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abobader

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  1. Like
    abobader reacted to Matt in Invision Community 5: Quickly find the most helpful answers   
    At a fundamental root, every activity we partake in begins with the desire to add value to our lives. Mastering a second language or instrument takes a lot of time but the value is adding ability or knowledge.
    We join communities to add value. It might be making friends all over the world who love running when you don't have much support for that activity in your 'real-life' friends, or it might be finding the best ways to use a piece of software you love.
    Back in the 2000s forum communities were founded to bring people together over a shared interest forming small villages in a landscape of rolling hills and pasture. Forums were really successful because they were peerless. If you had an interest in ABBA, opening up a forum about ABBA gave people a space to talk about Swedish 70s pop and take deep dives in platform shoes and crumbling marriages. They gave an outlet for a passion that your friends in the pub had no interest in. Other's in similar situations would flock to this site, delighted with a space to talk about their disco obsession. As the community owner, you didn't need to try too hard, it was all Gimme, gimme, gimme!
    20 odd years later and we have crowded mega-cities of non-stop conversation about every topic you want to know, and many you don't. Social media is better designed for informal conversations and finding like-minded people due to its huge reach and focus on personalities over topic.
    Forums still very much have a place but they need to provide immediate value to keep and grow membership. That doesn't mean social forums will fail, there are many good examples of them but it means for a new community there needs to be a strong reason to visit and once you have a visitor, you need to give them what they want as quickly as possible. We're all time-poor on the internet with so many apps and dopamine hits to have.
    You can build a social community around a support community, or a community that is designed to solve a problem later.
    Content may be king, but value is definitely (the dancing) queen. Get those both right, and the winner takes it all.
  2. Like
    abobader reacted to Matt in Invision Community 5: Quickly find the most helpful answers   
    Forum platforms have a wide range of uses, from helping with support to sharing knowledge, ideation and social interaction.
    Topics can span years, and once the initial explosion of replies has passed, the topic lives on in local search and search engines for future viewers to discover and get value from.
    However, it's not always easy to get the best content from a very long topic.
    You may have noticed that when you come to a topic seeking an answer, some replies are less than helpful.

    How do I fix my Apple Watch? Like this!
    It's common to find a lot of social content mixed in with useful replies. Jokes, GIFs and off-topic musings are all great while the topic develops organically in real-time. Having fun is critical to feeling a sense of belonging in a community. However, those coming to the topic a little later, say from a link Google has suggested, just want to get the useful content in the fastest way possible.
    That's where 'helpful' voting comes in.

    A very helpful reply
    Invision Community can already mark a single post as the best solution for that topic. Still, not every topic gets a definitive answer, and some community strategies resist quickly marking a post as the best answer to encourage more discussion rather than effectively ending it.
    Even when you have a definitive answer, there is often value in other highly rated posts offering more context, alternative solutions and more thorough explanations.
    With Helpful voting, your members are encouraged to flag which posts they find helpful in the topic. When enough votes are added to a single post, they are suggested as a possible answer. You can also tune out the noise and view the most helpful replies only.
    This is a powerful way to get the very best content from a topic in a short space of time.

    Want to just view the most helpful replies? No problem.
    If you eventually choose to mark a post as the definitive answer, the suggested post will be replaced with the answer you choose, but you can still see the posts voted as helpful to gain further context.
    The helpful voting works independently from reactions, which tend to cluster around social content. Social media conditions us to add a like or funny reaction to content that gets an emotional response. Indeed, a lot of the most highly reacted content is funny content. Social reactions are valuable when building connections between community members but often don't reflect what is the most useful content.

    The suggested most helpful post threshold is configuration via the Admin Control Panel.
    Helping your members find the best content within topics helps them do more in your community with less time.
    Forums continue to evolve, and while social content helps develop the community, content that solves problems and helps others is the rocket fuel you need to keep members and attract new audiences.
    Helpful voting also feeds into picking Community Experts, a new feature for Invision Community 5, but we'll talk about that in a future blog.

    A sneak peak at the new Community Expert badge
    I hope you found this update ✨helpful✨, and if you have any questions or comments, let me know in the comments!

    View full blog entry
  3. Like
    abobader reacted to SeNioR- in Invision Community 5: The All New Theme Editor   
    Next generation software. At first I was skeptical about IC5 but with more and more announcements, I think it looks very good. Many improvements and facilities for people without experience in creating a theme or plugins.
    Personally, I am happy with the new sidebar and clickable panels. The mobile menu is also cool, it fulfills its function because I have such a menu in my community and it makes navigation much easier.
    Very good work so far, looking forward to more announcements 🤜🤛
  4. Like
    abobader reacted to Ehren in Invision Community 5: The All New Theme Editor   
    You sure can:
    body{ background: linear-gradient(to bottom, var(--i-base_3), var(--i-base-contrast_3)); }  
    Designers Mode has been revamped for version 5. Matt gives a brief overview here, but with the addition of "template hooks" in favour of the template editor, you won't have that issue anymore 🙂
  5. Like
    abobader reacted to Matt in Invision Community 5: The All New Theme Editor   
    When Ehren talks about the new CSS structure, you'll see how it all goes together. The new CSS framework is remarkable.
  6. Like
    abobader reacted to Matt in Invision Community 5: The All New Theme Editor   
    CleanShot 2023-10-19 at 15.29.27.mp4  
     
  7. Like
    abobader reacted to Ehren in Invision Community 5: The All New Theme Editor   
    Welcome to the third video of our sneak peak series! Today, we're really excited to introduce you to the new Theme Editor!
    Built entirely from scratch, the new editor provides an instant, live preview of your theme, as soon as you modify a setting. It's a zero-code approach to creating themes, and has been designed to ensure your theme adheres to your color scheme and looks great on every device, with very little effort. Let's take a closer look!
     
    Paragraph 1.mp4
     
    To the left of the editor, you’ll see a live preview of your community. You can navigate to any page, as if you were browsing your site normally. At the top left of the editor, you’ll find icons which change the theme between the light and dark color schemes. Below that are buttons which change the viewport size, from desktop, to tablet, to mobile. This is a really convenient way to ensure your theme looks great on every device, without needing to manually resize your browser window.
    Lets take a closer look at the Color Palette.
    Editing colors in version 4 was a fairly time consuming process. For example, modifying the color scheme from the default blue to another color meant that 26 theme settings needed to be changed. In contrast, the Version 5 theme is powered by just 3 colors: Primary colors are responsible for styling the main elements on your page, such as the Start new topic button. Secondary colors control minor elements, such as pagination links, while the Base color is responsible for controlling the overall tint on your site.
    Clicking on these colors opens a color picker. Let’s change this blue color to yellow.
     
    Video 2.mp4
     
    You’ll notice two things have happened here. First, the preview window updated as soon as we modified the color. All elements which were previously blue, now use yellow, such as the Start new topic button. Secondly, the text color in our button has changed from white to black. This is our automatic contrast feature and it ensures our text is easy to read on our new yellow background, since white text may be more difficult to read for some viewers.
    Below the color picker is a text box, with our color displayed in HSL. You can paste your own colors in this box, in any color format and that color will be applied to your elements.
     
    Video 3.mp4
     
    The Base color controls the tint of your backgrounds and text colors. Let's try a few examples to demonstrate how easy it is to recolor your theme.
     
    Video 4.mp4
     
    Next up are Logos! Invision Community 5 has three logo types: a text logo, an image logo for desktops and an image logo for mobiles. Let’s edit our text logo.
     
    Video 5.mp4
     
    After changing the text to “Theme Editor Demo”, we can see that the logo in our preview window updates instantly with our new text. Below that, we have multiple options to help us style the text logo, such as font-family These fonts are a combination of system fonts and web fonts. The web fonts are hosted locally on your site for optimal performance. Additionally, we can also change the font-weight and font-size. We might want a different font-size for mobile logos, so that can be edited too. We can see a live preview by changing our viewport to the mobile option.
    If you’d prefer to use an image logo, you can assign it using the Image Logo options. Image logos are made up of 2 upload fields, one for the light theme and one for the dark theme. Below these upload fields, a slider lets you resize your logo so it fits neatly.
     
    Video 6.mp4
     
    Layout options let you assign the default layouts in your community. In our first sneak peak video, we showcased the new side panel layout, feed view for forum categories, and compact view for topics. These can all be enabled via the theme editor using a simple select menu.
     
    Video 7.mp4
     
    Lets explore some Color options! In the Header panel, we can see a list of elements we can customize. Clicking on an element opens the Swatch List, which is a list of 22 colors that are powered by the Base, Primary and Secondary colors from earlier. We have 6 "light" base colors, 6 "dark" base colors as well as various shades of our primary and secondary colors. Clicking on any of these swatches will apply that color to your element.
    But what if none of these colors suit your requirement? That’s where the Color Picker comes in handy. Here, we can easily choose any color, or even paste in our own color like before.
     
    Video 8.mp4
     
    A major hurdle with themes in version 4 was customising the header. Depending on the complexity, this would typically involve modifications to both the CSS and HTML. That is a thing of the past with version 5! If we flick over to our Settings tab, you’ll see a brand new interface for customising the header. A new drag and drop feature allows you to easily reposition header elements without touching a single line of code.
     
    Video 9.mp4
    It’s an incredibly fun tool to play with, and we’re really excited to hear what you think!
    Below the drag and drop area, we can customise the header further by using sliders to adjust its height, or we can enable navigation icons with a single click. Body settings let you can customise global elements such as the body background color, text colors, the max-width of your site, the font-family, font-size and more.
    Editing Content boxes has always required code modifications in the past. Using this new editor, we can adjust not only the colors of the boxes, but also the borders and shadows. Theme editing has honestly never been this easy!
     
    Video 10.mp4
    And there you have it! Our brand new theme editor. With a few simple clicks and drags, we've been able to create a customised theme that looks great on desktops and mobiles, with a new color scheme, new logos, a customised header, new page layouts and restyled content boxes - all without touching a single line of code.
    Speaking of code, for those of you who want to apply more advanced customisations, we’ve added a really convenient way to access your custom CSS file, via a new dialog box.
    Video 11.mp4
    And last but not least - the new theme editor is fully responsive, so even if you’re away from the desk, so you’ll be able to change colours and settings, upload new logos, redesign your header and even add your own code!
     
    Video 12.mp4
     
    Developing this new editor has been a lot of fun, and it’s even more fun to use. Themes have never been easier to edit and we're really excited for you all to get your hands on it so you can have a play for yourself - but for now, let us know what you think the comments, and we’ll see you next time!

    View full blog entry
  8. Like
    abobader reacted to Ehren in Invision Community 5: Dark mode, accessibility, performance and mobiles!   
    When you add links using the Menu Manager, you can choose what menu(s) the link is shown in. Either the side panel, the horizontal bar, or the mobile panel.
    You basically answered this yourself haha 🙂 Simplicity. The "2 row" navigation bar was always a burden to restyle in version 4, and took up a fair amount of vertical space. Simplifying the navigation into a single row allows us to display the navigation bar in multiple ways, which you'll see more of next week.
    As always, the cover photos are optional. 👍
  9. Like
    abobader reacted to Matt in Invision Community 5: Dark mode, accessibility, performance and mobiles!   
    AdminCP theme settings 🤔
    Where we're going, we don't need no ACP theme settings.
    Next week's blog should really help clear up what theming looks like in v5.

    Spoiler: It'll be very different.
  10. Haha
    abobader reacted to Matt in Invision Community 5: Dark mode, accessibility, performance and mobiles!   
    Getting some great quotes for the marketing material, thanks!

  11. Haha
    abobader reacted to Matt in Invision Community 5: Dark mode, accessibility, performance and mobiles!   
    That quote is going straight into the top of our marketing.
    Also, may I recommend:

    Honestly, though during the initial building phases back in early summer we used to have a weekly sync meeting with Ehren as he's in Australia and everyone else is not and he'd take us through concepts, and ideas and we'd all just say 'wow' for about 20 minutes.
    Now I just send him badly annotated screenshots and broken HTML I mangled at 2am his time while he's sleeping.
  12. Like
    abobader got a reaction from Matt in Invision Community 5: Dark mode, accessibility, performance and mobiles!   
    Great work @Ehren and well done!
  13. Like
    abobader reacted to Ehren in Invision Community 5: Dark mode, accessibility, performance and mobiles!   
    Welcome to the second video of our sneak peak series! Today we'll be taking a closer look at the new Invision Community interface, including dark mode, accessibility improvements, performance improvements and the mobile layout! Before we begin, I should mention that this is a pre-alpha version of Invision Community 5, so some areas of the design may change before the official release.
     
    New traditional header design
    In our previous video, we showcased our new, optional side panel which formats your navigation into a vertical list. For those who prefer a traditional, horizontal header, here it is!

    A much more compact header compared to version 4, the new design condenses the navigation bar into a single row, moving all sub-navigation items into dropdown menus. A new, optional area below the text logo allows you to add your website slogan or announce events such as anniversaries or holidays, and our new search modal provides convenient access to the advanced search filters from any page on your community.

     
    Accessible interface
    The main content area has been designed with accessibility as a priority. High contrast text colours and larger font-sizes help to make reading more comfortable and clickable table rows (which can be enabled or disabled via the Theme Editor) allow you to navigate between pages more easily. A visible focus ring significantly improves navigation for visitors who find it more comfortable to browse with their keyboard TAB key, instead of using their mouse (ie. visitors with conditions such as Parkinson's disease, or those who have temporarily lost function due to a broken arm).
     
    Focus.mp4
    Elements are highlighted while navigating with the keyboard
     
    Dark mode
    Dark mode has become increasingly popular over the past few years - so it's no surprise that Version 5 has been designed from scratch with both light and dark mode in mind. With version 4, it was necessary to manage two themes in order to provide a light and dark colour scheme. In version 5 though, all of that is handled by a single theme.
    By default, your members will be able to choose their own color scheme preference: either light, dark, or system. System assigns a color scheme based on your system preferences - so if your device automatically switches to dark mode at night, your community will too! With that said, as an administrator, you also have the option to restrict your site to a single color scheme - so if you ONLY want to offer a dark theme, that's easily achieved.

     
     
    Performance
    Despite all of these new inclusions, the version 5 UI has been coded with significant reductions in both CSS and Javascript. We'll dive deeper into code reductions in a future blog entry, however two great examples are:
    - Grids: which have had a 100% removal of Javascript and are powered by only a few lines of CSS, resulting in a faster rendering time, especially for users on slow connections.
    - And carousels: which have had a 95% reduction in Javascript and now rely on native browser scrolling, for a much smoother experience on both desktop and mobile!
    Additionally we've removed a number of helper libraries that are no longer needed with modern browsers saving even more.
     
    Mobile UI
    With an incredible amount of mobile visitors accessing the web, we’ve placed a huge priority on redesigning the interface to ensure it lives up to todays standards.
    A new navigation bar at the bottom of the page provides convenient access to your activity feed, notifications, messages, a search panel, and navigation links. A conscious effort was made to ensure that this information was available within a single tap, and we found that a bottom bar like this was easier to interact with compared to icons in the header.

    The mobile navigation bar from Invision Community 5
     
    A goal of the mobile UI was to display elements that were previously only available on larger devices, while still maintaining a clean interface. For example, to improve navigation, we've added a scrollable breadcrumb list to the top and bottom of the page. To improve guest participation, we added Sign In and Sign Up links to the bottom navigation bar. These links were previously hidden within the hamburger menu, so we feel like this will really benefit those looking to improve registrations. And as demonstrated in last weeks video, profile information is now available within posts, comments and reviews on small devices.
    We’re really excited for you to literally have a hands on experience with the new mobile interface of Invision Community 5, and we're interested to hear your feedback in the comments!

    View full blog entry
  14. Like
    abobader reacted to Ehren in Invision Community 5: Dark mode, accessibility, performance and mobiles!   
    Not at all, image logos are most definitely a thing. Next weeks video will showcase that in detail 🙂 
  15. Thanks
    abobader got a reaction from Ehren in Invision Community 5: Dark mode, accessibility, performance and mobiles!   
    Great work @Ehren and well done!
  16. Like
    abobader reacted to Joel R in Marketplace: The Next Steps   
    I'd like to extend a public invitation to all IPS clients and the third-party community to celebrate the opening of the free listing of files on the Marketplace Directory of Invisioneer.org.  
    https://www.invisioneer.org/marketplace/
    What is the Marketplace Directory on Invisioneer.org?  
    The Marketplace Directory is a free list of files by authors. Its goal is simple: a free, centralized list for you to browse third-party files.  
    No files are sold or supported on the site itself. You will be redirected to the author's site for payment and support. 
    You will find the Marketplace Directory to be immediately familiar:
    Same categories and structure as the IPS Marketplace Same IP.Downloads app as the IPS Marketplace  Over 300+ files have already been listed in the Marketplace Directory, and we hope more will be listed as developers and themers update their files.  
    Why visit Marketplace Directory?  
    The Marketplace Directory will never be a perfect substitute for the IPS Marketplace, which had deep integration with the ACP and directly processed payments on behalf of clients.  
    However, as soon as it became known that IPS was shutting down its Marketplace, it became clear that clients would confusingly need to go to multiple websites. Purchased 5 plugins from 5 different developers? You need to visit 5 different sites for support and payment.   
    The Marketplace Directory doesn't totally solve the problem, but it's a step in the right direction.  It consolidates files by authors who wish to list together, and makes file discovery and author tracking so much easier.  There is power in collaboration, and the Marketplace Directory is a great example of the most trusted third-party developers coming together in the spirit of community.  
    What is Invisioneer.org?  
    Invisioneer.org is a broader project of mine to offer a suite of resources to help IPS owners and admins launch better communities - and to hopefully learn alongside you.  It's my goal to build an "ecosystem of success" around IPS owners and admins as we compete and thrive together on the modern web:
    IPS helps you compete with community software Third-party developers help you compete with themes and extensions Invisioneer.org helps you compete with community strategy My goal behind Invisioneer.org is to help you compete - and win - with the "soft skills" of community management that are just as important as the technology: crafting a community strategy, leading with emotional intelligence, and leveraging best practices from disciplines like behavioral economics, psychology, sociology, and leading community consultancies. 
    The Marketplace Directory is an important part of Invisioneer.org, and one component of the ecosystem of success for IPS clients to leverage.  
    What do I do with my files?  
    Purchases and renewals have stopped on the IPS Marketplace, and the Marketplace itself will shut down on October 30 2023 according to IPS.  
    To continue receiving support and updates to your active Marketplace files, you will need to transfer your purchases' license keys directly to the author. To find the license keys for all purchases, go to My Purchases.  
    Active authors have posted information on their file descriptions or in the support topic about their own support sites.  If you purchased a file from a developer who doesn't have information yet, you will need to reach out to that author.    
    Official IPS Blog: https://invisioncommunity.com/news/invision-community/marketplace-the-next-steps-r1286/
  17. Like
    abobader reacted to Ehren in Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5   
    The side navigation panel is completely separate from the widget sidebar, so it's reserved for navigation items only. When enabled via theme settings, the navigation panel replaces the horizontal header/navigation menu - so you can only use a single one at a time. The navigation links are managed via the Menu Manager, as you'd expect.
    The sidebar has independent scrolling which means you won't have a long empty space in either the sidebar or the content area:
    sidebar-scroll.mp4
    Just like the other views (table and grid), the avatar is of the person who posted the most recent reply. User participation isn't displayed in our existing views (apart from fluid of course), but is something we can keep in mind for a future iteration.
    To prevent the index page from becoming overwhelmed with icons and badges, there are no badges for answered, staff, etc. Quotes, codes and gifs are removed, so only plain text is shown in the snippet.
    Thanks! The hovercard has received a UI polish in version 5, but still behaves as normal in the compact topic UI.
    Here's an example with more data for you. The stats behave like bricks in a wall - they'll occupy the full width of the mini profile, as neatly as possible.
    Desktop:

     
    Mobile:

     
    Thanks Joel!
  18. Thanks
    abobader got a reaction from Ehren in Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5   
    It sure worth the wait, well done guys, look great.
  19. Like
    abobader reacted to Ehren in Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5   
    In addition to Matt’s post, each of your members (where a new group permission allows) can also choose their own preference out of the views. So if you’d prefer to use the traditional table view for the forum index and the traditional column view for topics (even if the admin has assigned other layouts), that’s of course possible. We’re absolutely not forcing change, just offering more options than before 🙂 
  20. Like
    abobader reacted to Matt in Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5   
    Ehren will be covering the theme editor in more depth very soon. I stole a little of his thunder with that gif but I see a lot of concern about new views and how they fit in with their community, so I wanted to show just how easy it is to toggle between them.
    It's also worth mentioning that these layout options are per-theme and not global as they used to be, so you can mix and match across your community as you see fit.
  21. Like
    abobader reacted to Matt in Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5   
    It is indeed an option.

  22. Like
    abobader reacted to Matt in Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5   
    Ehren is a superstar, he's barely scratched the surface on what he's been working on for the past six months. I'm really excited by these new views and the sidebar mode gives a very desktop app like experience, whereas the new mobile view is truly fit for purpose and not just a squished desktop view.
  23. Like
    abobader reacted to Ehren in Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5   
    Welcome to Invision Community 5!
    Over the coming weeks, we'll be exploring a bunch of new features and improvements coming to our user interface including our brand new theme editor, a new mobile UI, dark mode and performance improvements thanks to a reduction in both JavaScript and CSS. To kick off this series, let’s take a closer look at the new sidebar layout and new view modes for the forum index and topic pages.
    Sidebar Layout
    Traditionally, Invision Community has shipped with a horizontal header and navigation bar at the top of the page, which is still available in version 5. We're introducing a brand new (and optional) sidebar layout, which can be enabled or disabled easily from within your theme settings. The sidebar not only provides convenient access to your applications, activity streams and search bar, but you can now add links to nodes for even easier access to popular or commonly used areas of your community. For example - a category from your forum, an album from the Gallery, or a product group from Commerce.
    Sidebar-zoom.mp4
    Forum Index: Feed view
    One of our goals for version 5 was to re-imagine new ways for your visitors to consume content, and the sidebar layout is just one of our solutions. Table view has been the typical way of displaying forums, providing visitors with a simple summary of the most recently active topic. Grid mode introduced cover photos to forums and is a great way to make your page more visually engaging, while fluid view allows visitors to filter through a list of topics to easily focus on multiple areas of the community.
    Joining these view modes in version 5 is our new Feed view. Optional cover photos and featured forum colours allow you to personalise each forum, and a list of recently active topics with snippets of the most recent reply allow you to easily see what each forum is focusing on at a glance. The topic list drops below the cover photo and converts to a scrollable list on small devices. It's our fresh take on content display, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback!

     
    Topic pages: Compact view
    In addition, Invision Community 5 also introduces a new, compact layout option for topics. We wanted to create a layout which placed focus on your content while still keeping all of the authors profile information easily accessible within a mini profile. Stats, rank, badges, reputation points and more can be found by tapping the icon at the top of every post. The mini profile strip has also been added to other areas of the software too, such as comments and reviews in applications like Gallery and Blogs, and will appear on the mobile layout when the traditional "table view" is used in topics.
    Switching between the new compact view and the author sidebar view takes just seconds giving you complete control over your community.
    Mini profile.mp4
     
    As part of this view, you also have the choice to feature/pin the original post to the top of every page, making it a breeze for your visitors to easily understand the context of replies without navigating back to page 1. Pinned posts have a slightly larger font-size to distinguish them from replies, and we've thoughtfully truncated them on pages beyond the first to keep scrolling to a minimum.

     
    The new sidebar layout and view modes offer a fresh and innovative approach to navigating and interacting with your community. We’re really keen to hear your thoughts on these new views and whether you’ll be unleashing them on your own sites! We appreciate that no two sites are the same, and those who are a fan of the classic header look will benefit from quick styling tools and a visual way to re-arrange the header elements which we’ll cover in a later blog.
    We’re looking forward to showcasing a whole bunch of new features over the coming weeks - so stay tuned, and we’ll see you then!
     

    View full blog entry
  24. Agree
    abobader got a reaction from z929669 in Radical Tags   
    Hi @Makoto How we will manage to renew your app now?
  25. Like
    abobader reacted to Marc Stridgen in Invision Community Insight: Version 5 teaser II is here!   
    I'm sure Matt will respond to you also there, but if you take a look at the main page, you will see there have been quite a few blogs already on the dev side of version 5 🙂 
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