Aiwa

Happy Hump Day, fam! 
Though we're only halfway through the week, so much has been done behind-the-scenes. We wanted to give you a little peek behind the curtain as we continue to better 4.6 (~coming soooooon~). 
 Below is a dump of fixes in the past week 🤯  
The support for web push notifications and the new, simple offline page are of particular interest to me personally. How about you? Anything stand out? Questions?
- Fixed an issue with the REST API where a GET request to records with a category parameter would result in a DB error.

- Added support for web push notifications.

- Added a simple offline page, displayed when users have no internet connection.

- Added support for web push notifications. To support these kinds of notifications, you will need to add parse_mobile_* methods in your Notification extensions.

- Added a `$count` parameter to `\IPS\Content::definiteArticle/_definiteArticle()`. If an integer is passed, a pluralized phrase will be used, if available. You should add pluralized strings for any `__defart_*` strings you've already created. The key should be in the format `__defart_*_plural`.

- Fixed an inaccurate Redis log entry indicating read server used instead of write server.

- Fixed an issue where you could not hook into `\IPS\Redis`.

- Fixed an issue where font-awesome `<i>` tags submitted in source mode are stripped by CKEditor.

- Fixed an issue where copying a donation goal would not copy the donation goal description.

- Fixed an issue where copying a support department would not copy the support department submission screen text.

- Fixed an issue where copying a support severity would not copy the support severity description.

- Fixed an issue where deleting a support status would not remove the custom language strings in the database.

- Fixed an issue where copying or deleting a shipping rate did not copy or delete the delivery estimate text.

- Fixed an issue where copying or deleting a product filter did not copy or delete the public name.

- Fixed an issue where copying or deleting a product did not copy or delete various translatable fields, such as the client area page content and email notification subjects.

- Fixed an issue where you may be able to purchase more than the number of items in stock.

- Improved email normalization for MaxMind fraud detection.

- Fixed statistical charts not working in some locales.

- Fixed sitemaps not generating properly.
BTW, I've received a lot of messages about when we can expect 4.6. It's on our minds, too! 
We're putting forth the extra effort into the new Achievements system so give us a sec if that's alright. Speaking of... stay tuned for Friday's post. We have a cool Achievements feature to share with ya. 😎 
Check things out above then drop us a line in the comments below (even if it's just to say hi). 
 
Related:
 

Just a quick update that after a month of third-party resources being blamed, it turns out (yet again) that it was an Invision issue. That's okay. I don't have any problem with any bugs or issues discovered in any application or Invision, but I have to say that I think this could have been resolved much sooner if there wasn't this uncomfortable bias against 3rd Party resources. I am just happy that the issue is being resolved, but after going through this so many times, it can get very frustrating. I say that with great affection because I am in awe of all of you who do this kind of work. I just don't want to go through this again.

That's a gmail-specific thing, although some other email providers do something similar. It would not be safe to blanket strip dots from emails, because that could open up security vulnerabilities relating to emails that do distinguish dots.

I think ALL periods are ignored in emails. Right?  If so then IPB should strio them first then compare. Not just a straight up select mysql search on the email field. 

I've used the rules app. It was garbage to begin with and was HELL on most communities especially during upgrades. Not to mention other things that affected that mod author which only some of my dear friends know about.
While I do want and appreciate automation, I don't want the rules app to influence such a decision. It was a garbage app that.... nm.
I do know that IPS has been adding more automated things and they have said that some things will be more automated so instead of asking for a garbage app to be implemented into core why don't you provide things that you would like to have be an automated thing? Things that you would like to see implemented either as a setting something you can configure.
Auto-lock topics after no replies for X days Thank you for joining, how are you getting along PM/Email for users under a post count that have been registered for X days Hey, are you okay PMs/emails when a member hasn't come around for X amount of days. Birthday PMs Anniversary PMs (would love this with Awards too @Fosters) Promotion messages and or notifications (messages preferred TBH) I'm sure I could think of more but those are off of the top of my head while tired.

Yeah, if I recall that plugin didn’t play nicely with other plugins. 
 I’m sure it could be done again, with 3rd party or IPS, so long as it’s done with care. 

I know someone mentioned it before about devs maintaining an active license in order to sell in the marketplace.
I pose a conundrum... How can a developer, selling in the marketplace, both develop and test their resource, for the latest IPS version, when they do not have legitimate access to the latest IPS version?
I get that many are both afraid of change and concerned with making ends meet. Everyone is in a different place financially with both themselves and their communities. I foot the entire bill for 2 communities and their server out of pocket. One with all IPS apps and the other with all but one. Both licenses are always active. Can / would everyone do that? For the vast majority I’d guess no. But it goes to show the diversity of clients.

Hi,
I wanted to clarify the process for any critical updates you may need to make that may potentially need a higher priority when it comes to a review. A critical issue would be something that causes a large impacting issue to your resource, such as a fatal error that prevents it from working.
Submit the new version of your resource with only the fix for the issue, no other bug fixes or enhancements. Specify in the change log what the fix is for (so it's obvious to us what you are fixing). Submit a support ticket asking for an expedited review. Asking for an expedited review doesn't guarantee we'll be able to do it, but we'll try our best where possible.
Thank you!
Stuart

Hi and welcome to our new series of updates for our contributors.
We'll highlight the most common mistakes, ways to resolve them and also generic improvement suggestions once a month here:)
 
As first, I want to apologies that some files took really long to get approved, but we really expected that new submissions and upgrades would have a better quality, but unfortunately >60% of the submissions ( 90% in the first week) were still not following the new marketplace guidelines, which resulted in a devils circle.
 
Let's recap the last months issues resulting in rejections🙂
Core Database changes. Version details not changed. Usage of existing IPS error codes in your own code. Usage of \IPS\ROOT_PATH in your code.
See 4.5 dev changes Upgrade steps trying to process too many data.
Please try to process data from huge tables in batches instead of iterating over such a big datasource in one step.  
We're also seeing a huge trend in extra queries and extra joins, which are unnecessary most of the time, please don't be lazy and try to use your common sense and ask yourself what's the preferred solution in this case? A global join each time the object is initialized?  A second query when the object is initialized? Lazy load the data when needed?
Last but not least, please avoid altering the Groups database table! While we allowed this in the past,  we see a big trend that many developers already use own tables and logic for this too, which works really great. Because of this we'll start to be more strict here, so starting tomorrow any new submissions will have to follow this rule too! 

Not wanting to get anyones backs up with this but I've read all 3 pages and feels like IPS are under attack here, maybe justifiably so in some cases, but just wanted to chime in and go against the grain, I'm happy with IPS terms and conditions and have no issues keeping an active licence for your continued development and support. 
11 years in having been through vBulletin, Xenforo to get here my members have never been happier with the platform. 
My forum is monetised well and covers all costs, renewal fees are just part of the outgoings to ensure my community is refreshed with new features and security fixes.

You make my point exactly. While you have graciously contributed to the MP, props given, you are not the type of developer that sells in the MP for a living. Such resources have a greater tendency to go unmaintained. Not saying you aren’t keeping your resource up to date. 
Many developers don’t just sell in the MP. They use their MP resources to get their name on the board with a reputation. Those devs then do contract work with private clients using IPS to truly make their living. 
We’ve most certainly strayed from the OP’s goal. 
Generally speaking, if you submit a ticket to IPS, and you’re not URL hoping frequently, they are sometimes gracious and do a reset without the fee. At least that was my experience some time ago. 

You make my point exactly. While you have graciously contributed to the MP, props given, you are not the type of developer that sells in the MP for a living. Such resources have a greater tendency to go unmaintained. Not saying you aren’t keeping your resource up to date. 
Many developers don’t just sell in the MP. They use their MP resources to get their name on the board with a reputation. Those devs then do contract work with private clients using IPS to truly make their living. 
We’ve most certainly strayed from the OP’s goal. 
Generally speaking, if you submit a ticket to IPS, and you’re not URL hoping frequently, they are sometimes gracious and do a reset without the fee. At least that was my experience some time ago. 

You make my point exactly. While you have graciously contributed to the MP, props given, you are not the type of developer that sells in the MP for a living. Such resources have a greater tendency to go unmaintained. Not saying you aren’t keeping your resource up to date. 
Many developers don’t just sell in the MP. They use their MP resources to get their name on the board with a reputation. Those devs then do contract work with private clients using IPS to truly make their living. 
We’ve most certainly strayed from the OP’s goal. 
Generally speaking, if you submit a ticket to IPS, and you’re not URL hoping frequently, they are sometimes gracious and do a reset without the fee. At least that was my experience some time ago. 

You make my point exactly. While you have graciously contributed to the MP, props given, you are not the type of developer that sells in the MP for a living. Such resources have a greater tendency to go unmaintained. Not saying you aren’t keeping your resource up to date. 
Many developers don’t just sell in the MP. They use their MP resources to get their name on the board with a reputation. Those devs then do contract work with private clients using IPS to truly make their living. 
We’ve most certainly strayed from the OP’s goal. 
Generally speaking, if you submit a ticket to IPS, and you’re not URL hoping frequently, they are sometimes gracious and do a reset without the fee. At least that was my experience some time ago. 

I know someone mentioned it before about devs maintaining an active license in order to sell in the marketplace.
I pose a conundrum... How can a developer, selling in the marketplace, both develop and test their resource, for the latest IPS version, when they do not have legitimate access to the latest IPS version?
I get that many are both afraid of change and concerned with making ends meet. Everyone is in a different place financially with both themselves and their communities. I foot the entire bill for 2 communities and their server out of pocket. One with all IPS apps and the other with all but one. Both licenses are always active. Can / would everyone do that? For the vast majority I’d guess no. But it goes to show the diversity of clients.

I know someone mentioned it before about devs maintaining an active license in order to sell in the marketplace.
I pose a conundrum... How can a developer, selling in the marketplace, both develop and test their resource, for the latest IPS version, when they do not have legitimate access to the latest IPS version?
I get that many are both afraid of change and concerned with making ends meet. Everyone is in a different place financially with both themselves and their communities. I foot the entire bill for 2 communities and their server out of pocket. One with all IPS apps and the other with all but one. Both licenses are always active. Can / would everyone do that? For the vast majority I’d guess no. But it goes to show the diversity of clients.

Just hopping in to share that when we were first began testing IPS as the path to migrating away from vBulletin, we made an error in setting up our testing environment as our production environment by not including the -TESTINSTALL string in the license. This led to us getting into a predicament where our license was incorrectly associated with the wrong URL. I think this may have actually happened more than once. We test a lot.
We opened a support request and IPS changed the URL as a courtesy for us without charge. I understand the need for a deterrent. While I most certainly don't always agree with decisions or directions IPS takes, this is one where I think they've done right. I would generally agree that the process of documenting and guiding support requests for this could be a bit more transparent. I'd encourage the team to consider adopting language in the install docs or client area that explains that IPS is willing to consider waiving fees at their discretion in instances where you reach out via support channels and help explain why you're doing something that would not often be done in practice.

Like actual cash?

Both sides of the fence have valid points. The app, in its current form, is not a one size fits all. I’d like to hope it can get that way, but that depends on a lot of factors in play across many highly customized communities. 
It has great benefits, push notifications for one, but those benefits may not benefit everyone. 

Both sides of the fence have valid points. The app, in its current form, is not a one size fits all. I’d like to hope it can get that way, but that depends on a lot of factors in play across many highly customized communities. 
It has great benefits, push notifications for one, but those benefits may not benefit everyone. 

It sound like the criticism is “if it’s not perfect and complete at the start, it’s pointless in general”.  They are just starting out with it!
Monetization, messages, more native app views and so on. I am sure it’s on the road map or will be put there if we need it. 
By the way: you can already add more than just forums. I just added a Pages article section and it works just fine. 

It was the ipsProArcade script that made this call, I deleted the directory and I was able to reinstall the new version and update the forum, thanks for your help

Ion cube isn’t required for IPS. Do you happen to have latent files from an early 3.x commerce installation?

3rd party add ons from the MP cannot be encoded using ion cube or any other. If you have a custom app that is, that may be the cause. That said, you would have needed ion cube to begin with. The only app that I know of that was encoded was 3.3 Nexus / Commerce. 
If you have commerce, you might backup that directory, delete it, and replace it with new files. I would suggest putting in a ticket before doing that, though. 

Why?  IPS software isn't publicly available unless you've purchased a license.  The source code would still have to be behind a client login.