Having a great forum skin is something every forum owner craves. A great skin is a big selling point, as it gives visitors a good first impression, and it colors (pun intended) the overall experience of using that forum. While a great many sites are perfectly happy with the stock IP.Board forum skin, getting something new is often a top priority for sites that are trying to make it big. Up unti…
IP.Content has many features, and indeed it's quite possible to create a rather useful articles system using the custom databases feature introduced in IP.Content 1.1, however many of our users have been requesting a true "articles" feature since the first release of IP.Content. In typical IPS fashion, we've listened, and you will be happy to hear that IP.Content 2.0 introduces a new "Articles" mo…
When we developed IP.Board 3, one of the main goals was to centralize searching and simplify it to provide results cleanly and concisely. Since then we have had a lot of emphatic feedback on how to develop the search further and to improve the interface.
We've have taken all that feedback on board and completely overhauled search making it more flexible and more useful. This blog entry lists the…
IP.Content is an extremely flexible system. While considering the possibilities with IP.Content and feeding content to your external pages, we knew that there were multiple options.
Using a database
You can create a database to store content such as articles, and then allow commenting on these articles directly. In doing so, you keep your articles and your topics separated.
Using a blog
…
Templates in IP.Content are a useful tool that can save administrators a lot of work managing their site. They are utilized to facilitate displaying database content, and can be utilized to normalize the display of multiple pages through a shared template. We have made a few small tweaks to templates to make them easier to manage and easier to use in IP.Content 2.0. Separation of templates
In …
Add and edit hookpoints
Based on requests from users integrating IP.Content into their website, we have added two new hook points to the database handler: postSave() and postSaveEdit(). These are called immediately upon saving the record to the database (for add and edit requests, respectively), and can be utilized to take action on a record after it has been saved. This could be used, for instanc…
In IP.Board 3.0 we introduced a simple reputation feature, allowing users to give positive or negative reputation to a post.
While administrators can view who gave reputation through the Admin CP, in IP.Board 3.1 we have introduced a way for all users to view who gave reputation on any given post.
To view who gave reputation, you just click on the reputation number at the bottom of the post whi…
We recently blogged about our new profile customization options. I've made a few updates since and wanted to update you on them.
As you may already be aware, we have added Twitter integration into IP.Board 3.1. This enables you to 'connect' your Twitter account to your forum account to share links, status updates and to allow you to use your Twitter photo on the board.
I've taken this a step f…
While not a particular interesting blog entry :) I wanted anyone interested to know that our demo service term has been extended from 24 to 48 hours. As always, you can email sales for a further extension if you might need more time.
If you are considering using IP.Board now is a great time to get your proverbial feet wet on version 3.0.5 so you are ready as soon as the upcoming version 3.1 is r…
We read virtually every piece of feedback we receive, even if we don't reply and we often see the same requests coming up. The ability to 'preview' the topic by viewing an excerpt from the first post is often requested and we've added this into IP.Board 3.1.
We've made it a little more useful by also including the last time you read a topic (if applicable) and the number of unread posts so you c…
The IP.Board 2 series introduced a number of new profile features designed to make your profile page a little more interactive. Besides the usual stats and figures, we introduced a personal photo and the ability to leave comments and list recent visitors. This made your profile page a little more personal and encouraged repeat visits.
With the status updates feature in IP.Board 3.1, the profile …
IP.Content is a complex framework that allows you to create and manage website content in many different ways. You can embed blocks and databases into pages, and pages can be wrapped by templates. You can define page names and use friendly URLs through the IP.Board built-in FURL system, you can use friendly URL's through the included index.php file with IP.Content (for instance, if you want your w…
