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IP.Nexus Dev Update: Client Area

There are many areas of IP.Nexus which the user needs to be able to manage: past orders, active purchase, support requests, etc.

We decided, rather than trying to shoe-horn these features into the User CP, which was not really designed for such functions, to create a new "Client Area", specific to IP.Nexus.
This is what it looks like:

In this blog entry we'll be talking about the "Purchases" and "Invoices" sections of this Client Area.


Purchases

The "Purchases" section (shown above) will list all active purchases on your account.

Clicking the "View Info" button takes you to an overview page for the purchase:

Here you can update any custom package fields if the field allows you to do so (fields can be set to not be editable after purchase if you desire).

If the item has renewal terms and you are within the time you are allowed to renew the package, you can click "Renew Now" to renew. Doing this will take you straight to the payment screen, and once paid, the expiry date will be updated.

If the package is part of a group which allows upgrading and downgrading, you can click the "Change Package" button to do so:


Depending on your settings, upgrading may be free or they may be charged the difference, and if downgrading, they may be refunded the difference - exactly what will happen, along with the new renewal terms is shown for each selection.
If the user must pay the difference to upgrade, they will be taken to the payment screen and once payment clears, the package will be changed.
If the user is to be refunded the difference when downgrading, it will be applied as credit on their account (we will discuss account credit in a future update).


Invoices

This is what the Invoices screen looks like:


As you can see, invoices are separated into tabs:
Pending invoices are orders which the user has started but not finished or cancelled, or have been generated by the system (for example, when a package is due for renewal) or have been generated by an administrator.
Paid invoices are past orders which the user finished successfully.
Expired invoices are previously pending invoices which have now expired. The user can still pay expired invoices, but the service they relate to (for example if it is a renewal invoice) would have deactivated.
Cancelled invoices have been cancelled by the user or an administrator.

You can click on an invoice to view details:


If the user can pay an invoice, they will see the "Pay Now" button which will take them to the checkout page (which we discussed previously in this blog entry).
If the user has credit on their account, they will also see an "Apply Credit" button which will allow them to use their account credit against the invoice total.



This concludes the Invoices and Purchases area of the Client Area. We will be discussing other areas of the client area in future blog entries.
  • 5,966 views
Mark

IP.Nexus Dev Update: Managing and Generating Invoices

In a previous blog entry we covered the ordering process for both the end user and administrator, but of course administrators can generate invoices manually. In this blog entry we're going to be demonstrating the how administrators can manage and generate invoices for users.

Please note that the interface shown in the screenshots is not finalised subject to change.



Managing Invoices

There are two ways you can view invoices, and we imagine most administrators will either use one or the other depending on the size of community.

Firstly, you can view all invoices in a list with the most recent invoices first. We imagine this will be useful to smaller communities.


You can also view the invoices for a particular customer from the customer page. We imagine this will be more practical for larger communities.

The customer page can be accessed either from a link in the normal "Edit member" Admin CP page or the Customer search page in the IP.Nexus section of the Admin CP.
We'll be discussing all of the features of the customer page in a future blog entry.


This is what the invoice details screen looks like:

As you can see, it lists each item in the invoice and any transactions related to the invoice.

It also shows information on the status, and if the invoice has been paid it will indicate the date that it was paid, and any additional information that may be necessary:






Generating an Invoice

You can of course generate an invoice manually for a customer. You do this from the customer page by clicking the "Add Invoice" button that is there.

You will see a screen like this:



You can add an item by clicking the "Add Item" button. This will bring up a dropdown menu with the different types of item you can add:

You can add a normal package by selecting the package from the packages you have created:

You can create a custom package:

You can add a miscellaneous charge (for example, a shipping cost or discount):

And if you have IP.Downloads integration enabled, you can add a paid IP.Downloads file:

(Note that if you have lots of files you will see a search box to enter a filename rather than a dropdown of all paid files).

You can also add a renewal for any of the user's existing purchases by clicking the "Add Renewal" button:


After adding each item, you'll be taken back to the first screen:

From here you can edit the quantity of any item (the price will be updated automatically by AJAX and taking into account any bulk discounts you have set up) or remove an item.

Once you're done, clicking the "Save" button at the top will generate the invoice. If you selected the invoice to be pending, the user will receive an Email notifying them an invoice has been generated, and if you selected the invoice to be paid, the packages will be added to the user's account straight away.
  • 4,122 views
Mark

IP.Board Communities iPhone App Updates

A week ago we launched the first version of our IP.Board Communities iPhone App and the response has been great so far with thousands of downloads! It's been really exciting for us to see the great feedback and start incorporating it into the newer versions of the app. We have a new version of the app awaiting approval that addresses many of the issues from the first release, we expect that it will be live on the app store within the next 48 hours. In addition to bug fixes, this version includes a few interface tweaks that improve the user experience.

In addition to the version that is awaiting approval, we have an even newer version that we will be submitting to the app store soon. Apple's approval can take up to a week so expect it to be available for download around June 8. Here's a quick preview of what you can expect from this upcoming version:

New Feature: Directory

The directory feature takes the link directory from our site and incorporates it into the app, allowing users of the app to easily discover new communities. We think this will be a great way to drive traffic to your sites, so make sure that you have added your site to the directory!



Clicking the "Add to My Communities" button will take you straight to the add forum page, with the title and url fields pre filled out for you. If you do not already have a username and password, you can leave those fields blank and you will be redirected to the register page the first time you visit the community. This is a great way to drive traffic to your community and for new members to join using their mobile device!

Quick List

This feature will allow you to quickly jump to several sections of a forum, instead of starting at the home page. You can access the quick list menu by tapping the blue arrow on the main forum listing:

After tapping that button, you will see this screen:

We have a lot of future plans for this area, such as including stats from the community.

Settings

The settings area is where you can edit forum details, such as your login and password. In the future there will be a wider variety of settings included for each forum.


Future Versions

All of those features will be included in the next version we submit to the app store, but we have a lot more planned for later versions. We will be adding push support in the near future, so that any notifications that IP.Board generates will have the option of being sent to your phone. We also have numerous enhancements to the interface and user experience planned.

We hope you're excited about these new features, we can't wait for you to try them out! As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions, so let us know what you think!

And, yes, we are still planning an Android platform app.
  • 5,164 views
Josh

IP.Nexus Dev Update: Processing Orders

In our last IP.Nexus Dev Update, we demonstrated the storefront and checkout process for the end user. In this blog entry, we're going to show you some of the Admin features for processing orders.

Please note that the interface shown in the screenshots is not finalised and subject to change.


There are two stages to processing an order:
Approving the transaction
IP.Nexus can automatically process transactions that the payment gateway reports as successful. Some users may wish to set all transactions to be manually approved for extra security, and in some cases, transactions may also need to be manually approved if the payment gateway reports a problem. Shipping the items
If a user has purchased physical items which needs to be shipped, a shipping order will be generated to let you know what items need to be shipped and who to ship them to. If a user makes an order with multiple items using different shipping methods, multiple shipping orders may be generated.
Some orders of course may require both of these steps and some will require neither, depending on your configuration and what the user purchases.

On the Admin CP Dashboard you will see a notification if there are any pending transactions or shipping orders:

This uses the IP.Board Admin CP Dashboard Notification Center which was added in 3.1.


Approving Transactions

You can view all transactions that are awaiting your approval on a page in the Admin CP:


From here you can approve a transaction by "View" link or mark it as paid or failed by clicking the appropriate icon.

The transaction details screen looks like this:

You can see details about the transaction, the invoice it corresponds to and the reason it is pending approval.

After a transaction has been marked complete, the details pane will show a message indicating who did so:



Once a transaction has been approved, the invoice it is associated with will be marked paid and any purchases the user has paid for will be activated.
If the order includes any physical items, a shipping order will be generated at this time.


Shipping Orders

You can view all shipping orders that are awaiting your approval on a page in the Admin CP:


You can view a shipping order by clicking on the link. The details screen looks like this:

As you can see, the shipping address and items to be shipped are listed.

Once you have shipped the items, you can click the button in the top right to mark the order as shipped. This will send a notification to the user that the items have been shipped and archive the shipping order.
  • 3,308 views
Mark

IP.Board 3.1 Update: Mobile Skin Improvements

With the release of IP.Board 3.1 and our new iPhone application, we decided to make some further improvements to our mobile skin to expand on the great start introduced earlier this year. We wanted to give the skin a more modern, touch-friendly feel, and improve usability for those devices to suit.

So here's some of what we've done:



As you'll see straight away, the board header is now significantly smaller. We wanted to make the content the focus of the new design, so we've cut out all of the space-hogging links and replaced them with a clean button-activated menu. Which looks like this:



We've also made important buttons bigger and easier to press when you're on the move, on your phone. Where there's too much to display, such as each post in a topic view, we've hidden the buttons behind touch-activation. This functionality is, of course, all backwards compatible with devices that don't support or block JavaScript.

Another area we were keen to add, to compliment the new iPhone application, is status updates. You can now view status updates by your friends, or all members of your communities, directly from your mobile. We've started small, with just the status updates themselves, but we plan to expand this in future revisions to include status replies and the ability to reply to them.



Some other enhancements:


Touchable rows - Anywhere there is a list, such as the forum list on the board index, or the topic list in forum view, entire rows are now touchable. You can press anywhere on the row to go to that item, rather than having to aim carefully for the link within. View new content - In IP.Board 3.0, this list was set by default to "show me all new content since my last visit", even on your mobile device. This meant that if you closed the iPhone application, when you went back in, this list would be empty. We've changed this to default to "show me all content that I have not read", preserving the list across sessions.
CSS-based styles - As most modern mobile devices use new, CSS3-compliant rendering engines, we've been able to use CSS-based gradients and border-radius settings to lower the number of images the skin loads, saving and your wallet from hefty data-plan fees.
Everything's bigger - This might sound simple, but the biggest change we've made is to make the font size bigger throughout. Hopefully this will mean less squinting when you're trying to use it on your phone!

We'd love to hear what you think about the improvements we've made to the mobile skin. It will be included as standard, for free, in IP.Board 3.1 when it is released. It will install right along with the upgrade and be available for your members to enjoy.

If you find any issues, please report them to the bug tracker.
  • 11,504 views
Guest
Guest

IP.Nexus Dev Update: Storefront

In our previous blog entry, we covered how to create packages in IP.Nexus. This blog entry will cover the storefront and ordering process for the products that you sell.


The Store

The front page of the store looks like this:


The front page allows users to view products items (you can configure which products are featured in the Admin CP) or the most popular (i.e. most sold) products.

Users can navigate the store using the category menu on the left. When you navigate into a category, it opens a tree with subcategories.


The bar on the left shows the products currently in your shopping cart, including any tax and discount costs.


As discussed in a previous blog entry, you can configure products to have custom fields or associations with other products. When adding these products, you will see a screen like this:



Viewing Your Cart

After adding an item, or by clicking the "Edit Cart" link the sidebar, you'll see a page like this:


As you can see, you can edit quantities for products which do not require custom fields by entering a new number in the box (or remove all of that product by clicking the remove link). For products which have custom fields, each item is listed individually, so you can remove the one you want.


Checkout Process

The checkout process is only available to registered members. If a guest clicks "Checkout" on the store, IP.Nexus will remember their cart and direct them to the registration screen. After registration is complete, when the user logs in, IP.Nexus will redirect them to the checkout page.

All steps of the checkout process have a cancel button that the user can use to cancel the purchase.

Clicking checkout from the cart screen, the user will be asked to enter their shipping address:

Of course, if the items the user is purchasing are not physical, or the user has already provided this information in a previous order, this step will be skipped.

Next, the user will be asked to select their shipping method:

The available shipping methods and shipping costs are calculated automatically based on what the user is purchasing. If the user purchases several items which have different available shipping options, more than one dropdown may be available.

In this case, IP.Nexus will automatically work out the minimum number of shipping orders to create based on the selections.
Again, if the items the user is purchasing are not physical, this step will be skipped.

The next page will show the user the total cost with shipping included and allow them to enter any coupon codes they have or apply account credit.

After selecting a payment method, the appropriate fields will automatically be shown:



After submitting, the user will either be taken back to the payment page if payment failed, or be shown a success page.


If you have configured IP.Nexus to hold all payments until you manually approve them, the success page will indicate this:


And of course if the user chooses to pay by a manual method (such as a check) they will be shown information how to pay:

  • 5,832 views
Mark

IP.Nexus Dev Update: Packages

IP.Nexus allows to you to create packages with a variety of options and even create custom packages for your users.
In this blog entry we wanted to go through some of the options available to you.

Please note that the interface shown in the screenshots is not finalised subject to change.


Package Groups

IP.Nexus allows you to split your packages into package groups. You can have as many groups as you like, and groups can be children of other groups going as deep as you like.
This is the main "Manage Package" screen in the Admin CP:


You can click on a group to view the packages within that group:


And click on a package to edit it:



Physical Items

You can set an item as physical or not. If an item is physical you can also specify the shipping methods available. Shipping options can be flat rate or based on the weight of items being shipped.
When a user orders a physical item, a shipping order will be created which the Administrator can marked as filled. Shipping orders will be discussed in a future blog entry.

If a user makes an order with multiple items, IP.Nexus will work out which items have the same shipping methods available and group them into as few shipping orders as possible.




Associated Items

You can specify that one package can (or must) be associated with another package. For example, if you are selling software and also have an addon product, you could specify that the addon must be associated with the main product.
If a user purchases both the main product and the addon product at the same time, IP.Nexus will automatically work out that they are to be associated, and if the association is required, the user won't get an error message telling them they need to purchase the main product first.

When a purchase is associated with another purchase, this will be indicated both on the customer page, and in any support requests the user creates.




Discounts

IP.Nexus includes two discount options for packages. We call these "bundle discounts" and "loyalty discounts".

"Bundle discounts" allow you to specify a discount if the item is purchased with a different item. For example, here at IPS, if you purchase an IP.Blog license with an IP.Board license, you get a 5% discount on the total order - that would be possible within IP.Nexus.
You can specify whether the discount can only be used alone or if it can be combined with other bundle discounts. If it can only be used alone, IP.Nexus will automatically calculate the best discount applicable according to what is in the user's cart.

"Loyalty discounts" allow you to specify a discount if the user already owns a certain number of a certain item.
For example, you could make it so that if the user already owns 2 of an item, they get the third cheaper - or if the user has purchased a special item (for example some kind of premium membership) they get a discount on all products.
You can build up tiers so that if the user owns x items, they get y price, but if the user owns even more of the item, they get an even cheaper price - IP.Nexus will automatically work out the best discount.
If you have a loyalty discount set up so, if for example, the user gets a cheaper price if they already own 2 items, and the user tries to purchase 3 of that item at the same time - IP.Nexus will still take the loyalty discount into account, and provide the discounted price for the third item.




Upgrading Member Groups

You can specify that a user be moved into a different user group (primary or secondary) or have an additional permission mask assigned to them when they purchase an item.

You can also specify a renewal term for your license (the renewal price does not have to be the same as the base price) and have the user automatically demoted if they do not renew their item.




Upgrades & Downgrades

If in a product group you have different levels of a package, you can allow members to upgrade or downgrade between packages, which they can do themselves through their User CP.

You can specify whether to allow upgrades or downgrades (you can allow both, neither or either of the two) but also, you can specify whether or not the user needs to pay the difference between the prices when upgrading.
If this is set, when the user attempts to upgrade, they will need to pay the difference, and then be automatically upgraded. If this is not set, the user will be upgraded with no intervention.

On the other side, you can also set it to issue users with a refund of the difference when they downgrade their product, this is given in the form of account credits.




Custom Page

You can provide custom content that the user will see when they select their purchased item in the User CP. This could be used to display download instructions, hidden content or anything else you like.

In addition, you can also choose to display a "Submit Support Request" form on this page, and specify the support department it should be routed to.
We'll discuss support requests in more detail in a future blog entry.




Custom Package Fields

You can specify "custom fields" that the user can (or must) fill out when purchasing an item. An example of how this might be used is if you're selling clothing and you need the user to select their size; or you're selling software and you want to force the user to provide the URL they will be installing the software on.

Textbox and dropdown field types are supported, there are also two special field types: "username/password" and "ftp information" which allow you to ask for what we expect will be frequently requested information but without using 2 or 3 custom fields.

If several of your items are going to have the same custom profile field (for example, if you're selling several different T-Shirts and they all need a custom profile field for "Size" - you only need to create it once and assign it to all fields.




Removing Packages

When you remove a package, you may also want to cancel the service for any members who have purchased that item, or even switch them to a different package.

IP.Nexus allows you to remove a package from all members in the way you choose.




Managing Purchases

Once a user has purchased an item, you can edit the purchase to change the renewal terms for that member - this allows you to for example, create custom variations of a package for different users.

You can also of course manually edit the custom fields, cancel a purchase (this will revert them to their original usergroup if applicable) and even transfer a purchased item to another member.





Custom Packages

Not only can you customise purchased items but you can create a custom package for an individual user through the Admin CP, specifying a package name, cost and renewal terms.


  • 5,864 views
Mark

IP.Commerce name changed to IP.Nexus

IPS is changing the name of our new IP.Commerce (as yet unreleased) application to IP.Nexus.

We have received an exceptional amount of interest in this product to date and many have been a bit confused with the name. The major confusion lies in the fact that this application is not just an ecommerce application but also used for advertising, metrics, customer interaction, and more. So, we thought that a more generic name suited well and hope this will remove the "commerce-only" connection that the old name created. Also, there are many similarly named products out there that we wish to avoid confusion with.

As the product has not yet been released this is the best time for such things. Note that all previous blog entries have been updated.

Long-time IPS customers may be familiar with the IP.Nexus name as it was the name of a previous product (fairly similar to this one) that we decided not to release. We thought the nostalgia factor would be a great benefit to this new product. Thanks for your interest!
  • 4,939 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.1.0 Beta 3 And Apps Available

We're very pleased to announce that beta 3 of IP.Board 3.1.0 and its applications are now available!
Please read through this announcement for information on where to download and what is available.

What's Available?
The following releases are available:

IP.Board 3.1.0 Beta 3 IP.Gallery 3.2.0 Beta 3 IP.Blog 2.2.0 Beta 3 IP.Downloads 2.2.0 Beta 3 IP.Content 2.0.0 Beta 3 IP.Chat 1.1.0 Beta 3



Where can I download these?
Please log in to your client center. Click on 'Downloads'. The beta releases will be in the 'Development Releases' category.
Please note that you must have an active license for IP.Board before you can download. Likewise, you must have an active license for the application (Blog, Gallery, etc) you wish to test.

What is a beta?
A "beta" release is a version that is considered ready for extended testing. This is a feature complete release that needs as much testing as possible so that we find and fix any bugs that are found. It is possible that we will further refine some features based on feedback. We do not expect to add any features to these releases.

Can I upgrade from a previous 3.1.0 beta?
Yes, simply upload the files as normal and run /admin/upgrade/

Can I use it on my live site?
We strongly recommend that you do NOT use this version on your live site. Although it has been internally tested and used on this forum, we cannot recommend that you use it on a live site as there may be undiscovered bugs which may impact stability.
Furthermore, while we will assist on the forums where possible, beta releases are not supported officially. This means that you cannot receive technical support on these releases and we will not offer any installation or upgrades on these beta releases.

Can I install it as a test board?
You may install a test version of 3.1.0 beta. You do not need to purchase another license to do this. Please ensure that you take every effort to keep your test board private. It is acceptable to allow select members register to help in testing, but you may not use it as a second community.

I've found a bug!
Please report all bugs to the relevant section in our bug tracker. We will investigate all reports made. Please try and give as much detail as possible when making a report. Browser versions and operating system versions are especially relevant when reporting skin/interface bugs.

What's new in 3.1.0?
For a complete list of what's new for IP.Board and its applications, please see this topic. We've also been maintaining a regular blog of all new features. Please see this category for a list of recent blogs detailing recent feature additions.

I have feedback
Great! We always love to hear from you. Please use the special beta releases forum for feedback and other discussion on the beta releases.
  • 2,254 views
Matt

IP.Nexus Dev Update: Integration with IP.Downloads

I had previously blogged about the API in IP.Nexus allowing other applications to process payments using IP.Nexus. We have implemented this in IP.Downloads to bring paid file support.

You can specify which groups can add paid files, and which groups (for example the admin group) can download paid files without paying.

You can also specify how much commission to take from sales and what to give to the user who submitted the file when it is purchased.

A member who has permission will be able to specify how much to charge for a file when submitting it.


When viewing a paid file, instead of the "Download File" button, users will see a purchase button.


When clicking this button, the user will be taken to the payment screen and payment will be taken. If payment is successful, the user will be taken straight back to the download page where they will now see the normal "Download File" button.



The commission to be given to the member who submitted the file will be applied in the form of account credit, which, if allowed, he can request be paid out. This will be discussed in a future blog entry.

As you can see, the IP.Nexus & IP.Downloads integration is very simple to set up and use but allows IP.Downloads to be used by those selling digital files without the need for a complete billing system.
  • 4,389 views
Mark

IP.Board 3.1.0 Beta 2 And Apps Available

We're very pleased to announce that beta 2 of IP.Board 3.1.0 and its applications are now available ! Please read through this announcement for information on where to download and what is available.

What's Available?
The following releases are available:

IP.Board 3.1.0 Beta 2 IP.Gallery 3.2.0 Beta 2 IP.Blog 2.2.0 Beta 2 IP.Downloads 2.2.0 Beta 2 IP.Content 2.0.0 Beta 2 IP.Chat 1.1.0 Beta 2


The CleanCut skin will be updated early next week for beta 2. (You're welcome, Ian).

Where can I download these?
Please log in to your client center. Click on 'Downloads'. The beta releases will be in the 'Development Releases' category.
Please note that you must have an active license for IP.Board before you can download. Likewise, you must have an active license for the application (Blog, Gallery, etc) you wish to test.

What is a beta?
A "beta" release is a version that is considered ready for extended testing. This is a feature complete release that needs as much testing as possible so that we find and fix any bugs that are found. It is possible that we will further refine some features based on feedback. We do not expect to add any features to these releases.

Can I upgrade from a previous 3.1.0 beta?
Yes, simply upload the files as normal and run /admin/upgrade/

Can I use it on my live site?
We strongly recommend that you do NOT use this version on your live site. Although it has been internally tested and used on this forum, we cannot recommend that you use it on a live site as there may be undiscovered bugs which may impact stability.
Furthermore, while we will assist on the forums where possible, beta releases are not supported officially. This means that you cannot receive technical support on these releases and we will not offer any installation or upgrades on these beta releases.

Can I install it as a test board?
You may install a test version of 3.1.0 beta. You do not need to purchase another license to do this. Please ensure that you take every effort to keep your test board private. It is acceptable to allow select members register to help in testing, but you may not use it as a second community.

I've found a bug!
Please report all bugs to the relevant section in our bug tracker. We will investigate all reports made. Please try and give as much detail as possible when making a report. Browser versions and operating system versions are especially relevant when reporting skin/interface bugs.

What's new in 3.1.0?
For a complete list of what's new for IP.Board and its applications, please see this topic. We've also been maintaining a regular blog of all new features. Please see this category for a list of recent blogs detailing recent feature additions.

I have feedback
Great! We always love to hear from you. Please use the special beta releases forum for feedback and other discussion on the beta releases.
  • 1,953 views
Matt

IP.Nexus Dev Update: Extensibility

One of the first things I wanted to talk about with IP.Nexus is how easy it is for third-party developers to integrate with IP.Nexus.
You could for example, have an area of your application that you only want available to users who pay a fee. IP.Nexus makes this possible.

There is a special class in IP.Nexus called commerceApi that allows you to generate an invoice, and check if an item has been purchased.
In addition, you can make use of special extension files to automatically run when an item from your application is purchased, expires or is renewed - and your items can appear in the Admin CP "Generate Invoice" page.

For example, we have written integration for IP.Nexus with IP.Downloads using this functionality, which we will demonstrate in a future blog entry.


For developers, to generate an invoice, you simply call the commerceApi::generateInvoice() method. This is the code we use within the donation module of IP.Nexus:

try { $title = "Donation: {$goal['d_name']}"; $invoiceID = commerceApi::generateInvoice( $title, $this->memberData['member_id'], array( array( 'act' => 'charge', 'app' => 'commerce', 'type' => 'donation', 'cost' => $amount, 'itemName' => $title, 'itemID' => $goal['d_id'] ) ) ); } catch( Exception $e ) { $this->registry->output->showError( "An error occurred while trying to generate your invoice. Please try again or contact an administrator. ({$e->getMessage()})", 12345 ); } $this->registry->getClass('output')->silentRedirect( $this->settings['base_url'] . 'app=commerce&module=payments&section=pay&id=' . $invoiceID );





















As you can see, the code passes some information about the item(s) being purchased. At this point, commerceApi generates an invoice, and then the user is sent to the payment screen.
Once payment has been processed, the user will be sent right back to the file.

Using this functionality you can:
Specify a base cost for your item Specify renewal terms Provide a URL to the item which will be linked to on the invoice screen Specify a member who should get commission for the purchase and how much commission to give them (for example, if the item was added by another member) Specify a URL to return the user to once payment has been received


Later in your code, to check if a user has purchased an item (for example, when they try to access a restricted area) you just call commerceApi::itemIsPurchased() to check if they have paid for the item.
if ( commerceApi::itemIsPurchased( $this->memberData['member_id'], 'myapp', 'item_type', $data['id'] ) != 'ACTIVE' ) { // Item not purchased... }







commerceApi::itemIsPurchased() will return a value indicating whether the item was purchased, and if the renewals are active.


As you can see, the API is very simple to use and means mod authors do not have to worry about implementing payment systems in their own applications. We're really excited to see how mod authors will use this functionality and as always, if you have any questions, please post them in our feedback forum.
Our next blog entry will demonstrate how we used this functionality to implement paid files within IP.Downloads.
  • 3,952 views
Mark

IP.Board 3.1 Dev Update: Auto parsing of URLs strengthened

Our IP.Board 3.1 beta testing stage is well underway, and so far things are looking pretty good. We want to take a moment to thank everyone for their time and effort helping us to test IP.Board 3.1. Your contributions are appreciated and only help to ensure the quality of the software is nothing less than you would expect from us upon final release.

While IP.Board 3.1 is feature locked, we recently took some time to work on the URL parsing routines to deal with a couple of issues, and thought you might like to hear about these updates.

Auto parsing of media tags

IP.Board 3.0 introduced the new [ media ] tag, which is used to embed multimedia, like YouTube videos and more, into posts and other areas. This tag works just great, but we've heard from many of you that you think it would be better if media that works within the special tag was parsed and displayed automatically, even if the media tag was omitted.

As of IP.Board 3.1, this is now the case. If you copy and paste a link that would correctly parse inside the media tag into your post without media tags, IP.Board's bbcode parsing routine will recognize this and automatically embed your YouTube video or other media right in the post without any other user intervention!


Parsing of URLs with commas

We've had some passionate discussions spring up across the forums over the past couple of months discussing whether a comma character that would seemingly be part of a URL should be parsed as part of the URL. IP.Board 3.0 originally did so, however this was changed during an early 3.0 release due to a posted bug report. Regardless of the history, many of our customers felt that if a URL has a comma contained within it, that comma should be treated as part of the URL. If it contains a comma at the end of the URL, it should not.

You'll be happy to know that IP.Board 3.1 will now present commas as part of the URL appropriately. Here are some example scenarios (the URL bbcode tag was not used to post these) so you can see how it will work:

http://community.invisionpower.com/index.php?test=1
http://community.invisionpower.com/index.php?test=1,2
http://community.invisionpower.com/index.php?test=1,2&something=3
I like http://community.invisionpower.com/index.php?test=1, and that's all!

This is a relatively minor change, but one which we feel many of our customers will be happy to hear will be included in 3.1. Just a note: if you don't know, don't care, or don't know why commas in a URL should matter to you then you can ignore this small change :)


International Domain Names

ICANN (the body that regulates domain names) has recently begun approving (and examples are popping up in the wild) domain names that contain non-latin characters in them (known as IDNs). While this won't affect many of our customers, we decided to take this opportunity, before 3.1 is released, to ensure that IP.Board will correctly parse such URLs.

Some examples:

http://παράδειγμα.δοκιμή/
http://وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر

If you expect such domain names to be used on your board, you should expect that IP.Board 3.1 will be able to correctly parse such URLs. We always want to try to stay "ahead of the curve", and this is just one example where we'd rather implement expected functionality now, before our members are affected by any legacy limitations.


These changes have been applied to our board here as of the time of this posting, so feel free to try out the new changes in the test posting forum. As always, we look forward to your feedback, and if you happen to find any bugs, please report them to our bug tracker.
  • 9,970 views
bfarber

Introducing IP.Nexus

IPS has a fully featured community suite of products including forums, blogs, image galleries, file management, live chat, and content management. We felt the clear missing piece to this product line was an application that allowed you to monetize and promote your community.

We are happy to introduce IP.Nexus to fill that space!

The new IP.Nexus application is designed to help you earn money from your community both directly and indirectly. Direct options include features such as payment processing and shopping carts whereas indirect methods may be banner tracking and donations. Everyone here at IPS is very excited to introduce this new application and hope our customers will be able to take advantage of the variety of features in the product such as:


Shopping cart functionality. Pre-defined packages and custom packages for purchase. Custom fields for package definition for great flexibility when creating packages to purchase. Purchase standalone items. Purchase packages to upgrade to a "higher" member group and automatic downgrades on expiration. Support ticket system including incoming email parsing. Community donation system with goal support. Ability to give members "credits" for commissions, awards, or other purposes. Credits can be used for future purchases or member can request a payout. Payout support included. Members can give out a referral link and can earn commission on sales that members they refer make. Multiple payment gateways including PayPal, Authorize.net, and offline payments. More gateways will be added based on feedback. Global search box on every page of IP.Nexus admin area to easily lookup customers, invoices, or support tickets. Stock actions/replies for support ticket system on admin side. Multiple status types for tickets. Ability to track tickets for future follow-ups. Upload banner images for display and tracking using IP.Board's ad management system. Customer overview page showing complete customer history, current orders, and options. Audit new transactions and purchase to catch fraud. Integration with IP.Downloads to handle purchasing of files. Support for sales commission in the IP.Downloads integration. Functions available for third-party developers to initiate payment processes in other applications. Payments are handled by IP.Nexus creating a central payment system.


We are quite sure you will want to see it to believe it and, over the next few weeks, we will be posting individual blog entries going over the features listed above (and others) with screenshots and videos. Subscribe to the IPS Company Blog to get email updates when an entry is posted or subscribe to the Blog RSS feed.

When will it be available?

As always that's very hard to say. The good news is that every single feature listed here is already completed! We are not announcing a future product being worked on: we are announcing a product nearly done. In fact, IP.Nexus will be given to our internal beta testing team very soon. From there we will collect the feedback from you and integrate any features we missed. We expect a final release before the end of summer 2010 and beta releases within the next month.

How much will it cost?

No price has been set as yet but you can expect it to be priced similarly with our other applications. As is our tradition, we will offer a very good early-adopter discount price.

What about Subscriptions Manager?

We have a product, Subscriptions Manager, available for free for IP.Board that handles upgrading/downgrading member group permissions with paid packages. Nothing will change with this product and it will be available just as it is today. We will continue to make maintenance and compatibility releases. Those of you who are currently using Subscriptions Manager and may want to upgrade to IP.Nexus will be able to do so without data loss.

I have a question, comment, cheer, or suggestion...

Great! One reason we are announcing IP.Nexus now is to get feedback on how our customers may see themselves using a product such as this. We want to create a system you will want to use that suits your needs. Obviously handling the profit and promotion aspects of your community is something we are taking very seriously and we will be actively seeking your feedback on the best way to do this. You will notice comments are disabled on this blog entry as we do expect a lot of feedback so please use the newly created IP.Nexus feedback forum. Looking forward to hearing from everyone!
  • 6,613 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.1.0 Beta 1 And Apps Available

We're very pleased to announce that IP.Board 3.1.0 and its applications are now available for beta testing! Please read through this announcement for information on where to download and what is available.

What's Available?
The following releases are available:

IP.Board 3.1.0 Beta 1 IP.Gallery 3.2.0 Beta 1 IP.Blog 2.2.0 Beta 1 IP.Downloads 2.2.0 Beta 1 IP.Content 2.0.0 Beta 1 IP.Chat 1.1.0 Beta 1

MySQL: New installation and upgrades from previous versions (1.3+) are available for testing
MSSQL: New installations are available for testing. The upgrade system will be available in beta 2.

Where can I download these?
Please log in to your client center. Click on 'Downloads'. The beta releases will be in the 'Development Releases' category.
Please note that you must have an active license for IP.Board before you can download. Likewise, you must have an active license for the application (Blog, Gallery, etc) you wish to test.

What is a beta?
A "beta" release is a version that is considered ready for extended testing. This is a feature complete release that needs as much testing as possible so that we find and fix any bugs that are found. It is possible that we will further refine some features based on feedback. We do not expect to add any features to these releases.

Can I use it on my live site?
We strongly recommend that you do NOT use this version on your live site. Although it has been internally tested and used on this forum, we cannot recommend that you use it on a live site as there may be undiscovered bugs which may impact stability.
Furthermore, while we will assist on the forums where possible, beta releases are not supported officially. This means that you cannot receive technical support on these releases and we will not offer any installation or upgrades on these beta releases.

Can I install it as a test board?
You may install a test version of 3.1.0 beta. You do not need to purchase another license to do this. Please ensure that you take every effort to keep your test board private. It is acceptable to allow select members register to help in testing, but you may not use it as a second community.

I've found a bug!
Please report all bugs to the relevant section in our bug tracker. We will investigate all reports made. Please try and give as much detail as possible when making a report. Browser versions and operating system versions are especially relevant when reporting skin/interface bugs.

What's new in 3.1.0?
For a complete list of what's new for IP.Board and its applications, please see this topic. We've also been maintaining a regular blog of all new features. Please see this category for a list of recent blogs detailing recent feature additions.

I have feedback
Great! We always love to hear from you. Please use the special beta releases forum for feedback and other discussion on the beta releases.
  • 3,966 views
Matt

Support Vacancy

Invision Power Services is seeking a knowledgeable and industrious individual to join its support team as a part time support technician.

Successful applicants will be responsible for answering general support tickets, including providing customers with information, troubleshooting problems and performing maintenance. You would be expected where appropriate to interact with other technicians and developers to resolve issues.

Requirements:
Must be familiar with IPS applications. Must have a basic knowledge of PHP and SQL. Must be able to work remotely. Must speak fluent English and possess strong verbal and written communication skills.

Preferable, but not required:Knowledge of server administration and experience working for a web hosting company. Knowledge of additional web technologies such as JavaScript, CSS, XML, etc. Experience of working in customer support.

Working hours are flexible and salary will be based on knowledge and experience.


Thank you to all who applied. Applications are now closed.
  • 1,696 views
Mark

Update to the Skin Generator Service

The first release of our Skin Generator tool was quite successful, and the feedback we got from everyone was very valuable. We've worked on taking that feedback into consideration in our continuing refinement of this tool. While development of this is certainly not done (there's a lot more cool stuff we are working on adding!), we would like to roll out our next major update to this tool. In this update you'll find the following new features and enhancements.

Page reorganization
We started to realize as we were planning out some of the things we'd like to do, that the system may require many more options. With the old way of showing all of the options on the left all the time, it soon became clear that adding more future options there would stretch that area down even further, and would soon get overwhelming. What we decided to go with for cleaning this area up was to organize the various settings into categories, and place them in an 'accordion' style menu:



You can click on each section of this menu to expand that section and collapse the rest, so that your overall menu area stays relatively small, and you only get presented with the options relevant to the type of settings you are changing. Another neat little feature you might note on the 'Pick Colors' menu is that each option there has a reset button to the right of the color picker. If you are fiddling with the colors and you get them just so out of whack that you can't make them look right anymore, do a quick reset to send that color back to the default.

You'll also notice that the Preview button is gone. The Preview window on the right will now automatically update as you make changes. Pick a different color from one of the color choosers and the Preview updates instantly to reflect that change. The same also applies to the settings on the 'Choose Options' menu.

More Views
Being able to preview the skin you're making on just a few standard views is nice, but it's also helpful to be able to see how that skin looks on other pages of IP.Board and the various applications. In this new update we've added several new views to the list:



Like the color pickers, changes here are automatic: pick a different view from the list and the Preview will update to show that new page. In addition, you can even choose new versions of the applications the skin will be used for on the 'Select Applications' menu and the changes will be relected there. You can see this in things like the IP.Downloads file view since it appears different in the most recent versions of this application.

Support for the Community Projects
We've added in support for the skin exporting the correct info for the Community Projects: IP.Tracker, IP.Shoutbox & IP.Links. Simply select which version of each of these that you need for your skin and the export that is built will contain the appropriate templates/CSS/images all recolored based on your selected options.

Branding options
This new version includes a couple new features dealing with branding your forum. First, in the 'Choose Options' menu, you are presented with a setting that lets you remove the default IP.Board logo. This is useful if you want to remove that logo entirely, to replace it with your own. In addition, the download will include a blank version of the logo, recolored based on your color choices. This blank logo is just like the standard logo that would be recolored and included in the images folder, but doesn't have the default IP.Board logo text on it. You can use this file to put your own text, or image, or anything else you need on it.

Extensibility improvements
Lastly, and least exciting from an end user perspective, we've done a lot of improvements on making various elements of this system more extensible. Previously, doing things like adding new colors or settings would require an awful lot of coding to add the item into the settings menus and to get the source code to find and deal with those inputs. Improvements have been made to move all color settings, applications, views, and other options into XML files. Those files get read to build the page, and then used again to build the preview and the download. This means that additions to the system can be made quickly, with minimal additional coding.

All told, we feel these enhancements make this system a lot easier to use, and give us a lot of flexibility to further improve the system. As always, we welcome what feedback you have, so let us know what else you'd like to see this tool do in future updates. :)
  • 5,755 views
Michael

IP.Board 3.1.0 Dev Update: Template Merge Center

A common problem for all administrators that have skin customisations is having to apply them after each upgrade. This is often time consuming and laborious. One has to pour over a difference report and manually copy and paste the new code into existing templates. A major upgrade such as 3.1 can mean dozens of changed templates.

I'm pleased to say that we've added a new tool to greatly assist in this process. Indeed, skins with just a few minor customisations such as colours can almost automate the upgrade process.

Introducing the Template Merge Center
This new tool will check for differences and attempt to perform a merge on your templates and CSS files.

For those interested in the technical details, a three way merge works like this: A diff(erence) off the old default and new default is performed, and a difference of the custom skin and the new default is performed. The differences are examined and merged into one text. if a change is detected in both the old > new and the custom > new, this is flagged as a conflict.

Anyone who has worked with version control systems will be familiar with the concepts.

If you'd like to see a practical demonstration, please see this video:



Apologies for the quiet audio.

A typical work flow would be as follows:

Run the merge report on a skin set Automatically or manually resolve the conflicts Commit the merged items Tweak the final result by hand if required


Let's run through that:
This screen shot shows a 3.0.5 skin from a customer running on a 3.1 board. As you can see, there are several problems such as missing items and incorrectly styled items.


When we run the tool, it checks all the templates for differences:


This produces a list of all templates that have differences and we can filter the result set further:


We can preview the conflicts:


And we can edit the conflicted text manually:


Once we have resolved the conflicts, we can commit these changes:


The end result is pretty good. We'd need to tweak the CSS to change the border colour of the notifications box but we've done a lot of the hard work with a few mouse clicks:


Of course, this tool isn't a magic wand, but it will greatly assist in the manual upgrading of a skin an as we've seen here, skins with simple customisations may require little manual intervention.

We hope that you find this tool useful when upgrading to IP.Board 3.1.
  • 11,773 views
Matt

IP.Chat 1.1 Dev Update: Logs

We introduced IP.Chat 1.0 in January of 2010 and our servers have already processed over 6 million chat messages in just a few short months and the rate of adoption of IP.Chat continues to accelerate. Many communities are making good use of the chat software and we hope you are enjoying the IP.Chat product so far.

Logs of your chat room are an important tool for moderation of your community. Presently, you can download your chat logs from your client area, and while this is fine, it limits access to the account owner only. Wouldn't it be nice if you could access your chat logs right from your IP.Board ACP?



Beginning with IP.Chat 1.1.0 you will be able to review chat logs right from the ACP.

The Interface

Chat logs will be styled similar to how you see the chats appear right from the chat room. Background coloring helps to identify /me messages, moderator actions, user has entered/left room messages, and private chats.



Here, you can get an idea of how the log messages appear. There's not a lot to explain here. BBcodes and smilies will be parsed similarly to the front end, and the rows will be styled similar to the front end.

Searching and Filtering

By default, private chats will NOT be displayed. We debated how to handle private chats early on. We knew that some users would want them to appear in the chat logs, and some users would feel it's a breach of privacy. The way the chat logs work is that private chats are hidden by default. There is a search/filter bar at the bottom of the chat logs table allowing you to control which chats you wish to see, as well as search your logs.



By default "Public" is checked, so you will only see private chats if you choose "Private" or "Both". Your selection will be remembered when browsing from page to page, but you can reset it at any time using the form at the bottom of the page. If you don't wish to review private chats made on your community that is absolutely fine - just don't check the radio button to do so and they will be kept private.

In addition to controlling which types of chat messages are displayed, you can search for keywords (and/or usernames), and restrict the logs to a specified date range. You can also fill in only the "from" or "to" field (to get all chats after a specified date, or all chats up until a specified date). The javascript date picker is used to help you supply a from and to date.

Pruning

A new setting has been added to allow you to specify how far back to keep chat logs. By default, chat logs will be kept for 30 days, and then a task will prune any logs older than 30 days. You can increase or decrease this retention period, or disable pruning altogether.

The Backend

Chats are still processed through our central servers, so in order to provide this functionality, we have introduced a method for allowing you to retrieve the chat logs for your chat room from our servers. A task is added with IP.Chat 1.1.0 that will download chat logs from our servers every 30 minutes. The task will only retrieve logs saved after your most recent log entry to reduce bandwidth consumption and processing time (and to prevent pruned logs from returning at some future point).

Further to this task, you can manually refresh the logs by clicking the "Refresh Logs" button you'll see in the chat logs window. This effectively executes the task immediately, downloading any logs available on the server but not yet stored in your local database.



Conclusion

As IP.Chat's popularity continues to grow and our customers continue to make use of the software, we felt that this small addition would aid administrators and moderators in managing their communities. Having the logs available locally to your site means anyone with ACP permissions on your board can access the logs, and review anything they need to. You also have control over how long your logs are retained this way, and don't need to visit your client center to review them. We hope you find this new feature useful in the upcoming IP.Chat 1.1.0 release.
  • 5,701 views
bfarber

Beta Releases Coming Soon

The first public beta release of IP.Board 3.1, applications, and related services is fast approaching. This blog entry will let you know what to expect and what you can do to help us in the process.

We believe, as most other responsible software development companies do, that releasing beta versions is the best way to ensure that the software is as stable as it can be before a final, supported version is released. These beta releases are for testing purposes and allow our customers who are interested in testing them prior to release a chance to let us know what problems they may find so we can fix them before the software goes out to the many thousands of casual users all over the web.

A beta release will always have issues with the software that need to be addressed so, as always, we do not suggest using beta software on your live site. Please do not use the beta software unless you are comfortable working with software that may have various issues that will need to be addressed in updates.

Over the next two weeks you can expect to see public beta releases of the following:


IP.Board 3.1 (see this announcement for a list of what's new) IP.Gallery 3.2.0 (maintenance release for IP.Board 3.1 compatibility and bug fixes) IP.Blog 2.2.0 (maintenance release for IP.Board 3.1 compatibility and bug fixes) IP.Downloads 2.2.0 (maintenance release for IP.Board 3.1 compatibility and bug fixes) IP.Content 2.0 (please see our blog to find info on what's new) IP.Chat 1.1.0 (please see our blog to find info on what's new) CleanCut Skin for IP.Board 3.1 MS-SQL Database Driver for IP.Board 3.1 and Applications


As you can see, that is quite a list of new versions coming out so we will certainly appreciate everyone assisting with testing and reporting any issues you come across in our bug tracker. The announcement for these beta releases will be made here on our company blog so be sure to track or subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog. Beta versions will be available to those customers with an active license to those products.

The announcements of each beta release in this blog will also contain information on what you should (and should not) do with the beta releases. We will also let you know if there will be upgrade options from Beta 1 to Beta 2 of the various products. Please (we beg of you) read those announcements very carefully before downloading the betas to save yourself time.

Take this time between now and the beta releases to prepare your testing environments on your hosting and make backups of everything so you are ready to go on beta day. We are very exited to be entering the public beta phase as this means the final release is just around the corner!
  • 6,307 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.1.0 Dev Update: Facebook API Updates

On Wednesday at the F8 conference, Facebook unveiled their new "Graph" API.

This is brand new set of APIs including a new oAuth based log in system. There is much speculation in the media about the current (now old) APIs like Facebook Connect, which IP.Board currently uses. Some sites are reporting that Facebook will simply kill it off while other more optimistic journalists envision a long grace period to allow developers update and migrate their applications.

We didn't want to hang around and find out, so today I recoded our Facebook integration using the new oAuth 2.0 methods using FQL as much as possible which is more likely resistant to change.

What does that mean for you?
First off, apart from adding your Facebook application ID (this is listed on your "Edit my application page") into your Admin CP after upgrading, you don't have to do much else. Your currently 'connected' members will just have to re-log in once to accept a new token which is saved in the database. All the new permissions 3.1 needs will be asked for in a single page at the first Facebook log in from an IP.Board page.

All of the features we added have been updated for the new API including: logging in, synchronizing profile data, publishing links to your wall and importing/exporting status updates.

An example of a permission request actioned when you log in for the first time


The Facebook 'Connect' Page using the new APIs.


Some test status updates and links published to my test Facebook account.


Any improvements?
Actually yes. The new APIs are much more streamlined which have allowed a lot of the inline JS and mark-up to be removed. Better yet, as we're no longer using Facebook Connect, we are not shackled by Facebook's Connect TOS which mean that now when you log in using Facebook and you don't have a current forum account, you are asked to enter a display name rather than having your real name used automatically.

We've even added a few default hooks (that are disabled by default) to show off some of the new Facebook API features.

Facebook has an activity feed widget which lists all Facebook related activity on your forum


You can now like any publicly viewable topic


Of course we understand that not everyone requires these new Facebook features which is why they are disabled by default.

To re-cap:
- 3.1 now uses Facebook's new oAuth / Graph APIs (and FQL)
- You only need to add your application ID to your Facebook settings in the ACP to use this once you upgrade
- Your current Facebook members will not have to do anything other than log in once via Facebook from the log in form or from the Facebook settings page in their UserCP
- Your members can now set their own display name when they log in with Facebook and they don't have a local account

We felt it pertinent to move quickly on this so that IP.Board 3.1 was released with the very latest APIs possible.
  • 13,071 views
Matt

Mobile Skin Now Online

The new mobile skin for IP.Board 3.1 is now available for viewing right here on our community! Just visit on a popular mobile device and the skin will load automatically.



Separate Skin

The mobile skin shows as a separate skin in your AdminCP so you can edit it as you see fit. Change the colors, put up your own logo, or even put in mobile ads to monetize your community.



Support for Popular Mobile Devices

IP.Board 3.1 has built in support for a list of many popular mobile devices. Keep in mind it's easy to add support for even more right in the AdminCP.




Included with IP.Board 3.1

This new mobile skin is included for free with IP.Board 3.1 when it is released. It will install right along with the upgrade and be available for your members to enjoy.

If you find any issues please report them to the bug tracker. Enjoy!
  • 10,503 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.1: Notifications (Updated)

Since first unveiling the notification changes coming in IP.Board 3.1 we've received a ton of feedback from our customers to further improve the system and make the notifications more useful. We've been listening to your feedback (and often agreeing with your points) and have decided to implement many great ideas to the make the notifications system cleaner, easier to use, and less intrusive.


Better defaults upon upgrading

With our first beta release, nearly everything that can issue a notification did. While inline notifications were set for various less important notifications (such as "Your friend has updated their status"), this quickly proved to be intrusive for users who were regularly active on the board. We have not removed any of the notification options available, however we've defaulted many of the less important notification options to not issue notifications initially upon upgrade. Users who wish to receive notifications for these actions may still visit their user control panel and enable them.

This should lead to a less intrusive (and thus, more useful) inline notification setup when you first upgrade, while still allowing users to stay informed of everything happening on the board should they wish to.


Shut the popup off

Another option that has been introduced is the ability to disable the popup, should you not wish to see it whenever you receive a new notification. There is a per-user setting added to the notifications configuration section of the user control panel to allow you to enable and disable the popup. If you disable the popup, your notifications are still available in your user control panel.

This is a small addition that we felt would give each user more control over their browsing experience.


Review all of your unread notifications in the popup

Another change requested frequently since we first introduced the new system is the ability to review all of your unread notifications from the popup. Presently, only your latest notification is shown, and a link is provided to allow you to visit your notifications log area. Now, there are buttons to allow you to jump through your unread notifications directly from the popup so that you can view all of your unread notifications at once.

We've made a short video to demonstrate how this works:




This is another small, but useful, change that has been oft-requested, and that we're happy to provide in the next 3.1 beta release.


Better accessibility

And now we've saved the best for last. Many of our customers have requested that in-lieu of an intrusive popup window to alert you when you've received a new notification, that we implement a menu inline in the page, and show a count on this menu. The menu would provide for quick access to your latest notifications, providing an easy way to review new notifications, while not issuing a popup on every other page load.

We're happy to report that you will see such a menu introduced in the next IP.Board 3.1 beta release, with a few extra touches to further enhance your browsing experience.



A new menu has been added next to your username dropdown in the top right corner of the page. The number of unread notifications is listed on this menu so that you can quickly see how many unread notifications you have.



When you click on the menu, a dropdown is loaded via AJAX displaying your last 10 notifications. Unread notifications are bolded to help you quickly identify them in the list.

You'll notice that we've additionally added icons to represent each notification type. These icons can be changed per-skin, and third party developers can add and specify their own icons for their own notifications that they issue.

(Please note that the icons you see in this screenshot may not be the icons used in IP.Board 3.1 final)

There's a "View All" link at the bottom of the menu, allowing you to quickly go to your notifications list should you need to review further back than the last 10 notifications you received.

An important note to make here - when you open your menu, all of your unread notifications will be marked as read. This is a small change that we feel helps make the notifications system more useful. It's natural to assume that when you open the menu and review the list of notifications, you've acknowledged them and no longer need them to reflect an "unread" status. You can still, of course, review them even after they've been marked as read.

And finally, once you have no unread notifications, the styling of the menu will change so as to prevent it from drawing your attention as readily as when there are unread notifications for you to view.




Coming in the next refresh

All of these changes will be present in the next refresh of the IP.Board 3.1 beta which will be applied to our community forum later next week. We look forward to your feedback on the enhancements we've made to the notifications system. We expect these changes will prove useful and help to further polish an already powerful and exciting new feature.

(Note that a beta of IP.Board 3.1 is not yet available for download while we finish polishing off these features based on your feedback. Once we have a stable product we will be releasing public betas. Keep an eye on this blog for an announcement.)
  • 10,438 views
bfarber

IP.Chat 1.1 Dev Update

Development is under way (and wrapping up, in fact!) on IP.Chat 1.1.0, so we wanted to take a few moments to illustrate what new functionality you can expect to see with the next update of IP.Chat.

If you are not already familiar with IP.Chat, we offer a javascript-based chatroom solution that any customer with an active IP.Board license (or support and services contract) can add to their site. The first level of service for the IP.Chat product allows for you to host up to 5 simultaneous chatters, and is available at no cost to you while your license is active. Other packages are also available for sites that expect more traffic to their chatroom. For more information on IP.Chat, please see our IP.Chat product information page.


How many people are in the chatroom?

While IP.Chat does include a hook that shows the number of users in the chatroom on the board index, many users felt that the display of this hook was too hidden (it is at the bottom of the screen, along with the other board stats), and only shows on the board index. As a result, users are frequently unaware when someone enters the chatroom, limiting the amount of activity the chatroom gets.

We've implemented the most popular suggestion to counter this problem: we've added a count to the 'Chat' tab at the top of the screen that displays how many users are currently in the chatroom. This has been implemented as a hook, and as such can be disabled in the Manage Hooks page of the ACP if you have no use for the feature. You will also have the option to disable the count if no one is in the chatroom, and to hide the count on the tab when you are actually viewing the chatroom page itself.




If you allow the count to display while viewing the chatroom itself, the count will dynamically update as users enter and leave the chatroom, allowing you to easily and quickly tell how many people are still in the room just by looking at the tab at the top of the page.

We feel this is a small, but useful, addition to the chat software which should help spur activity in your chat room.


Private Chatting

Another highly requested feature has been implemented for IP.Chat 1.1: private chats. You will now be able to chat within the chat software privately with other users who are logged into chat.

A new ACP setting has been added, allowing you to control which groups are allowed to initiate private chats (note: anyone can receive private chats). When your group is allowed to initiate private chats, the username menu that exists presently for moderator actions will have an option to "Start Private Chat". When clicked, a small popup box appears to allow you to fill in the private chat text you wish to send to the user.




When a new private chat is started, a new tab is created within the interface.



And if new messages are received for inactive tabs, a count is displayed to let you know.



As the name of the feature implies, private chats are a one-to-one relationship between two users only.


What if I don't want to talk to you?

It's natural that you may not wish to converse privately with certain members of a community you are a part of. A "block user" feature has been added to allow you to prevent specific users from sending you private chats within the chat room.

There is a new user control panel page where you can block and unblock users.



You can also block and unblock users directly within the chat interface. AJAX is used to save the option, and your preferences are updated dynamically (users will be blocked immediately). The user is not made aware that you have blocked them. Instead, any private chats will simply be ignored on your part, as if it was never initiated.





Wrap-up

IP.Chat has proved to be a stable, useful, and popular addition to our community software line-up. Many of you are making good use of the chat software on your site, and we hope these new additions improve and expand the functionality available in the software in useful ways for you and your users. We have some good ideas for future features, however we wanted to keep a focused approach for 1.1.0 first. Stability and security is of the utmost importance to us. The new functionality introduced for IP.Chat 1.1.0 lays the foundation for many new useful features in the future.
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