Almost ten years ago we launched the Marketplace; a place to connect Invision Community owners with talented developers creating new functionality.
Over the decade, the Marketplace has grown to hold thousands of applications, large and small. For many Invision Community owners, the Marketplace has become an essential resource.
Our aim was always to have the Marketplace available inside your Admin Control Panel to make it even easier to purchase and install extra functionality.
I'm pleased to say that as of Invision Community 4.5, this is now a reality. You can browse the Marketplace and install new add-ons without leaving the Admin Control Panel.
Obtaining Resources
Paid resources can be purchased directly from the Marketplace and are available to install immediately after the payment is complete. You no longer need to download and install the files yourself.
You may also notice some additional information with the resource listing, we'll be introducing a new 'tab' to marketplace resources to allow the authors to provide more useful information such as answers to frequently asked questions, or configuration instructions etc.
The video below takes you through the purchase and installation of a Marketplace application.
Installing an Application
Updates
Some of the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed in the first screenshot that there are more 'bubbles' showing in the menu on the left. These are supported for Applications, Plugins, Themes and Languages.
In Invision Community 4.5 every resource available via the AdminCP is automatically versioned, you will see update notifications for everything you have installed (previously, you would only see update notices if the resource author supports them).
Installing an update is as simple as clicking on the update notice, then clicking 'update' on the Marketplace listing.
Installing Updates
Downloads Changes
Our Marketplace is built on our Downloads application, during development of this feature we needed to add new functionality. We have included as many of these improvements as possible in our software for the benefit of our customers, some of these are:
- Custom Fields can now be set to only show to members that have purchased a file.
- Files can now be set to accept a single file upload instead of multiple.
- New file versions can now be moderated without hiding the current version from view.
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Downloads REST API
- Performance Improvements
- New /download endpoint that counts the download
- Added more data to the /downloads/file/{id} response
- Ability to sort file results by last updated date
We hope you're as excited about this feature as we are.
