Josh

One of the most requested features of the past few years has been for a reputation system and we've already announced that it will be included in IP.Board 3. We're very excited to finally be releasing the details of this new feature and hope that you will enjoy this new feature! A user's reputation will be displayed on their profile and is based on the number of points that user has. You can configure 'Reputation Levels' in the Admin CP, a level includes text and/or an image, as well as the point value needed for that level. The point value can be either positive or negative, so you could create a level system like this: -50 Negative Level 2-25 Negative Level 10 Normal Level25 Positive Level 150 Positive Level 2 A user receives or loses points when other users vote up or down the content they have submitted to your community. Forum posts, gallery images, blog posts, etc will all have +/- buttons that your members can use to vote on the associated content. This system is entirely modular, which means that modification authors can also include the reputation vote buttons in their mods and your members can vote on that content as well. The forum includes filters to view or hide posts based on the number of points that post has received. So you can choose to hide all posts that fall below -25, or any other value that you set. This system works much like the ignore user feature, the post will be hidden with an option to view it anyway. It is also possible to set an upper threshold that will highlight posts that have more than X amount of points. The system has several configuration options as well. You can choose to allow your members to only give positive votes, or only negative votes, or both positive and negative votes. You can choose at what level content becomes 'highlighted', you can exclude specific groups from the reputation system, choose if the reputation is displayed on profiles, and choose if the total point value is displayed on a post or other type of content. You can also limit the number of positive and negative votes that a user group is allowed to give in a 24 hour period. We hope you enjoy this first look at the new reputation system, in the coming weeks we will be releasing more information on this system, including screenshots! As always, please let us know what you think of this feature, you're feedback is invaluable in finalizing all the new features in IP.Board 3.

When we began planning IP.Board 3, the global search system was one of the first features that we decided would be essential. We've already talked about the global search, now we're going to tell you about the permissions system that makes the global search and other features possible. In previous versions of IP.Board, every application had to maintain it's own permission tables and database information. This created many different permission systems that all had to be separately maintained. When you added a new permission set, you would have to go to the forums section, the gallery section, the calendar, and so on to set up permissions. This system has quickly grown cumbersome to use from a user standpoint, and difficult to integrate with from a developer stand point. IP.Board 3 will introduce a new global permission system that every application can use, including modifications. Rather than maintaining separate permissions, all permissions are now stored in a permission index table. This table is generic enough to be used by any application. Each application will include a simple configuration class that will tell IP.Board how to use the permission index for that particular application. The system currently supports a 'view' permission and 6 'custom' permissions, the custom permissions are defined by the configuration class for each application. The view permissions is what we use for permission checking during a global search, or any other feature that uses the search index. Currently the permission configuration looks something like this: private $mapping = array( 'view' => 'perm_view', 'read' => 'perm_2', 'reply' => 'perm_3', 'start' => 'perm_4', 'upload' => 'perm_5', 'download' => 'perm_6' ); private $perm_names = array( 'view' => 'Show Forum', 'read' => 'Read Topics', 'reply' => 'Reply Topics', 'start' => 'Start Topics', 'upload' => 'Upload', 'download' => 'Download', ); All your application will need to do is edit these values and IP.Board will know how to handle permissions for your application. If you wanted to check the reply permission, you would simply do this: $this->registry->class_permissions->check( 'reply', $perm_row ); In the Admin CP, if you want to show a permission editor, all you need is this: $permissions->adminPermMatrix( 'type_of_permission', $perm_row); This will return the full HTML for a permission editing matrix, to save that matrix you would do this: $permissions->savePermMatrix( $this->request['perms'], $perm_type_id, 'type_of_permission' ); In that example, if you were editing a forum, then the perm_type_id would be the id of that forum. We hope that this system is going to make integration much easier for mod authors, as well saving them from having to develop their own systems for managing permissions. We will be providing documentation and example code for this system via the resources site later in development. While developers will receive most of the benefits from this new system, it does allow for an important user level feature as well, the ability to manage all permissions from one screen. Now when you edit or add a permission set, you will see Forums, Gallery, Downloads, and any modification that uses the system all on one screen. This saves you from having to jump all over the system to edit permissions for any one set, which we think is going to be a great time saver. This new permission system is a very important step in one of our primary goals, integrating all applications as closely as possible. In our next blog post we're going to tell you about even more of the integration features you can expect from IP.Board 3!

During the initial design phase for IP.Board 3, one of the first areas that we identified for a major overhaul was the search system. In IP.Board 2, each application is required to have it's own search engine, which creates many silo's of data that can not be easily searched. IP.Board 3 will introduce a new global search system that will make all of the content of your community easily searchable, no matter where that content is located. You will have the option of showing the results from all applications within one listing, or filtering your results by application. One of our primary goals in IP.Board 3 is to dramatically increase the integration level between all of our community products, so that they feel more cohesive than in IP.Board 2. This new search system is just one example of how we are working to achieve this. However, we don't want this ease of integration to apply only to our own products, so modification authors will be able to utilize this same system for their own applications. Through the use of a simple plugin system, modification authors will be able to have content from their applications show up within the global search results. The new search system will also be more streamlined and easier to use. The new "Advanced Search" form is much friendlier than the form in IP.Board 2 is, making it much easier to determine how to formulate your search. Additionally, every page will include a quick search box in the header that you can always use to search, no matter where in the system you are. This quick search box will also include 'live search results' that will dynamically show you a preview of your results as you type the search term in the quick search box. The live search will be context-sensitive. That is to say, if you are in a forum, it will search that forum; if you are in a topic, it will search that topic; if you are in the gallery, it will search the gallery; and so on. It provides a link to view all search results (from all applications) should you require it. Additionally, there is a setting to disable the live search should you not wish to support it on your board. Performance has also been an issue with our current search system, our new system aims to overcome this in a variety of ways. The first is by creating a global search index, which is what powers all the features that I've mentioned previously. This global search index is much easier and quicker to search than searching the post table. Since searches will no longer be performed directly on the post table, there will no longer be any issues with locking that table during a search. To reduce the disk space overhead and make searches even quicker, the search index has a stripped down version of the content that contains no bbcode or markup of any kind. The second way we will be improving search performance is by supporting Sphinx out of the box. Though you will need to install Sphinx yourself, once you have done so, enabling it in IP.Board 3 will be as easy as changing a setting in the ACP. You will be able to remove the full text index on the post table using either the new search index or Sphinx, which will dramatically reduce the size of that table. The new search index will have the added benefit of enhancing other areas of the forum as well, such as the "View new posts" feature. View new posts will now include any kind of content that is searchable, so you will see forum posts, gallery images, blog posts, etc in the new post listing. There are some other enhancements as well, but we're going to save those for a future blog post. We're very excited about these changes and we hope that you will be too

Over the past few years our international user base has grown by leaps and bounds, and we want to do our best to support those users and make sure that IPB is a great solution for them. Toward that end, one of our goals for IP.Board 3 is to dramatically improved our language management system. So today I want to introduce you to a few of the upgrades that you can expect to see in that system. First off, we want to ensure that the entire system can be translated, this includes the Admin CP. You will be able to create and distribute combined language packs that will cover both the front end and the Admin CP. For administrators, your language of choice will of course carry over to both, without the need of selecting your language for both the Admin CP and the front end. You will also be able to assign a 'locale' to a language pack, which allows IP.Board to format all dates and number specifically for that language pack. Additionally, both the Admin CP and the front end will use UTF-8 as the default encoding type. There will also be no need to translate images for a language, as the new skin will not utilize any images with text. The language bits themselves are now stored in the database directly and cached to flat files. When you are editing a language pack, you will be able to see the default English string while you translate the string. You will also have the option of reverting language bits back to the default English string. Every string now includes a version number, which will let you know what version that string was last updated in. If you translate a string in IP.Board 3.0.0, and then that string is modified by us in IPB 3.0.1, the language manager will let you know that your translation is out of date and needs to be updated. It's possible to bring up a list of all out of date language entries, as well as a list of all entries that have not yet been translated. We've also added a search feature to the language system, that will make it easy to find specific text within the language packs. For example, if you wanted to replace all instances of the word 'forums' with 'boards', you can search for 'forums' and the system will show you everywhere that word is used. Each application can include an XML file that specifies all of the language strings for that application. This file will automatically be processed by the application installer, making it easy for modification authors to distribute language strings with their applications. They will also be able to make use of the string versioning and the application upgrade system will handle updating the strings and letting you know if any of them are now out of date. So those are some of the changes that you can expect to see in the new language system. We hope that these features will be useful to our international users. If you have any questions/comments about the new language system, please let us know!

We've upgraded our blog to the new 1.4 version for the first round of testing. We will have a beta version available for download next week, until then enjoy the new version here and let us know what you think. We're very excited to hear your feedback and suggestions on this blog preview! New Default Style IP.Blog has been overhauled with a fresh new style, one which feels more like a traditional blog. Additionally, it has been designed with themes (see below) in mind, so there is plenty of room for theme authors to experiment in their designs. Themes and Custom Headers You can now install 'theme packs' and allow your users to choose which of these themes will be applied to their blog. Using themes you can completely change the look and layout of an individual blog (to see a demonstration of a theme in use, check out Rikki's blog). Users are also able to create their own unique theme, these user themes must be approved by an adminstrator before they are publically viewable by other users. The new custom header system allows you to create multiple header images for users to choose from. Content Block Plugin System It's now much easier to create your own content blocks, using a new plugin system. It's now possible to define settings for a plugin that apply to individual blogs, this means that you can integrate with 3rd party widgets that require a unique username for each blog. We've also included new content blocks in this release: Twitter, MyBlogLog, Google Reader, Friends Blogs, and Recent Visitors. Social Bookmarks A new bookmark manager allows you to define bookmark services for your blog system. These services will allow blog entries to be easily submitted to the bookmark services that you setup. There are several preconfigured services: Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Mixx, Reddit, and Stumbleupon. Please feel free to suggest any services that you would like to see included by default. Media Integration The new tag allows you to automatically convert various media types into a more useable format. FOr example, [ blogmedia ]http://www.test.com/somemp3.mp3[/ blogmedia] would be converted into a mp3 player for the specified file. You can define any media type you like in the Media Tag manager, by default we include: Flickr Image Set, GameTrailers, Google Video, MP3 Player, MySpace Video, Veoh, and YouTube. Please suggest any additional media tags that you would like to see included by default. Akismet Integration It's now possible to use Akismet to filter spam for both the comment and trackback system. Feedburner Integration Users can now override the default rss syndication and use FeedBurner. Other Changes: Edit Entry DateDisplay article count for categoriesBlog Offline ModeEntry author replies in comments are now highlightedAdmins can select a 'Featured Entry' to be displayed on the blog listing

We plan to release a small update later this month, with a slightly refreshed style and a few extra features. We haven't locked down exactly what these features will be, but we will be talking about it more soon. I know that many of you were expecting a larger release and we apologize for the link of time from the last major update to IP.Blog. The larger update is coming, which will be IP.Blog 2, is coming and will release along side IP.Board 3. We plan to have a beta of 1.4 available in the next two weeks, it's not too late to suggest in minor tweaks and changes that you would like to see included in this release. We're very excited about the future of IP.Blog and have many new features planned for version 2 and we thank you for your patience during this development time. We'd love to know what features you are most interested in for the next major release, now would be a great time to post those suggestions in the IP.Blog forum. IP.Blog 2.0 Discussion IP.Blog 1.4 Discussion

We're pleased to announce that the first release of the bug tracker, now known as IP.Tracker, is available for download at IPS Beyond. We'd like to thank Michael, C_ind, and Krocheck for doing such a great job getting this first release available. We'd like to encourage everyone to stop by the tracker forum and post your feedback, as well as submit your own code for inclusion into IP.Tracker. Download Link: http://www.ipsbeyond.com/forums/index.php?...p;showfile=1043 Support Topic: http://www.ipsbeyond.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22774 Suggestion Forum: http://www.ipsbeyond.com/forums/index.php?showforum=76 We're very excited to see how the Tracker will evolve and plan on creating more projects like this in the future. Please note that this free module is not included in your IPS support, if you need any assistance please use the support topic linked above.

I have a quick update for you on the bug tracker project now. I'm happy to announce that Michael and C_ind of IPS Beyond will be leading the bug tracker project. They both have a great track record and have been a huge benefit the the IPS Beyond community and we're very pleased to have them working on the bug tracker. We'll be delivering the code to them tomorrow, and then work will begin on getting the bug tracker into a releasable form. They'll work on cleaning up what we have and getting an initial release out to the public. From there everyone will be welcome to submit code contributions to them and they will decide to include them or not. I know they have a lot of great ideas themselves, which I'm sure they'll post about soon. We'll have more information on this soon, if you have any questions please ask in the comments and we'll do our best to answer them.

One of our major goals is to support our modification community and today I'm excited to tell you about a new venture to help the mod community. As many of you know we have our own internal bug tracker that we use on these forums. We've had numerous requests to release it and now we're ready to do just that, at no charge to our existing customers. The bug tracker will soon be released to IPS Beyond for everyone to download. This is going to be a unique project for us, we're going to have the IPS Beyond community run the bug tracker project. We'll be selecting a few IPS Beyond members to help us manage this project, they'll be responsible for reviewing and integrating community code contributions. Everyone will be welcome to submit a code contribution for approval. We're really excited about this project and hope that all of you are too. There will be more details coming soon, such as license, availablity, and who will be heading up this project. We're still considering people for this, if you're intersted feel free to email me at josh@invisionpower.com, please include both your IPS Forum user name and your IPS Beyond user name. Please note that I may not be able to respond to everyone, but we do appreceiate anyone that offers their assistance. This is just the first in a string of changes to both IPS Beyond and IP.Board that we hope will further energize our already great modding community. Keep checking this blog for news on future changes, they aren't far off. We'd also love to hear your feedback on this and any suggestions you have, please leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Last time I talked in very broad strokes about how we developed IP.Board 2.2, today I'm going to go into detail on exactly how the new profile system evolved from concept to the finished product you see today. Our initial goal was to bring some of the social network concepts to the profile system, without going overboard and turning it into a myspace clone. This is a fine line we walk in adding any new feature, how do we make this useful without going to far? We knew that we didn't want to let users customize the CSS or HTML for their profile image, that introduces any number of security and other technical concerns. We thought about letting users move blocks around, to give them some amount of customization, but in the end that was dropped due to the time involved. Here's a portion of the spec we came up with this for this feature: From that basic spec, Rikki created this mock up: This is generally how we work with a major feature, we create a rough outline of the features we want to include and then create a mock up to make sure everyone is on the same page. This mock up is quite a bit different from the final product, but you can see most of the elements of the final profile in it. A lot of things changed, the location of the profile picture for example. While this design looks cleaner, it's also less flexible, what if the user wants larger images? With this mock up there isn't much room for that. Also the tabs are clearly different, while we liked these tabs, they did not really fit in with the overall design of IP.Board. Here's an early shot of the profile system actually running: This has much more of the final functionality included, even if the design is not quite there yet. You can see that we've already changed how the profile picture looks, as well as how the tabs look. Another major change is that the comments are displayed below the main content area, rather than on the right where they eventually ended up. This change was made for a number of reasons, if the main content area had a lot of information, you'd have to scroll to find the comments and could easily miss them. So we moved them, but added a tab to the content area so that you could view them there if you want. This screenshot shows a few more changes, you can see the options to edit gender, location, and birthday inline with the profile view. You can also now rate the user as well as see their gender icon next to their name in the visitors/comments/friends block. The options drop down was also added to the top right of the name block, although it would eventually move to the left hand menu. And here's the final result: My Profile Through the entire process our staff is constantly reviewing the latest build of the profile and making suggestions. We also brought our test group in around the second screenshot you see, they provided valuable feedback that helped a lot in shaping the final product. They were given a few different builds that included the profile, before we announced the feature to the general public. Not everything that we wanted made it in to the final product, that happens with essentially every single feature. For example, multiple personal profile photos did not make it, even though we really wanted that. You have to know when to call it a day though, or you'll never be done. We decided that the particular feature did not offer enough of an improvement over what we already had with gallery integration, so it was dropped. That was another important concept for this feature, we had a lot of user information out there via our various components. We wanted to pull all that data into a central location, to provide much tighter integration and a better overall flow to our products. We also wanted to give mod authors the ability to easily add their mods to the profile tabs. So to wrap this up, we wanted to bring a fresh look to the profile and at the same time move IPB forward by bringing in social networking concepts where appropriate. I personally think we did a pretty good job of this and we all hope that you agree. If you have any questions or want more info, please ask and we'll do our best to answer.

I see this question come up once in awhile on the forums and I thought it would be nice to give you a little behind the scenes information on how we designed IP.Board 2.2. When we map out a new release, we usually have a specific goal in mind for that release. This can be anything from increasing security, reliability, new features, or some combination of the three. For example, when we started mapping out IP.Board 2.2 the overriding goal of the release was to streamline the software and make it easier to use. We didn't want to focus on adding a lot of new features, we wanted to improve what was already there. We spent a lot of time looking over every section of the forum and figuring out how we could make everything easier to use. We already knew most of the areas that needed improvement from our day to day customer service issues. We ended up with a huge list of tweaks, enhancements, and minor features that we wanted to include in 2.2. With development of 2.2 now underway, we began discussing adding one major feature to the release to add a little flavor. We decided that the profile could really use a overhaul, it really had not changed much since 1.0 and was one of the more stagnat portions of the forum. In fact a new profile system was something we had discussed off and on for a few years and with social networks on the rise, it seemed a good time to finally make those changes to IP.Board. Also, while the profile system was certainly a massive change, it still was more or less inline with our goal of improving existing functionality. We also selected a small group of customers to test 2.2 as it was developed and give feedback on the changes we were making. They were shown the profile system in a few different stages and their feedback was instrumental in the final profile. All the while this is going on, we continue to closely monitor the feedback forum and keep an internal list of features we want to add to the board. This list basically breaks down into three sections: Include in this release, would be nice in this release, and to be included in a later release. Anything that fit in with our goals for this release found it's way onto one of the first two lists. Anything that did not, but was still a good idea, found it's way onto the third list. After 2.2 was feature locked, everything left was moved to the last category. That's obviously a pretty broad overview of the process, but I think it gives you a good idea of how we handled 2.2. I plan to go into more detail on some of these points in the next couple weeks. If you have any questions about our development process, feel free to post them here and we may blog on it in the future.