it to the download manager instead, you don't have to manually search again after you have switched tabs.

When you click on an item it is added to the editor as a bbcode. Once you are done, you can click the "Finish" button to make the modal box go away and continue with your post.

Upon submitting the post, IP.Board will verify you have permission to share the content you are attempting to share (i.e. to prevent a sneaky user from sharing someone else's gallery image or calendar event), and then will save the post as normal. When displaying the post, IP.Board will call each plugin that was used to let the plugin determine how to parse and display the content you are sharing. In this screenshot, I have shared a calendar event, an attachment, a blog entry, and a download manage file (in that order).



Again, each plugin can determine how to display its content. I would like to re-iterate that these are early preview screenshots and the display of our content may change between now and release, but you can see how sharing media in IP.Board 3.2.0 is a much richer and easier experience than in earlier versions, providing a much nicer end result for your contributors and the users browsing your community alike.

We have a lot of ideas for taking this new feature even further in future versions, but we felt our initial focus would best be served by ensuring the sharing process was easy for all.


What About Permissions

Permissions were a complicated subject when determining how best to handle sharing media across applications. Can I share private calendar events I have submitted? What happens if I share a gallery image in an album that a guest cannot view? What happens if I delete a blog entry that I previously shared?

These are all very pertinent questions that we had to take into account when building this new feature. While the plugin approach this system takes allows us to adapt each plugin as needed to best handle its permission checking routines, we have decided that a simple approach for this first release was the best solution. You can only share your own content, first of all. Moderators can share content of any user if they manually type in the bbcode, but will not be presented with it in the popup (this is necessary so that if a moderator edits your post the shared media will still be allowed).

If you delete the destination content that you have shared, the bbcode will simply return an empty string and nothing will show in the post where it was used.

Whatever you share will be viewable in the area you share it in. You cannot share content that is inherently private or not approved (i.e. a private calendar event, or a blog entry that is not published or is pending approval), however you can otherwise share any of your content that you wish. It is, after all, your content and you could just as easily download a file and upload it elsewhere to link to, or copy and paste a blog entry's content into the post form. If you share that content, what you see in my previous screenshot will display to anyone that can view the page you shared the content on. For instance, if you share a calendar event that a guest cannot see in a topic that a guest can see, the guest will see the parsed calendar block as in my previous screenshot. This is only a preview, and as mentioned above, there would be nothing stopping you from copying and pasting the calendar event contents to the topic anyways.

We opted against complicated permission checking when displaying pages with shared content for a few different reasons:


Most users are not going to know your permission configurations and would become confused hearing that content they shared is viewable by some but not others As mentioned, users can simply download files and upload elsewhere to link to, or copy and paste the destination contents Complicated permission checking routines would negatively affect the page loading speed, as there are more resources needed to verify all of the different permission permutations possible across all applications Content caching would potentially cause issues with shared content. While we could account for this in our applications, it would be more difficult to account for this in third party applications that can also utilize this new system.



Some Other Details

Firstly, this new media sharing tool is available anywhere that the new editor is available. That means you can share download manager files in calendar events, gallery images in blog entries, and forum attachments in download manager submissions. There are obviously a lot of possibilities here, and we expect that as third party applications embrace this new feature you will be able to share even more of your community content anywhere across your community.

The shared media tool is a custom bbcode, like all of our other bbcodes. This means you can control its use just like any other bbcode, including limiting the feature to select user groups (or disabling it entirely). You are not required to use this new feature if you don't wish to, and you can restrict it any way that you wish.

The system is entirely based on a plugin callback approach allowing third party developers to hook into it easily. I can envision sharing "issues" from tracker in forum posts, or items from other popular modifications throughout your site. The plugins are relatively simple to create and we expect to provide documentation of the system to developers shortly following the 3.2 release. It is important to note that plugins can each utilize their own permission checking and display routines, however they can also utilize our basic layouts as shown in my previous screenshots. There is a lot of flexibility in this new system for developers.

And lastly, this is only the first version of our new shared media tool. We expect to enhance and bring further capabilities to this feature in future versions of our software.


Wrap Up

We know this is a tool that everyone has been waiting for and we appreciate your patience. As always, we wanted to do this right the first time, rather than provide similar capabilities through each individual application, increasing development time, maintenance, resource usage, and so forth. By including this feature in IP.Board 3.2 we will now have a strong central framework that applications can utilize, providing for a more consistent and smoother user experience for all.

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 16,702 views
bfarber

IP.Board 3.2.0: Front-end Changes Afoot

While we aren't quite ready to show off IP.Board 3.2.0 in its entirety yet, I wanted to talk a little about what you can expect from our new front-end skin - our thinking behind development, areas we've focused on, etc.

Goals
Before development commenced, we created a list of goals that we aimed to meet. These include:


Improving the experience
We've been accused in the past of having a 'clunky' experience in some areas, so we've worked hard to improve the user experience in key areas. Some of these are usability changes, while others relate to reducing clutter on the screen or relocating elements.
Making the skin easier for 3rd party developers (and ourselves!) to use
Another focus was on making our skin - particularly the CSS - easier to use, for skinners, developers, even our own team. We've found that as new features were added, whole blocks of existing CSS were copied, pasted, then tweaked to suit the new feature. This creates some resource overhead, not to mention more work for skinners and developers. To remedy this, we've begun introducing a new approach to our CSS: more modular units that can be reused and combined easily to make many interfaces easy to implement. This will be gradually introduced throughout the skin as areas get updated in future point releases. Already, we've been able to remove large sections of old CSS as the updated areas make use of the new modular CSS.
Modernizing the display
It's been 3 years since we first began working on IP.Board 3.0, and the internet has come some way since then. We decided it was time to refresh the visual style of our default skin. While it will still be clearly recognizable as IP.Board, we've added some polish to the overall style, and made more use of technologies such as CSS3.


Areas that we've focused on
A huge number of areas have had minor tweaks here and there, too numerous to list here. But other areas have had significant updates, including:

Global wrapper
This is probably a given, since it influences the rest of the skin. Parts have been made more streamlined, with a new member & moderator bar, a new application bar that now supports as many apps as you choose to install, inline sign in and more.
Forum view
While the basic concept of listing topics inside a forum hasn't been altered, we've made big updates to the presentation, including rethinking the display of non-essential items and a new, friendly topic preview.
Topics view
As with forum view, the basic structure has not changed (familiarity is a good thing!), but numerous elements have been tweaked, changed, and tidied. All in all, reading topics should be a more pleasant experience for your users.
Profile
Our profile view was in need of overhauling, so that's what we've done! It now sports a vastly cleaner display while keeping all the relevant information accessible. Data from 3rd party apps is easily incorporated without fear of breaking the tab bar as in 3.0. In addition, we have merged profile comments and status updates, giving members a modern 'wall' in their profile.
Calendar
We've previously posted blog entries about new features you can expect to see in Calendar, and to go along with that, we've completely revamped almost every aspect of the calendar display - hopefully making it a more inviting place for your community to share events.
Registration
We identified some time ago that our registration routine was less than optimal, especially when considering communities that make use of IP.Nexus, with its ability to sell packages at registration. To remedy that, we have rethought the registration routine, to present Nexus packages in a better way, get rid of unnecessary steps along the way, and above all make it quicker for your prospective members to register
Moderation
We will elaborate on this point at a later date, but we have made the various day-to-day moderation tasks easy to access and use - a boon for your moderating team.
View New Content
Our View New Content area has steadily grown more complex as additional sorting and filtering options have been introduced, so we felt it was time to improve the display of those options to make it all a bit easier to use.
Posting Screen
We've updated the new topic/reply screen to be more streamlined, as well as integrate some new goodies that we'll talk about later.
Redirect Screens
The old-fashioned 'you are being redirected' screens are now a thing of the past. Every area has been updated to use a new inline notification display, which doesn't get in the way and fades after a few seconds.



Teasers

To whet your appetite, here's some teaser shots of the new front-end. We'll be gradually showing more as we discuss new features in later blog entries.





While these are just teaser shots, over the next few weeks we will start posting blog entries about new features on the front end that will also contain screenshots of new skin elements so keep an eye on our blog for more updates!

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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 10,234 views
Rikki

IP.Board 3.2.0 Dev Update: Applications Improvements

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

In my last blog entry I mentioned the improvements we have made for the hooks system, in this new entry I'll talk about the changes we have made for applications.


Disabling an Application

When an application is disabled from the ACP a check is performed on all the enabled hooks that have it listed in their requirements and a warning will appear at the top of the page to warn the admin about disabling them.




Application Tab Permissions

We have received several requests from our customers in both the feedback forum and tickets and we decided to include it in IP.Board 3.2, you will now be able to specify for which groups the application tab will appear on the public side! The setting to control this is an easy multi-dropdown menu, furthermore we have renamed the setting "Hide Tab" to "Hide for all current and future groups?" and we have moved it under a new permissions tab.




Global Caches

As we have already mentioned for the hooks (see previous blog entry) we have added support for the "Global Caches" system in the applications too, this will allow modification developers to also specify for applications which additional caches should be loaded on each page together with the default ones. For example we will use this in our IP.Nexus application and specify the "nexus_ads" cache which is currently loaded separately on each page when the application is enabled.




Updates Checker

Unlike hooks the applications had no way to check for updates, we have now added 2 new settings "Website" and "Update URL" which are used in the same exact way as the one for the hooks (see the previous blog entry).
The updates available will show as a purple badge similar to the ones for the hooks and a counter of the updates available will show up at the top of the page as well.




Sphinx Cronjobs

When Sphinx is enabled we often have customers confused on how to setup properly the cronjobs based on the applications installed. To solve this issue we have added a menu for the old Sphinx button which contains the new "Build Cronjobs" tool. This tool will ask you to input the path to your sphinx.conf file and will then provide the proper cronjobs based on the applications installed. Furthermore, the tool will also warn you about a possible wrong path as you can see in the screenshot below.




Export Tool for Developers

Currently the information.xml file included in the xml folder of each application needs to be written manually, we have now included a tool that allows developers to easily create such file from the ACP without having to write it manually.



This is an example of the file that will be exported from the Members application:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <information> <data> <name>Members</name> <public_name>Members</public_name> <author>Invision Power Services, Inc.</author> <description>Manage members and groups</description> <disabledatinstall>0</disabledatinstall> <global_caches/> <website/> <update_check/> <templategroups> <template match="exact">skin_messaging</template> <template match="exact">skin_mlist</template> <template match="exact">skin_online</template> <template match="exact">skin_profile</template> <template match="exact">skin_ucp</template> </templategroups> </data> </information>

Please note that the option "disabledatinstall" will always be 0 by default unless a previous information.xml file is available and it contains a different value which will be retained. The same goes for the templates, you need to add them manually but as long as you have them in a previous xml file the export function will keep them in the new one as well.


Conclusions

As you can see from the previous screenshots we have not only added new features but also the layout of the pages has been updated as well for better usability, for example you'll notice that the applications not installed are now listed on a column on the right instead of at the bottom where it was harder to see them.



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. Be sure to check the What's New in IP.Board 3.2 topic for a running list of announced changes!
  • 8,829 views
teraßyte

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