Dave58

Not a stupid question. I'm not sure if that's actually ... documented.
{parse static_block="dnames"}

Because if for whatever reason we decide to not renew support + services (suppose such thing would exist) then we also give up our updates for life (perpetual) that were available when we bought the perpetual license that was available at the time. ;)

Our license has an added value. There is no denying that and we are not trying to, of course we don't want to give it up, heck no. It was there, made available by IPS... But I don't think we should be "punished" because our license had that added value. I wasn't going to comment any more and wait for the official response on the matter, like I said before, but in my opinion Mark's post should be answered.

I can stop paying for the service and still have lifetime support, upgrades, and access to the resource site (a "service" btw).

If they decide that this service doesn't meet their needs, then they can't revert back to a perpetual or lifetime license and will be stuck with the $50/year fee.

I know that 9 pages in, nearly everyone else will have covered the points I'm about to make, but I do wish to explain how this has come across to me. I am a perpetual licence holder, which I bought in 2005.

What worries me is that I feel that there is an effort going on to force me out of my perpetual licence. The biggest issue in this is that we are not at all eligible to purchase the service - nor, it appears, any future service.

It concerns me that there will be many other things released in the future which will be classed as a service, as a way of excluding perpetual and lifetime licence holders from useful extras to the software (thereby convincing people to relinquish their licences).

I am also concerned that not being able to buy such services might somehow compromise my board. I know it's an extra to the software, but spam is a very serious issue and I find it worrying that I won't be able to have any sort of access at all to a module that could prevent a significant spam attack.

I will stress that I don't think that IPS are unscrupulous at all, but I imagine some people might also be worrying that if a spam module provides enough robust protection against spam but there is a problem in the standard software and people are getting heavily attacked (like what happened in the later 2.3 series), IPS won't be as swift to respond to patching the software.

I stress, I'm not saying that *will* happen, but you can understand how that might cross people's minds. After all, four years ago, it would've been unthinkable that IPS wouldd be launching extra services in the manner they are now.

Overall, I feel that I'm being forced out of my perpetual licence. If we'd been able to pay an extra cost to obtain the service, then I understand that there might have been complaints but I can understand the difference between lifetime, perpetual and standard and if you wanted to make an offer to standard holders, that's understandable (honestly, I've been waiting for this for months because I could see where you were going with some of your forum posts last year).

But the crux is that we can't get the spam service at all without relinquishing what we currently own and have paid for...and I find that slightly odd. It also concerns me that this won't be the first service released, nor the only effort to make us give up our licences.

I bought the licence that was available to me at the time. I didn't buy a perpetual licence to screw IPS out of money or to upset IPS or to make IPS hate me. I also didn't force IPS to sell perpetual licences - I bought what IPS offered.

I would be happy to pay additional costs for services - if I felt that they would be a benefit to my site - and it seems a shame that they're not available to purchase as add-on modules at all.

I love IPS's software and I always have done, and I don't ever want to have to change from using Invision...but I am being increasingly upset at the way I'm being treated by the company - a company who I've never hassled via the support, who I've only ever said good things about and have always strongly recommended to people.

Lifetime and perpetual owners are still your customers - we run your software (and probably have done for years, so our users are used to your product and we probably don't wish to switch), so we're the best people to try and sell things to because we're a captive market. Excluding us entirely just makes me feel unwanted and it feels like you're trying to trick us out of what we already own. I respect you guys more than that, and it's horrible that that's how it's coming across. You can't mean it to be like this, surely? :(

Okay this would help solve some problems.

Have a setting in the ACP to use with this.

Basically, for the menu bar, if the number of installed apps exceeds a certain number, then the apps would be placed inside of a drop down menu. The drop down menu name would obviously be inside of the language files for compatibility. The number of apps to exceed would be in the system settings/forum section and possibly even allow the admin to choose if members/calendar would be on the menu bar or in the drop down menu. If the drop down menu is activated due to the number of apps, then all apps would be inside of it (except members/calendar, if the admin wants it on the menu bar).

I believe this would help a great deal for people who want to install a lot of apps, like the 3 paid add-ons, the 4 free ones (I count links towards the total) and then anything else that happens to add a link up there.

"Suspended" is a temporary ban. Instead of suspending the user, you could instead move them to another user group that had the restrictions you wish (can only access certain forums).

As for banning, there are many different methods of banning in IPB. You can move the users to a Banned user group, mark the user "Banned" from the ACP (which won't change their group, but will prevent accessing the board), ban the email, username or IP address in the ban filters, or suspend the user, for example. It depends on what method you use. If you move the user to the banned group, they cannot access the board. If you mark the user as banned from the edit member page in the ACP, their group will not change, but they still won't be able to access the board.

Since we have sites and spend a fair time using the net, we forget other people aren't all familiar with their browser's features. So really either way you're forcing users. I can't stand external links that open in the same window. A user may want to have both windows or tabs open, etc. Unlike news sites, forums generally want members to stay longer to post and interact. Opening external links in the same window doesn't help that.

I think it's foolish to think most (or all) people know that they have a choice or enjoy having to have an extra step when wanting to open a new page.

It's nice that IPS added this feature, but I think it was a mistake to have it enabled as default.

A suggestion for an enhancment down the road.

In addition to the current option to limit editing by time, there should be a further option to impose the limit if a further post was made in the same topic.

Member A posts.

Member B responds to A and possibly quotes A.

The A edits the original post and the flow is broken.