onlyME

As part of our commitment to encourage 3rd party development and extension, we have given our Developer Center a much needed makeover. A picture is worth a thousand words, but how about a video?
 
Highlights
The Developer Center now has its own dedicated tab in the ACP. What were previously tabs are now displayed on individual screens, making for a far less cluttered UI. You can easily switch from one application to another using the main menu or the button at the top right of the screen. We've implemented UI for some JSON files that previously had to be manually created; specifically acpsearch.json and furl.json We've replaced the "Support" button at the top of the ACP with a more helpful "Quick Links" dropdown menu. While this is not specific to developers, with easy access to things like the Task Manager and clearing caches, it's very handy for troubleshooting!  
Application Landing Page
When you open the Developer Center for a particular application, the landing page is designed to help you quickly access common functions, and to help you find any potential issues within your code.

 
The Application Scanner currently checks for:
Missing Admin CP Language Strings Missing Front-End Language Strings Missing EditorLocations extensions Missing FileStorage extensions Missing FrontNavigation extensions Missing FURLs Missing Email Templates  
Language strings are grouped so that can you easily see where the missing strings were detected.

 
We will continue to expand the scanners over the course of the next few months.
 
Thoughts?
What do you think? Are there any other useful features you'd like to see added to the Dev Center? What kind of scans can we implement on the landing page?

One of the areas we have reviewed in Commerce is the way that we handle custom items. Previously, many of our features were limited to Commerce Products. Even items such as Subscriptions and Download Files were not fully integrated. In Invision Community 5, we have looked at ways to improve the overall experience.
 
Icons and Images
A small, but important change: displaying the item icon when an image is not available. In previous versions, if no image was available, the checkout and client area displayed a standard "box" icon for all items. In IC5, we now show the icon defined in your Item extension.

 
Product Details
Line item details are displayed on the checkout screens, as well as on the Invoice. However, this functionality was restricted to custom package fields, which are only available for Commerce Products. This logic has been moved to a new extension method, detailsForDisplay.

 
Coupons
A very popular request is to create coupons for specific items that are not Commerce Products. Previously, coupons could either be applied to the entire purchase or to specific packages. We have added the following methods to the Item extensions to allow you to integrate your items with the coupon form.
couponFormElements
Returns an array of elements that will be shown on the coupon form. If no elements are returned, your item will not be listed. saveCouponForm
Process the values of the fields defined in your couponFormElements method. This method returns an array of data that will be stored with the coupon. isCouponValid
Check if the coupon is valid for this item. New default coupon form:

 
 
Autopay
When Commerce generates renewal invoices, we attempt to take a payment if a user has a card on file. We have moved this functionality to \IPS\nexus\Gateway::autopay(). Your gateway must also have the SUPPORTS_AUTOPAY constant set to true in order for this to work.
With the new logic, when a renewal invoice is generated, the task will loop through all available methods. If autopay is supported, it will attempt to take payment using that payment method.

 
We've tried to include the most popular requests that we've seen for custom items and payments. What do you think? Have we missed anything? What are some of the requests you've received for custom item integration?

As we get closer to our first release, we'll be discussing how to update your custom applications to be compatible with IPS v5. We know this can seem like a daunting task, especially since not all changes will be immediately obvious, so we'll be walking through this step by step.
 
Updating Source Classes
Classnames should no longer start with an underscore. All our source classes are now strictly typed, so any of your classes that extend pretty much anything (Content Items, Nodes, Active Record) will need to be updated with the correct method signatures and property types. Almost all Content interfaces have been converted to traits (e.g. \IPS\Content\Pinnable, \IPS\Content\Lockable). Your content classes should have use statements instead of implements, and if you are overloading any trait methods, verify that it is properly declared.
The following interfaces have not been moved to traits:
\IPS\Content\Embeddable
\IPS\Content\Filter
\IPS\Node\Permissions \IPS\Content\Searchable has been removed entirely and replaced with a SearchContent extension. Recommended: We no longer use FQN in our code. This is not required for v5 compatibility, but a recommendation for best practice.

A few examples of the changes to the code base, showing strictly typed function signatures and using traits versus interfaces
Updating Extensions
All extensions now have an abstract class that should be extended. Most of these can be found under \IPS\Extensions. The abstract class is typically the same name as the extension type (e.g. EditorLocations extend EditorLocationsAbstract). Verify that your extensions use the correct abstract class and that all your method signatures and properties are declared correctly. Remove deprecated extensions. See this blog entry for a complete list. Convert your CreateMenu extensions to a UserMenu extension. Convert your MemberSync extensions to a Listener.  
Replacing Code Hooks
The following is a general list of the most common types of code hooks. Obviously, we cannot predict, nor support, all possibilities, but we have tried to cover the basics here.
Hooks on content classes should be replaced with Listeners or UI Extensions. Hooks on the Dispatcher (e.g. for loading JS/CSS) should be converted to Loader Extensions. Hooks on commerce items should be replaced with Listeners. Hooks that add functionality (e.g. Commerce gateways, Login handlers) should be moved to the appropriate extensions.  
Replacing Theme Hooks
As with code hooks, below is a list of common uses for theme hooks.
Theme hooks that add to the user dropdown menu should be moved to a UserMenu extension. Theme hooks that add classes or attributes should be moved to UI Extensions. Theme hooks that insert HTML should be moved to template hooks.  
Please let us know in the comments if there is anything that we may have missed, or if something is unclear. We would like to make this transition as smooth as possible.

We've been dropping hints about various development features that haven't yet made their appearance in our previous blog entries. Now that hooks are no longer a possibility, we've expanded our Extensions system to allow developers to integrate with other areas within the framework.
This blog entry will give an overview of our new Extensions. We are working on updating our developer documentation to include these changes.
 
AccountSettings
Allows you to add tabs to the Account Settings page. This extension contains two methods:
getTab
Returns the key for the tab (or null to hide) getContent
The tab content  
Loader
This extension was created primarily to allow you to load Javascript and CSS files in areas outside of your application, but has since been expanded to include other functionality. It is essentially an extension on the Dispatcher.
Available methods:
css
Returns an array of CSS files to load js
Returns an array of JS files to load checkForRedirect
Redirect users to another location. This is especially useful for custom applications that would have previously bypassed an existing controller. customError
Show a custom error message to the user instead of the standard IPS error messages.  
SearchContent
This is used to allow your application's content to the Search Index. Previously, the framework relied on the ContentRouter extension for this, and the use of the \IPS\Content\Searchable interface. The interface has been removed, and searchable classes are determined by the new extension.
The SearchContent extension contains one required method, supportedClasses. You can also use this extension to override our default search logic for your content.
 
Other New Extensions
LoginHandler
Allows you to create additional Login methods UIComment/UIItem/UINode/UIReview
UI Extensions, described here, here, and here UserMenu
Allows you to add content to various menus. Additional information can be found here.  
New Commerce Extensions
The following new extensions have been added to Commerce:
Gateway
Allows you to create new payment gateways LicenseKey
Allows you to add new methods for generating and managing license keys Payout
Allows you to create gateways for payouts  
Deprecated Extensions
The following Extensions are no longer supported and have been removed:
BBCode ContentModeratorPermissions (use ModeratorPermissions instead) CreateMenu (replaced by UserMenu) IncomingEmail MemberForm  
Reminder: Send us your Feedback
Send us your questions or use-cases by submitting a topic here. Please note that this is a private forum; you will not see topics posted by others, so you are free to share code samples if necessary. We will review your questions, and then aggregate them into an FAQ. The deadline for your question to be considered for the FAQ is October 15. After that you may still submit questions in the Contributor forum, where we will do our best to respond.