Claudia999

We have two newsletters - a big one and an automated newsletter made with „Newsletters“.
For the big one, users have to sign up separately with a third-party service. Many people would never sign up for our community because they want to see what we do or what we write, for example, out of professional interest.
Some sections of the newsletter can only be read by supporters, everyone else gets to read "If you want to read more, support us" at that point.
This newsletter is sent the day before the video call and is therefore also a reminder.
The automated newsletter contains "What you missed in the last 14 days".

I'm using New Member Followup.
On day 1 new users receive a large message with a warm welcome, an explanation, why I founded the community, the hint where they can introduce themselves and with instructions where they can try out the handling of the forum (a test board) and where they can find their profile.
On day 7 they receive a hint to the clubs, on day 15 to our newsletter, on day 23 to member map and their benefit, and on day 31 to our weekly chat and monthly video call.

Hi @Matt
could you explain please how tag search results can have SEO merit? 
Maybe I've been doing it wrong for years, but not a single url on my site with /tags/ is indexed by Google.
For years I have been suggesting to improve the tag pages also for SEO reasons. I would like to have a decent intro and an image on the main tag pages. A dream would be tag pages with "sections" - first Pages database posts with the tag, then forum posts, then blog posts, then photos and so on. But that‘s a dream 😉
As they are now, they are just search results pages in another way. Or am I really doing something wrong there for years?

I wish I could see a user rank instead of a member group in forums and comments. The rank is more descriptive and tells more about user activity and trust than a member group. It has more granularity. But it is quite hidden. I have to hover over the user name to see his rank. When I disable profiles for guests, the guests cannot see ranks at all. And on mobile, I can see a rank only if I open the profile as there is no hover.
Only for the groups that are excluded from the rank system, the member group should be shown.
 
 

No, there was no file update, maybe an update of the description. 

A large part of being able to manage a relatively busy Board is self policing by the Membership. When a Member clicks Report Post on problem Content they can either enter a Message or not. Regardless. I typically like to address their Reporting with a Thank You or a return Message. As is there is no automatic Messaging feature built into the Report Post function for the Member who reposts a Post, but you can click the offending Members name and access a Message function in drop down. As is you need to go to the Reporting Members Profile to Message or go to the Message function, type in their name etc. Being able to quickly Message the Offending Member and the Reporting  Member seems to make sense. 
 
I just noticed this was mentioned recently in another Topic, with the only response being a third party plug in. Some of us prefer to stay native to the IPB software and functionality. Working this into an update doesn’t seem to be a huge hassle. 

Thank you.
I've flagged this topic for dev review, to see if there is a way to accomplish what you want without complex CSS (which, in another topic, was suggested as the only way to do this right now).

Hi guys
Long time InvisionCommunity user, almost-first-time poster. 🙂 I've been using this software to power my community forums for about 15+ years now and I'm looking to take the next step by building an integrated site for my users. I recently purchased the Pages app to experiment with it - the idea is that, one day, I might migrate a long-running Wordpress blog into Pages. With that in mind, I had a few ideas that would greatly help with improving workflow and ensure more consistent connectivity between Forums and Pages. I hope you'll consider them!
To keep things concise, my ideas here are focused on the 'Copy to Database' feature of Pages (I do have other ideas but this is the biggest area of concern for me - I'll post the other suggestions in a separate thread).
 
My Setup
In AdminCP > Pages > Databases > Articles > Forums, 'Post Topic' and 'Use Forum For Comments' are enabled. Post Topic is enabled because not every article we write will be sourced from a forum topic or Copied to Database, and we want to make sure that all news stories we write have an associated topic posted (i.e. if a topic does not exist already, we want to create a topic, but if a topic does exist we want to Copy to Database and use that particular topic as the news story's associated topic) Use Forum for Comments is enabled because we want to always marry the comments in news stories with the replies in the associated topic. We never want this feature to be disabled.  
My Scenario
A regular user in my community discovers some interesting news that they may have read elsewhere, and posts a topic on a particular forum. A member of my community's "News Team" usergroup sees this topic, notices that our Articles database has yet to cover this news topic. The News Team member chooses to 'Copy to Database' the original topic. The original topic is written in a way that works fine for a community environment, but it needs editing in order to read well as a news article. So the News Team member modifies the original topic content to suit the tone of voice we want to present within our news stories.  
The Issues
When the News Team member posts the news story, a duplicate topic is made (in the forum selected in AdminCP). This has the result of confusing the community as there are now two separate topics in which to submit replies/comments to.
  When rebuilding synchronised topic content, the original topic's content is modified to match that of the news story which was created from it. This is not desired behaviour; if copied to database, the expectation is that the original topic remains the same, with any edits made for the news story living solely on the page record/database.
  There's no topic meta to illustrate to users on the forum that a news story was created from it.  
The Solutions:
1. 'Post Topic' Override (per Record basis)

A simple checkbox could be added to a record creation page, if the 'Post Topic' setting is enabled for that database in AdminCP. What this will do is ensure that a topic is not created when the record is created. This will be useful for users who want to use an existing topic as the basis for a record's comments/replies without splintering it into a duplicate topic elsewhere. However, some users might find posting a duplicate topic useful (for instance, they might want to dedicate a specific forum for record entries), which is why having this as an ad-hoc option is the best solution here.
 
2. AdminCP-level Option to Keep Topic/Record Content Separate

Provide a toggle which allows the content in the Original Topic to remain unaffected/does not sync with the copy written in the Page content. I would have thought that this would be standard behaviour, so it's surprising that it's not. I doubt many community members would appreciate their topics being edited without their consent, so this option would fix that issue. This could be a new setting added to AdminCP, which applies to all records made in a database (as illustrated above).
 
3. Add Topic Meta to Copied Topics
Upon using 'Copy to Database', have a setting/toggle (default setting: On) that automatically inserts a new Topic Meta box in the original/source topic, detailing that a user has used the thread as a basis for a new 'record/story/article'. Clicking the Meta box could dynamically expand it, revealing an excerpt of the new story/record/article (Title, Author, Date, Excerpt, Link to Full Article). Some ideas as to how that would look like below.
Idea 1:

Idea 2:

This could also be a setting in the Database options page in AdminCP. A feature like this would be a more elegant solution when copying topics to databases, instead of simply syncing the topic content and record content to be identical. It can also allow users who create interesting topics to see that their posts have been considered worthy of interest from the moderation/news team. You could even tie Achievements/Points/Rewards to this - users who create topics that a moderating team deems interesting for a story, could be awarded points for 'sourcing' the content.
---------------------------------------------------
Hopefully these suggestions are worth considering and implementing in a future update. I know the next update of the Core app is at the forefront of the development team's minds right now, but I think these would be great QOL updates for the Pages app that can make it even more unified with the Forums/Core. Thanks for reading!

Savior is here! 🤫

I really don’t understand what is going on. 
For the last several years I had a $30/month package covering the entire software suite. 
It was discontinued and I looked at a $54 plan, but it introduced new limitations like “no external apps”. 
Just months later, that plan is gone as well, and it’s at least a $99 plan. But that again removed crucial features. 
So just to keep the existing site going as it was, I would have needed to go from $30 to $169 now. That’s a price increase of over 560%! That is insane. 
To be clear: I fully understand that private companies choose their market segment. They don’t owe it to the public to be cheaper, offer free service or anything like that. Not even if other products in the same field are cheaper or free. 
But a company does owe something to their existing client base, especially with a company like IPS where 100% of the revenue comes from one product and therefore entirely from the existing client base.
There needs to be some kind of trust that both business partners are in a win-win partnership and that there is a willingness to keep it this way. We are your existing clients. We pay for the product, so it should be built for us and around our needs and at least somewhat around our financial abilities.
Because, at the moment, I honestly feel like an idiot if my license fees pay for the development of features today, which I will not be able to use tomorrow, because they are reserved for some higher plan for a future big corporation client. I should at least be able to keep using the product I know with roughly the same features and roughly with the same price I knew and accepted when I made the original purchase. Otherwise there is no reason to have any trust in the software provider. And even if I try to stick with the software, how am I supposed to plan for the future of current and new licenses, when price increases of over 500% can happen at any time? It’s easy to say one cares about their customers, but everything that happened since last year regarding plans and pricing betrays any such promises. 

If you "Upgrade to Cloud" in the Creator plan, you are going to lose a lot of functionality, that is included in self-hosted. E. g.
no Pages databases no custom apps except those placed in Marketplace no API access (e.g. webhooks or REST API) no integrations like SendGrid, Pixabay, Facebook Pixel, Maxmind etc. no Elasticsearch and thus no similar content widget based on it no hosting in the EU This is what I understand from the new pricing plans. So, it is indeed a feature downgrade, if you switch from self-hosted to Creator. You have to go with Creator Pro to get the same functionality you have as self-hosted.

We have the same problem in default theme.

I am asked again and again, why my app FX Pages changes the theme. And if it is safe to confirm new versions on the screen below. And if it will break their theme...
This is due to the message the users see when an upgrade for Pages templates is there. The message says the new version of the theme (there is no new theme!) has changed the templates they have edited (they do not have edited any!).

Can we have a message that states what really happens? E. g. 
Some templates have been changed in the new version of the application. Please confirm the changes.
It would be also nice to have the message formatted as a warning (ipsMessage_warning) instead of an error. Just to not frighten the user 😉 
And ideally have a button where we confirm all new versions with just one click. For non-technical users, those screens with a lot of code are dreadful 😨
Thank you!

Added:

 
Waiting on approval:

Okay I will grant you the difficulty of utilizing the Message Inbox and put that suggestion aside.
The problem starts here:

One problem is that folks are offered one choice as shown above.  People might be interested in being kept abreast of important site issues but not receive a promotional newsletter, so they opt out entirely. Getting them to opt in at a later date is difficult.
If a site admin sends out an important site update email, they will violate the spirit of the agreement if a new member did not select the option.  Splitting out "and updates" to be another trackable option would likely increase participation.  As part of important site update emails, you could soft sell the value of opting into the newsletter as well. 
By changing notification settings as shown below you could more readily encourage more folks to opt into your newsletter, receive important site updates or ideally both.

Wording and formatting are for illustrative purposes only.  

A new version has been uploaded to the Marketplace and is pending approval. Changes include:
Empty sections left the placeholder in the newsletter when using a custom template @Claudia999 Error generated when accessing the Notifications in the ACP. Fixed. @Sonya*

The Pages database relationship field is great for collecting more complex data that doesn’t fit in simple lists. But the field is not very user-friendly. 
First of all, it would be great to bring back more input options as in 3.4. At the moment, we only have the “type-ahead” input. But that means users need to know what record they want to link to upfront and they need to learn that they have to start typing to find it. For the majority of databases (which don’t have thousands of entries) a drop-down menu would be a better choice. It would clearly tell the users their choices without any guesswork about the entries or how to get to them. 
But my main problem is the fact that the field has no option to deal with missing entries. As admin I understand it and can deal with it, but for the users, it’s way too confusing. The field should show an option to create a missing entry, preferably inline without having to leave the page. Real-world example: A user creates an entry in a book database with links to an author and a publisher database. If an author is not yet available in the author database, it should be possible to create the external author entry instantly and preselect it right from the form creating the book entry. That’s what users would expect. I can’t tell them: first go to database B, C, D, and E and check if your related entries already exist and manually create them if necessary. Only then go to the main database to create your record A which links to B, C, D, and E. 

You can run a sql query for that.
SELECT tid, title FROM `forums_topics` WHERE poll_state = 1;
That will list the topic id and title of all topics with polls. Hope it helps.

I have created a custom block (WYSIWYG) with some text.
The block looks different depending on where I place it with Block Manager. In Forums, it has a white background:

 
In Pages, it does not have a white background

 
Questions:
Is it possible to create a WYSIWYG-Block that looks the same on every page? Is it possible to remove the white background on the block, when placed in Forums? I need a solution without custom CSS (the blocks will be added by the community manager without CSS knowledge).
A custom plugin is not possible as this is a Starter cloud package, where custom plugins are not allowed.

When I scale font size in the theme editing, it does not apply to mobile font size. It is still small.

I use default theme with slightly changed colors via Easy Mode Editor. No custom CSS.

@Daniel F can you revert this for me please? My break is over, my beer fund needs a top-up.

Just to show, that this is needed:
https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/466493-how-to-add-new-script-tags-to-page-head-area/ https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/466083-google-adsense-auto-ads-where-to-paste-code/ https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/454656-custom-js-head-code/ https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/456702-add-js-to-of-a-page/ Usage examples
Mailchimp JS header code to display the native Mailchimp "Subscribe" block. Add an ad network code. Add custom fonts and so on All these people would and do mess globalTemplate to just add their custom JS scripts. Later on they are probably going to run into issues while updating. They cannot just disable the scripts for a test without editing HTML and CSS again and again.
Please consider this suggestion for the head code. It would be user-friendly for non-code customers and would allow debugging issues much easier.
It is not a big deal at all. I still use this https://invisioncommunity.com/files/file/7631-custom-head-and-body/ and it works like a charm. Unfortunately, not updated and not usable for Cloud starter package.
 

Create a "listener" for Webhooks in IPS to avoid using external service like Zapier, IIFT or Integromat for Invision Community -> Invision Community Zaps. Especially for zaps where  trigger and action are in the same community.
Usage examples:
if a new user registers -> create a record in Pages if a new blog entry or gallery image is published -> create a topic if a page in database is updated -> send notifications to followers if a record is update in reciprocal database -> update the main record if a file has been update -> add a post to the file topic with change log if user purchases a product -> join him to club and so on