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Invision Community Blog

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IP.Subscriptions 1.1.0

I'm pleased to say that work has begun on IP.Subscriptions 1.1.0, our purchasable subscriptions manager for your community. This continues our commitment to develop and mature the product beyond IP.Board 3.0 compatibility.

Already, the subscription manager has come on leaps and bounds. New features already added include more robust PayPal payments which fully support recurring payments and recurring cancelations. Improved debugging tools and email notifications make managing your payments easier. Huge improvements in the interface on the public and administration sides help elevate the application further.



IP.Subscriptions 1.1.0 will fix any remaining bugs and introduce further Admin CP interface improvements as well as the ability to restrict subscription packages to specific member groups.



We'll bring you further updates over the next week as the release starts taking shape.

IP.Subscriptions is free to all active IP.Board license holders. v1.0.0 is available from your download center now.
  • 7,779 views
Matt

Custom Services Directory

We have created a new directory for sites that provide custom skin design and/or programming services for IPS products.

Custom Services Directory

If you provide custom skin design or programming services for IPS products please submit your site or service today. It's a great way to increase your business and get more referrals directly from IPS!
  • 1,493 views
Charles

IP.Content 1.1.0 Beta 2 available

We've been hard at work on our latest version of IP.Content, as we discussed in our last blog entry, and have been testing it with a small group of beta testers for the last week or two now. We have decided to open up beta testing to all customers with active IP.Content licenses.

IP.Content is the new name for Community Content System.

IP.Content 1.1.0 introduces support for custom dynamic databases. You can create databases, manage categories, fields, moderators, records, comments, revisions and more, all from within your admin control panel. You can also allow your users to submit, edit, rate and comment on records in databases, with a plethora of other options available on a per-database level. Please re-read our previous blog entry for a more in-depth outline of the new functionality in version 1.1.0.

If you find any bugs in the public beta, please report them to the bug tracker.

Pricing

Since the introduction of IP.Content we have had a special price of just $35 to purchase. When the final version of 1.1.0 is released, the price will change to $49.99 so act now to secure the special price of $35 before the change.
  • 3,040 views
bfarber

First Look: IP.Content 1.1.0

We've been hard at work on the next version of our Community Content System which we have formally renamed to IP.Content. There are many exciting new capabilities with the latest version of IP.Content that we think you will like.

For the most part, our efforts into 1.1.0 have centered around one new major feature: custom databases. In IP.Content 1.1 you will be able to create an unlimited number of custom databases from within your admin control panel, allowing you to easily organize and manage your data using IP.Content. For instance, let's say you run a site about pets. You might want to create a database that contains records about all the different breeds of dogs out there, another database that contains records about all the different breeds of cats, and then yet another database that users can submit to in order to share information about their own pets. The first two databases you may only want administrators to add records to, and you may want to order by breed name, while the last database you want users to submit records to, and you may want to order by date the records were added to the database. IP.Content 1.1.0 can easily manage all of this.




When you create your custom databases you can decide which permission masks can see and view the database, who can add and edit records within the database, and who can rate records and comment on records within the database. Commenting and rating functionality is built in (if you enable it for the database). You can set whether users can submit to a database (or you can set a database so that only administrators can submit to it), and you can even set a database to be editable in a wiki-like manner (i.e. any user can edit any record within the database). You control the default sorting and ordering options for the database, and you control whether records and comments should require moderator approval before becoming publicly visible on a per-database level. You can also enable revisions for records within a database (that is, when users edit the records a backup of the copy they edited is saved in case you need to review it later, compare it to the current version of the record, or restore an older copy of the record).




After creating a database, you then create each field within the database yourself. IP.Content 1.1.0 supports the following field types: text input, textarea, radio buttons, checkboxes, select lists, multi-select lists, date input (i.e. an input field with a calendar overlay to select the date), WYSIWYG editor areas, and attachments. There are a few limitations on how many and which fields you can add (for instance, you can have as many WYSIWYG fields as you want, but you may only add one attachments field per database), but for the most part the number of fields and specific configuration is up to you. The field types framework is extensible, so developers can easily add new field types in the future simply by uploading a single file to a specific directory.







You can create unlimited categories and subcategories on a per-database level as well. Note, however, that you are not required to create and use categories should you not need to. When creating categories, you can opt to simply honor the database's permission settings, or extend those permissions - that way you can have some categories that are available to all users, and some categories that are only available to VIP members, or staff members, for example.




You also control moderators on a per-database level, with support for both member and group moderators available. You can control whether moderators can approve records, approve comments, edit records, delete records, delete comments, pin/unpin records, lock records, and unlock records.




This leads us into how records are handled and the functionality available for them. You can add, edit, delete, approve/unapprove, pin/unpin, lock/unlock, sort and search for records all within the ACP if you like. Full ACP management is available in 1.1.0. You can also manage comments for records within the ACP, allowing you to view, edit and delete the comments without having to view the record on the public side. Additionally, you can view all revisions of a record, and even run comparison reports to see exactly what has changed between each revision if you wish. You can restore a specific revision at any time, should you have a need.

From the front end, users with appropriate permission can add and edit records as well. Users can also rate each record, and even comment on the records, if the features are enabled and the proper permissions are set. Sorting and filtering from within CCS is fully supported, allowing users to control the order of results, how many are listed per page, and allowing users to search through those results to return more relevant results. Users with appropriate moderator permissions can delete, approve/unapprove, pin/unpin, lock/unlock records, and delete and approve/unapprove comments from the front end as well.

Navigation support is built in, and databases can be embedded into any new or existing page, allowing you full control over the layout of the entire page. Plugin callback functionality is also possible, allowing you to write your own custom code to extend certain database actions (on a per-database level) should you need to. Additionally, "item marking" support is built into IP.Content 1.1.0, allowing your users to easily see which categories have new information they haven't yet read, and easily identify the articles within the listing that haven't been viewed yet. The category view, listing view, and record display templates can be shared across all databases, or can be customized on a per-database level, allowing you fine-grained control over how your content is displayed to users.


We've recently moved over our resource site into the new IP.Content 1.1.0 framework here at http://community.invisionpower.com/resources. You can see a live demo of the new features by browsing our custom databases.


Articles
Our articles section, which contains user submitted tips and documentation, highlights many of the capabilities of IP.Content 1.1.0. Wiki-style editing (and revisioning) is enabled, allowing users to self-manage a repository of information for other users to take advantage of. Commenting and rating is also enabled for the articles, and a category structure including subcategories is utilized to help organize the information. Articles use stock templates, giving you an idea of how content will be displayed if you do not customize the default database templates.

Links
The links section displays customer-submitted links that users can visit. The links section also uses categories to organize data, and also supports commenting and rating. Only the original submitter (and moderators) can edit records, however. Custom templates are utilized to make the links database look a little more unique, compared to the other databases.

Error Codes
Our error codes database lists all of the known error codes that can be generated by IPB (and the first party addons such as Gallery and Blog). Similar to the Articles database, stock templates are used, however commenting and rating are disabled. While the articles database orders articles by "last updated date", the error codes database orders records by the error code itself.

Guides and Tutorials
This database of official IPS guides and tutorials houses official documentation that we at IPS have written and will maintain. Customized templates are used to control the output, and ratings and comments are enabled.


(If you are familiar with SQL already, consider a "database" in IP.Content to essentially be a "table", while "fields" are "columns" within the table, and "records" are "rows" within the table.)


As you can see, the features new to IP.Content 1.1.0 can allow you to greatly extend and much more easily control custom data on your website. Users can practically create entire applications through a few clicks in the ACP, giving you a lot of power. We are excited about this new functionality, and can't wait to see how our customers make use of it. While the first release of IP.Content focused largely on static content (allowing dynamic content through custom PHP code), IP.Content 1.1 focuses on the dynamic features that many users need to manage their websites.
  • 7,598 views
Charles

New Resources Sections

We have made two sections of resources available on our site: Official and Community.

Official Resources

These are resources made by IPS staff and include everything from getting started guides to developer documentation. We are still populating our database of documentation and appreciate your feedback on what sort of information you might be looking for. What seems easy to IPS staff can often be confusing to those not living our products daily as we are so please speak up regarding specific areas you need to have better documentation. Thanks!

Community Resources

Made by the community of IPS customers and include tips, skins, hooks, applications, and more. There is a great number of interesting articles and fun downloads to choose from there. Try one our or submit your own.


Visit: Customers Resources
  • 1,240 views
Charles

bbAuthority: "If you haven't quite given IPB a go just yet, I'd strongly recommend doing so"

bbAuthority.com, a resource site for forum administrators has posted a review of IP.Board 3:

http://www.bbauthority.com/forum-software/invision-power-board-3-an-insight

Thanks bbAuthority.com for the review! Always great to see how others react to IP.Board 3's new capabilities!
  • 1,675 views
Charles

Customer Access on Forums

We are working on making customer access here on our company forums work better. During our changes some clients may have been removed from Customers group and put in the Members group.

If you are experiencing issues please first try this:

The most common issue we have is with customers not logging in with the email they use in the client area. If you are still having trouble please submit a ticket.
[*]Log out of the forums [*]Log back in with the same email address and password you use for our client area





  • 1,763 views
Charles

CleanCut Skin Beta

The first beta release of the CleanCut skin is now available in the client area under the Development Releases section of IP.Board.

There may be issues with the skin so please test it before using it live. Report bugs in the CleanCut section of our bug tracker.

Enjoy!
  • 2,822 views
Charles

Community Skins Preview

Since IP.Board 3.0.0 was a brand new release, it shipped with a brand new design. This design was intended to be easy-to-use, whilst looking as attractive as possible. However, some may prefer the older versions and this is where our newest community project steps in.

For the past few weeks, the skinners from our Community Developer team have been hard at work reviving three classic skins from the IP.Board 2.x range. These are: IP.Board Classic Blue, IP.Board Pro, and IPSBeyond. Each skin has been ported to successfully work with IP.Board 3.0, whilst keeping the look and feel where possible, of IP.Board 2.3.

All three skins have the appropriate templates for all the addons, and are available for preview right here on the company forums! Please be aware that this is a preview and there will still be small issues with the skins, try to think of this as a pre-beta. For the IP.Board Classic Blue and IP.Board Pro skins, the button icons have not been finalised and will change between now and the beta.

We are hoping to have this preview available for around a week, and expect a beta to follow shortly which you can all install on your own forums and help us find any remaining bugs. We have set up a new forum for questions on this new community project, and there is also a new bug tracker category set up for reporting bugs.

This is just the start of the Community Skins project, and we hope to be able to bring you quality, free skins in the near-future. Finally, hats off to the Community Developer team for creating an amazing new project.
  • 4,680 views
Alex

Spam Monitoring Service Update

Our new Spam Monitoring Service is being adopted by thousands of IP.Board owners all over the web and we are starting to see the system "learning" about spam accounts and blocking registrations from all the incoming reports. It's great to see the community of IP.Board owners working together to help combat spam.

We are noticing that some clients are not properly using the service because of domain mismatches. To see if your service is working properly the easiest thing to do is check the logs in the AdminCP under Logs -> Spam Service Logs. If you see a bunch of "0" response codes then there is a problem accessing the service.

Go in your client area and be sure the license URL is accurate and change it if needed. Also be sure you use the Request Spam Service key and input that as your key - not your license key. We have also seen some clients running their forums under forums.example.com but have entered example.com as their license key URL. Be sure to update that to forums.example.com for everything to work properly.

Finally, be sure you are using the "mark as spam" feature in IPB. Not only does this automatically shut down the spammer's account and hide all posts they have made but it also automatically reports that back to IPS as a spam account. This not only helps you but every other IPB owner fight spam registrations.

We hope everyone is enjoying the free Spam Monitoring Service for IPB service license holders and IPS Hosting clients. We have already blocked hundreds of spam account registrations and are very happy with the performance of the service. Enjoy!
  • 1,413 views
Charles

Demo System Updated

Our demo system has been updated to include the latest build of our soon to be released Community Content System.

There is a limit to the number of active accounts that can have a demo at once so if the system is full just try back later. It cycles old accounts every few minutes.

http://www.invisionpower.com/products/demo.php
  • 1,671 views
Charles

CCS Pricing

We have been posting blog entries and information about our soon to be released Community Content System for some time now. For those of you who have not already read about CCS, check out these posts:


Introducing Community Content System Blocks Overview Pages Overview Media Manager Templates

The CCS system is currently in internal testing and has reached Release Candidate phase. We are just finishing up incorporating feedback from our testers and will soon be able to make version 1.0.0 available. We are not going to set a specific release date as certain capabilities of CCS do require updates that are included in IP.Board 3.0.2 so that update must first be released. However, we do expect a 1.0.0 release of CCS to be available for purchase soon after IP.Board 3.0.2 is released.

As CCS is a new product and will require time to mature into the fully-featured content system we know all of our customers expect, we are introducing the product at a greatly reduced price. We have many great ideas to enhance CCS as we continue to develop the system. We made a decision for this 1.0.0 release to not go overboard with features but focus on creating a stable "core" product to work with. Just wait for version 1.1.0 where we have all sorts of fun additions planned. No. No details yet on those features. Don't ask. Really. ;)

The introductory price for those of you wanting to start using CCS as soon as it is available will be just $35 with a yearly renewal of $30 for support/services/upgrades.

Not only does this reduced price give those of you who decide to buy early a great discount but it also allows us to phase in some of the product enhancements over time without having pricing pressures at the very start. As for the final price... we have not yet set it so take advantage of this low price if you are interested in CCS.



Look for the announcement for the release of CCS soon after IP.Board 3.0.2's release!
  • 4,762 views
Charles

CCS: Templates

Our CCS application allows administrators to create page templates to facilitate easy addition of similar pages throughout the site. Most pages throughout a site follow the same general structure with only the main page content changing from page to page. You can utilize the page templates functionality of CCS to make adding pages in this scenario much easier.

Page templates utilize the full power of IP.Board's skin system which means you can use any template conditionals and template plugins in page templates to make them more dynamic. Page templates also support categorization so you can group common page templates together or organize page templates into functional groupings (for example: put all templates that are included into other templates into one grouping).

CCS allows you to optionally output content within the IPB wrapper or to output content directly. If you opt to do the latter: you will want to be sure to output appropriate HTML structures to define the page (for instance, head and body HTML tags). Page templates can help you streamline this repetitive task.

Using page templates

Walking you through an example session, you might visit the page templates screen and first create a category "Includes" to put all template includes into. Then, you might create a "header" page template and a "footer" page template that all pages will share, and afterwards drag-n-drop these templates into your "Includes" category. Next, you could create templates for the main area of the page - you might, for example, create a single column page template and a multi-column page template. Within these page templates you would include your header and footer templates and optionally specify where page content should be placed.

The benefit in separating the include templates from the main page templates is that you can later update the one header template and it will apply to all of the page templates including it (and subsequently, all pages using one of these page templates). To include a template within another template, you simply use the skin template tag like so (using a template key example of "header_template"):



{parse template="header_template" group="ccs" params=""}

You can even include skin templates within your page templates, just like you would within forum skin files.

Using page templates with pages

With your page templates created you would add a new page using the page manager. On the first page of the wizard, select to use one of your page templates (such as your single column page template). You then have the capability to edit the entire page, or only the page content - this option allows you to either "import" the page template and edit the entire page area (if you select no), or edit only the content that should be placed within your page template appropriately (if you select yes).

If you edit only the page content (the preferred method in most cases) any future changes to the page template will automatically be inherited by the page; otherwise, you would need to update the pages individually. This allows you to decide if you want a system where changes to templates are inherited by pages automatically, or if you want to instead use page templates as a starting point but ensure each page is edited and updated independent of every other page. If you elect to edit the content of the page only, when your page is saved the page content is placed within the page template where you specified when editing the template, the page is compiled and pieced together, and the page is then ready to be displayed.



Page templates are an extremely simple yet extremely useful feature designed to help facilitate quick production and deployment of pages on your site. You don't even have to make use of page templates if you want, but we believe once you start using them you will see just how much time it will save you in the long run.
  • 4,011 views
Charles

IP.Subscriptions 1.0.0 Beta 3 Available

Updated: IP.Subscriptions 1.0.0 Beta 3 is available now!

We're pleased to announce that IP.Subscriptions 1.0.0 Beta is available for download from your client center.

This is the second beta release of the subscriptions manager that is compatible with IP.Board 3.0. Many long standing bugs and issues have been fixed in this release including:


Recurring subscription cancelation immediately ending subscription and demotes member Multiple currency issues Inaccurate reporting of totals Incorrect end date calculation after upgrading ...and many more


As always, please do be aware that this is a beta product and should not be used in a live environment without testing first. Please also be aware that currently only the PayPal and Postal Method gateways work correctly. Other gateways will be converted over the next few weeks once the framework has been finalized.

A fairly big change is how multiple currencies are handled. From 1.0.0 Beta 2 onwards you will need to specify a currency for each subscription package. This is to ensure that the correct value is calculated for payment regardless of the current exchange rate. If you are upgrading from a previous release and have non USD subscription packages set up, please go via the ACP and edit these to select the correct currency code to use.

The following items are to follow in the next release:
Pre-installed hook to display current subscription settings (You are subscribed to package X which runs out in X days) Force the user to cancel a current recurring subscription before upgrading to another Ability to renew a subscription before it expires (ACP configurable).


Due to a bug since fixed in IP.Board 3.0.2, you'll need to ensure that the guest member group can view the board and that you do not enforce all guests to log in if you are testing with PayPal.

Please report any issues in the bug tracker as normal.
  • 5,170 views
Matt

IP.Tracker 1.3 available for download

We are pleased to announce that the first stable release of IP.Tracker 1.3, the compatibility release of IP.Board 3.0.0, is now available from IPS Resources.

About IP.Tracker
IP.Tracker is a bug/issue tracking system, it allows members and staff to track certain issues, for examples, bugs within a project you are working on, or even building a house! IP.Tracker supports statuses, severities, and much much more to bring you an extensible Tracker to use however you wish to.

IP.Tracker is provided free of charge to current IPS customers with an active support service. As an IP.Board module, it is offered under the IP.Board License agreement and by downloading this file you acknowledge and agree to this clause. Please note that this free module is not included in your IPS support, is only provided as an extra convenience service, and is not guaranteed in any way.

Expanding upon what was already there
When we originally started 1.3.0, we specifically said that there would not new features, and it was simply a compatibility release to work with IP.Board 3. However, there are several new features which you will find in 1.3.0, some of which are outlined below.


Several areas have been changed to fit in with the look and feel of IP.Board 3.0. IP.Tracker now supports the option to return to the issue listing the issue was originally in when replying to an issue. Each status can now have a 'canned message'. If you update a report to a status with a canned message, but do not provide a reply yourself, IP.Tracker will automatically insert this canned message for you. Statuses can now be marked as 'fixed statuses'. If you change the status of a report to a 'fixed status' but forget to fill in the Fixed In version, IP.Tracker will automatically scan the versions for that particular project and mark the fixed in version as the latest version available Each issue now contains its own timeline view. As the name suggests, this view will provide a brief history of the issue. It will outline important changes in the issues history such as status, severity, and version changes. We implemented a change in IP.Tracker 1.2 in preparation of this new view, so that the timeline view has a lot of data to already work from!

We spent an extra few weeks testing and fixing bugs found in IP.Tracker to make sure that the end product is as stable as it can possibly be at this stage, we thank you for your support during the beta process.

Moving on from 1.3.0
As said above, this is the first stable release, and as such there are bound to be bugs. When software leaves testing phases, more people are prepared to use it. The more people that use it in different situations, the more chance bugs will surface. As such, we are aiming to get 1.3.1 out within a few weeks of 1.3.0. 1.3.1 should sort the majority of the issues reported.

From here, IP.Tracker is splitting into two development paths, of which we will post more about nearer the time. It is our intention that later this year, we will expect to release IP.Tracker 1.4.0. There are a few areas in 1.3 which are not integrated fully with IP.Board 3.0.0, for example Tracker still has its own search engine, and still has a few legacy functions coded in. 1.4.0 will be all about removing these particular areas, and utilizing what IP.Board 3 has to offer. Half of the IP.Tracker team will be developing 1.4.

Also starting development at the same time, the other half of the team will start IP.Tracker 2.0, 2.0 promises to be an extremely powerful system and highly configurable. We are hoping to branch out into more of a project management system, providing you with everything you need to completely manage your projects: timelines, discussions, tickets, file management etc. More information will come later this year, and a release is expected next year.

We hope you enjoy the 1.3 series, and of our plans for the future. To read a more detailed change log for IP.Tracker 1.3.0 from RC 2, please read this topic, or to visit the download please click here.
  • 4,547 views
Alex

Skin Design Contest Winners

Choosing a winner for our skin design contest was a challenging task as all submissions were excellent. Ultimately, we chose the winning skin based on ease of editing and overall usability for inclusion in the IPB3 distribution as an alternate skin. There were some great skins that we could not choose so we hope that all of you talented designers that submitted such amazing skins will continue your projects outside of the contest!


Third Place

Invision Smooth by Derek M.

Second Place

Thoreau by No1 1000

First Place

CleanCut by ehren.



CleanCut is on our company forums now for preview. Thank you again to all who participated!
  • 6,088 views
Charles

Community Hosting Enhancements

Our new community hosting packages have been quite popular but some clients expressed a bit of confusion or provided helpful feedback so we have made some enhancements to the packages.

All community hosting packages have seen their posts and file storage increased. Also, all packages (except Basic 10) have had their online user limits increased!

Any current clients on these packages will get these upgrades applied today!

We also clarified that limits on our community hosting are not firm limits and we would never shut you down or charge you extra for temporarily exceeding the limits. The Advanced package limits have also increased.

Thank you all for your feedback!
  • 1,475 views
Charles

Conversion Services Update

I just wanted to update everyone on our convertor services. We recently updated the convertor information page on our web site to try to clarify some confusion.

Note: There is a free conversion service sale going on right now so just keep in mind that the paid services I mention here do not apply until that sale ends. :)

We have two types of conversion services: free and paid. Our free conversion service is a pack of convertor scripts you can download and upload into your IPB directory. You simply run the convertor and it walks you through the process. As IPB3 is very new only a few free convertors have been made but we are adding more over the next few weeks.

The vBulletin convertor was recently updated so administrators converting from that software will not lose their links from all of their existing topics. This means that search engines or other sites linking to your existing topics will be automatically redirected to the new topic IDs in IPB once converted. We are also now supporting conversion from vBulletin blog and gallery data where applicable. Finally, the SMF free convertor is nearly done and will be made available on the site as soon as it's ready.

We also have a paid conversion service. You can have us convert many database types to IPB for a fee of $60 (including free ones if you prefer to have us do it). The list is on our convertor information page. Again, the $60 fee is waived until sale expires!

If you do not see your software on the list, or you have a custom database that you would like converted, just contact us for a quote.

Thanks everyone!

Update: The SMF free convertor is now available on the web site. Next on the free convertor list is Woltlab.
  • 1,675 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.0.0 and Applications Launch

IP.Board 3.0.0 and Applications launch has been going great so far. We hope everyone who has already upgraded their installs to IPB3 is enjoying the new software.

Welcome to all the recent new customers and converts to IPS software and hosting. Everyone here hopes you enjoy your experience! Join in the community, get help from other customers or jump in and offer help yourself. You never know what interesting tips or resources you might find.

As I am sure most everyone has noticed, we also launched our new web site on invisionpower.com and the feedback there has been wonderful. We know there is some content missing and some broken links here and there but we are working on it. Also, the client area and order process is working but might not be very pretty in a few places :) so bear with us there. If you find anything wrong with the site please use the Tracker here to report. There is a category for the new web site.

A quick reminder to check IP.Board 3.0.0's requirements before attempting to install or upgrade. We will be maintaining the 2.3.x branch for those on outdated hosting providers who have not upgraded their server software.

We know that many customers are waiting on the Subscriptions Manager to be released so they can upgrade to IPB3. We sincerely apologize for this delay. The Subscriptions Manager update to be compatible with IPB3 is currently our number one priority. It is very close now. There will be an announcement as soon as it's ready.

Finally, we are working on 3.0.1 to fix any issues being reported. So far (knock on plastic wood-like composite) we have had no critical issues that impact huge numbers of installs but there are always issues here and there that impact installs on specific scenarios. Since 3.0.0 is brand new and a huge upgrade from 2.3.6 we do expect a few point releases to iron out any issue that come up from 3.0.0's first wide-spread usage. But don't worry, upgraded from 3.0.0 to 3.0.1 will be very easy.

Thanks again to everyone!
  • 1,338 views
Charles

CCS: Media Manager

An important aspect to many webpages is the media embedded into the webpage. It's rare to come across a web page that has no images on it, after all. For this reason, we have included a media management tool in CCS to facilitate adding, organizing, and otherwise managing media for your pages.

A word about security

Security is a very important concern when working with files and folders on the filesystem. For this reason, CCS only allows image uploads to occur through the admin control panel and only allows file management operations within a directory defined by editing a file you must upload to your site through FTP. Through these restrictions, if an attacker were ever to gain access to your admin control panel they can only delete and upload within the directory you have previously defined (which can only be set through FTP). They would also only be able to upload image files, thereby limiting any damage that can be done.

You can, however, upload whatever files you wish through FTP and (if you set permissions appropriately on the files) delete and move those files through the admin control panel. This is a compromise we have made to help ensure we protect your site (and server), however, as most administrators will be primarily managing images through the media manager we feel the compromise will not be much of an inconvenience.

What the media manager can do

The media manager allows administrators to manage files on the server (within a specified directory structure). The administrator can create, rename, move, and delete folders at will within this directory. The administrator can also upload image files to any of these folders, delete the files within these directories, and move the files around as needed.

It is a really simple tool designed to help you accomplish a really simple task - uploading, previewing, moving and removing images you might need to embed within your web pages. The media manager manages real files on the file system, so it is presented in the admin control panel separately from the page manager (which handles virtual folders and pages that do not actually exist on the disk).

Conclusion

We realize many administrators are fine with uploading the images and other media they may need for their site through FTP: but for those occasional instances where you just need to quickly upload an image or two while building a web page - or you just need to grab the full URL to an image because you forgot it - you may find that using the media manager can save you a lot of time. It is a simple tool, with a simple and familiar approach, that can save you a lot of time in these very common instances.


No video demo for this one... no one would be too excited seeing image files being moved around. :)
  • 3,242 views
Charles

Demo System Updated

The demo system for our software has been updated to include IP.Board 3.0.0 along with Gallery, Downloads, and Blog. This is a great way to try out IP.Board 3 if you have not yet wanted to try an RC release or if you are not currently an IPS client and are considering a purchase.

There is a limit to the number of active demo accounts that can be online at one time so if you are unable to sign up now please do try again later. Thanks!
  • 2,803 views
Charles

CCS: Pages Overview

The core of the CCS application centers around allowing you to create pages for your website. The way you create pages and the types of pages you create will be specific to your site, however the process is the same. One administrator may want to build the full front of their website using CCS, while another administrator may want to add some pages within the forums that are not there by default. Both scenarios can be covered by CCS.

The page manager interface looks similar to a computer folder view: you are presented with folders and files in a directory-style listing. You can create folders and subfolders, rename them, delete them, empty them, and move them around as needed. You can edit, rename, delete and move files within these folders as well. There is no built in limit to the number of folders or the directory tree depth imposed by CCS.

There are three page types that you can create: HTML, Javascript, and CSS. Javascript and CSS files are pretty straightforward - the main difference from HTML pages being that when you call to one of these files through a script, link, or import tag in an HTML document, CCS will output the correct HTTP header for the content type being served.

Actual pages can be edited as raw HTML, bbcode, or PHP; allowing you to do practically anything with your pages. You could make your page entirely dynamic, making use of IP.Board's database abstraction layer to retrieve data from the database, using the PHP page type. Or you could make a quick Terms of Service page to display to users using only the bbcode WYSIWYG editor. You can enter the actual filename, and a friendly name to describe the page. The folder and filename are combined to create the URL to reach the page, described later in this blog entry. You can also define the meta keywords and description tags when editing the page.

You can utilize page templates to make creating and editing pages simpler. We will be discussing page templates in a future blog entry, but in essence you would create a page template that defines the basic HTML structure, and then when adding a page you select the template you wish to use, select whether you want to import the template or just edit the page content itself, and the CCS will then be able to utilize pre-designed page templates to make page deployment much easier, faster, and more consistent.

Pages can be cached, helping to reduce overhead for pages that should be relatively static for all viewers. If your pages are very dynamic (for instance, they use a lot of feed or plugin blocks where content will differ from user to user) you should be careful regarding page caching. You wouldn't want an administrator to trigger some piece of the page to be recached with elevated permissions, for instance, showing topics a guest user wouldn't normally be able to view. If your pages are mostly static, however, pages can be built once, cached, and then served from cache on subsequent views. Remember that blocks can also be independently cached, so you can have relatively static blocks cached while leaving the page itself uncached (it will still used the cached HTML for blocks that specify to do so, and use dynamic HTML for blocks that have disabled caching). When you enable page caching, the entire page output is cached.

You can also define the permission masks needed to access a page, or allow all users to access the page. Using this, you can create moderator guidelines for your moderating team, or a contact information page for administrators, for example.

Actually accessing the page is an important matter, and many users will want to utilize friendly urls for this. There are many options built into CCS to handle this for you, which we will likely go over in more detail in a future blog entry. If you are accessing CCS through IP.Board, then CCS uses the built in friendly url functionality in IP.Board to generate friendly URLs (if enabled). Most people, however, will likely take our included index.php file, edit the path to their forums within it, and place this index.php somewhere else on the server. Using this method, you could place the website pages in a root directory of your domain, and have the forums contained within a /forums folder. You would then be able to manage your entire website, create virtual directories and pages, and more right in your IP.Board admin control panel easily. If your server supports mod_rewrite, you can create a .htaccess file and place it in the same directory as the index.php file provided with CCS, eliminating the /index.php/ from the URL entirely. Ultimately, you can define the urls entirely through the admin control panel by creating folders, defining the page names, and placing the pages within folders as you see fit.

As a traditional web server would do, if you visit a virtual folder but do not specify the file, an index.html will be looked for in that folder (you can change the file you wish to load by default in the settings). If the user requests a file that does not exist, a 404.html file will be looked for instead (again, the file is configurable in the settings). Nothing in the system requires you to use extensions, or requires extensions, when used, to be of a certain type. You could give your pages any extension you wish, or none at all (making pages appear to be "folders"). The system is extremely configurable to allow you to create pages for your site the way you want, and to appear in any way that you want. We've done our best to limit any restrictions in place so that you can define the website any way that you choose. Once you start creating pages, you'll be amazed at how simple and versatile the system really is to use.



  • 3,947 views
Charles

CCS: Blocks Overview

This is the first blog entry going over specific features in the new Community Content System. See the full announcement for more information:


Our Community Content System allows administrators to create blocks that can be used anywhere within the CCS framework and anywhere within the forums, blogs, galleries, or any other IPB applications. Blocks are small content includes that can contain practically anything.

CCS allows you to create 3 main types of blocks.

Custom Blocks

You can create custom blocks which can contain anything you want. CCS allows you to edit custom blocks in raw HTML mode, bbcode mode (using the RTE from the forums), and raw PHP mode. The first two methods are pretty self explanatory - what you enter is what is displayed. The raw PHP block mode allows you to enter PHP code (you simply print or echo the output) and the result will be displayed where the block is set on the page. Using raw PHP mode, you can extend the system quite a bit to accomplish whatever you want.

Plugin Blocks

Plugin blocks allow the administrator to select an available plugin to include. Examples that are included with CCS by default include:


Mini-calendar Poll Welcome block Online friends Online users Watched content
We should note that these plugins are completely abstracted from the system, so adding new plugins does not require any file modifications. You simply upload a new folder to the appropriate location, import an XML file in the admin control panel, and the block is ready for use! We expect modification authors will create some interesting plugins once they get their hands on the framework.

Feed Blocks

Feed blocks allow administrators to create "feeds" of data from their forums (or from an external RSS feed) to display. Feed blocks, like plugin blocks, work through a plug-n-play setup whereby you upload a file that defines certain methods and CCS will automatically detect the new feed type and allow administrators to create feeds from other sources. Default feed source options include:

RSS Forums Members Calendar Blogs Downloads Gallery
Each feed type can have multiple sources - for instance, the forum feed type allows you to pull forums (e.g. to create a forum "tree"), topics (e.g. for a "most viewed topics" block), and replies (e.g. a latest replies block). Feed types can define filtering, sorting and limiting options.



A few examples you can easily implement with no coding knowledge required:

Featured blog entry block Latest topics block Top posters block Random gallery images block Upcoming calendar events block Latest news from CNN

Most feed types allow ordering by a date field (e.g. "latest"-style blocks), ordering by "random", and ordering by other fields specific to the feed type and source. It would be difficult to detail each possible configuration in a single blog entry, so we encourage you to simply look for yourself when CCS is available.




There are several other block-specific options you might be interested in. For instance, each block can be cached (or not) independently, and you can elect to hide blocks entirely if there is no content to show (rather than seeing an empty block). Each block creates a skin template unique to it, so you can edit each block's skin template independently of any other block for full customization.

Blocks are created through a wizard interface, allowing us to step you through the process entirely. Once created, however, you can quickly edit the template without relaunching the entire wizard process, allowing for faster customization of your site. The wizard interface allows the block process to step you through creation and present you with options specific to the block you are defining.

Additionally, blocks are not restricted to the CCS framework. Blocks are parsed through a template plugin tag, which means that you can add a block to any skin template in IPB. If you created an RSS feed block from your website, for example, you could easily display this block right on your forum index. Or you could create a block with advertisements in it, and use the IPB skin system to display this block anywhere within IPB. Blocks use the full power of the skin system, so you can embed blocks within blocks, use template conditionals, and do anything else that you can do within any other skin template. This means you can even add hook points in your blocks, and use the new IP.Board 3.0's hook features to extend blocks even further!


With all of this in mind, we believe you will find there is no end to the amount of customization that can be acheived through the blocks functionality provided by CCS.


  • 5,512 views
Charles

IP.Board 3.0.0 RC 2 Coming Soon

The second release candidate of IP.Board 3.0.0 is nearly ready for release. We are just going through the final stages of internal testing and then it will be made available. Just to remind everyone of the previous blog entry which contains various FAQs and information on release candidates.

This release is a huge improvement from RC1 just a few short weeks ago. Since RC1 was the first release we declared "safe" to use many more people installed the software. As we expected, many bugs were reported which we were able to address. The larger install base for RC1 means a more stable RC2 and, of course, an even more stable final release. Thank you again to everyone who has been reporting bugs and issues!

You will be able to upgrade from RC1 to RC2 if you need to. When reporting any issues in RC2 please be sure to indicate if it's a fresh install or upgrade (and what version upgraded from).

Looking forward to RC2 and final release. Keep an eye on our blog and announcements forum for lots of activity over the next couple weeks. Thanks!
  • 2,111 views
Charles

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