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Ocean West

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  1. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Ehren for a blog entry, Invision Community 5: Live Topic Improvements   
    Live Topics in Invision Community 5
    Introduced last year, Live Topics are an innovative way to host live chat and question-and-answer sessions, complete with the option for live video integration. Live Topics effortlessly transform these events into permanent forum topics once the event concludes, allowing your members to not only interact in real-time with the rest of your community, but also continue the conversation far beyond the events conclusion.
    As part of Invision Community 5, Live Topics will ship with a brand new design, rich-text editors and dynamic reactions. Let’s take a look at all three improvements, starting with the new design.
     

    Full-screen, 3 column layout
    When viewing a live topic, you’ll be taken to a new, minimal, full-screen, 3 column layout which provides plenty of space to simultaneously view your video, question-and-answer list, and live chat columns all at once. The width of the video can easily be adjusted using a simple drag and drop handle, allowing your members to shift their focus between the video or the question-and-answer list depending on the moment.
    Resize.mp4
     
    The second column holds a list of dynamic question-and-answer discussions, while the third column boasts a redesigned chat area that more closely resemble an app-like experience.
      Questions-and-chat.mp4  
    For smaller devices such as tablets and mobiles, the video is always visible at the top of the page. The question-and-answer list and live chat collapse into their own tabbed area to conserve space.
    Mobile.mp4
     
     

    Rich-text editors
    Text fields in Live Topics have been upgraded to CKEditor, allowing for greater flexibility when it comes to formatting text or posting emoji’s.
     
    Richtext.mp4
     
     
    Reactions
    Reactions have been added to live topics for both the question feed and the live chat. Reactions update dynamically in real-time, offering valuable insights into the content your community deems significant in the moment.
    Reactions.mp4
     
    A lot of thought has gone into transforming Live Topics into a much more user friendly experience. The refreshed, modern design combined with new real-time features make Live Topics a fantastic solution for hosting real-time community events, and we're looking forward to shipping these updates alongside Invision Community 5 later this year.
     
     
  2. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Ehren for a blog entry, Invision Community 5: A more performant, polished UI   
    As showcased in our past blogs, Invision Community 5 introduces a brand new, modern interface which brings improvements to performance, aesthetics and mobile usability.
    An optional side navigation panel, new view modes, light/dark modes, customizable header layouts, a search modal and a mobile navigation bar are some of the things we've showcased previously. Today, lets take a closer look at some other miscellaneous changes that we've been working on while developing Version 5, including some of the code reductions and performance improvements that we've been able to achieve in the process.
    For those of you who are developers, we'll also give some simple explanations of how (and why) we've implemented these changes.
     
    Widgets
    Sidebar widgets are perfect for displaying content feeds, featured members, announcements, advertisements and more on your page. In version 4 however, the widget column would often become an empty space once the widgets had been scrolled past:
      widgets-v4.mp4  
    In version 5, widgets now stick to the screen once the last widget has been reached, ensuring your readers have more convenient  access to your widgets rather than a void space:
      sticky-widgets-v5.mp4  
     
    Messenger
    The Messenger is a great way to reach out to members when a private chat is more appropriate than a topic. Inspired by modern email clients, the messenger in Version 5 has been revamped with a full-height, sticky inbox, a longer message snippet, mini profiles and a more polished UI - all with a 25% reduction in CSS and a 100% reduction in Javascript.
    messenger-v5.mp4
     
    Sticky elements
    We've mentioned sticky elements a couple of times now, so lets take a look behind the scenes at how they're created, and some of the performance improvements with Version 5. Traditionally, sticky elements were created using Javascript which would calculate the position of the element on the page and adjust it's stickiness every time the page was scrolled. Scroll events can be quite taxing for browsers, and when it comes to Javascript, the less, the better (especially when aiming for great page speed scores)!
    With that in mind, all sticky elements are now handled using sticky positioning via CSS, which is a native and much more performant way of controlling these elements. We've been able to replace an entire 400 line Javascript component with just 3 lines of CSS.
     
    Grids and Masonry
    Grids have previously been handled in a similar fashion. Javascript would scan all elements within a grid to determine how many could fit on a single line, and would then shuffle these elements into position after the page was loaded or resized. CSS has since introduced its own grid properties, which has allowed us to replace more than 350 lines of Javascript with just a few lines of CSS, resulting in more performant page rendering and nicer looking grids (especially on small-medium displays such as mobiles and tablets).
     

     
    Fun fact: We first introduced a similar performance improvement to "masonry grids" in our Gallery update from January this year, by replacing more than 400 lines of Javascript with, you guessed it, just a few lines of CSS.
     

     
     
     
    Click targets
    We wanted to make Version 5 as simple as possible to navigate, and one way of doing that has been by implementing larger click targets. Clicking anywhere inside an entry in a table or grid will now take you to that entry (you can still click on other links like normal within the click target, such as subforums or profile links). Click targets are optional and can be disabled via your theme settings if necessary.
     
    click-targets.mp4
     
    Data Lists (tables)
    Speaking of tables, they too have been revamped. Tables automatically adapt to the space they've been assigned to (for those curious, this is done using CSS container-queries), so they're always neat regardless of the screen size, with no overflow or squashed layouts. Behind the scenes, the two columns below are created with identical code, yet they're quite different visually due to the size which they've been allocated. Even with these improvements, tables have received a 25% reduction in CSS.
     

     
    Profiles
    Profiles have been polished for Version 5 and include some nice improvements such as sticky widgets and tabs. 
    profile-desktop.mp4
     
    On mobiles, the side column collapses into a carousel, and the sticky tabs allow you to easily flick between content types without scrolling to the top of the page.
    profile-mobile.mp4
     

    Tabs
    You may have noticed in the above clip that tabs on mobiles are now scrollable, compared to a dropdown menu from version 4. We made this change to ensure that tabs are given more equal exposure on small devices, and have managed to reduce the CSS by a whopping 80%.
     
    Carousels
    Last and certainly not least, are carousels. Carousels are great for displaying large amounts of data in a confined space and they've been rewritten from scratch for version 5. Previously, a Javascript library was used to create the "scroll effect", however this has never been the smoothest experience on laptop trackpads and touch devices.
    In version 5, carousels are powered by native smooth-scrolling and scroll-snapping, which results in a much nicer user experience, especially on touchscreens. We've been able to remove a staggering 95% of the Javascript, substituting it with just a few lines of CSS.
     
    carousel.mp4
     
    To be honest, we've only just scratched the surface here! In addition to these changes, we've modernized (and reduced code) in almost every component throughout the suite including avatars, cover photos, dropdown menus, forms, inputs, buttons, lists, off-canvas menus, side menus, columns and more!
    Combined, these changes result in not only a significant reduction in code, but also a polished UI that performs smoothly on desktop and touch devices. We're excited to continue modernizing Invision Community well into the future as new technologies and techniques become available to us, and are looking forward to getting it in your hands in 2024.
  3. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, New tool for community managers: Rank Progression   
    See how long, on average, members ascend from one Rank to the next. 
    Screen Recording 2022-07-20 at 14.58.14.mp4  
    We are excited to have added this new chart to our existing statistics that shows Rank Progression. This addition, available for all plans, is included in an upcoming release of our latest version 4.7.
     
    You can find it in your Admin Control Panel -> Stats -> Users -> Rank Progression.
    Ranks display a members’ perceived value to the community. The higher a members’ Rank, the greater their influence. Members with higher ranks earned those through their engagement and participation in the community. Actions like commenting, reacting and should your community be utilizing the Achievement system, through those Rules that award points. The more points, the higher the rank.
    Learn all about our Achievement System and Points in this previously shared Blog.
    Why is our new Rank Time Progression chart important?
    Understanding how long it takes members to move from rank to rank helps you strategize a user journey. You want meaningful contributors to feel rewarded for their engagement and participation in your community and receive an increase in their Rank.
    This chart provides a better understanding of how long it takes members to change Ranks.
    You will now be asking yourself insightful questions like:
    Am I happy with that timeline? Are my members happy too? Are any ranks being achieved too quickly or not quick enough? Are the ranks that I want to be “exclusive” and reserved for my star members, appropriately adjusted and take long enough to achieve?  Ranks, Rules and all things Achievements can be adjusted and changed. Ask yourself these questions and make changes to better support and reward engagement from those valuable members.
    Related: Help Guide on how to set up Ranks in your community


     
    Let’s take a look at this chart again.
    Here, the Rank Progression average shows a curve, meaning the time, on average, it takes a member to jump from rank to rank increases.
    If a member reaches Grand Master faster than you intended, you’re now armed with information to adjust the Ranks.
    Ultimately, the shape of the line on the chart depends on your goals.
    Flat line = no time between ranks Rising straight line = similar amount of time between ranks Rising curved line = increasing amount of time between ranks This new addition tracks Ranks for all registered members from day one.
    Want input setting new Rank Progression goals? Please post in our community forum or leave us a comment.
    While you’re at it, feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think; we're looking forward to hearing from you!
     
  4. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Interview with the founders of Invision Community (VIDEO)   
    To celebrate Invision Community turning 20-years-old (an eternity in Internet years), I interviewed the company's founding fathers.
    Ahh the good ol' days. Remember simpler times?
    This new video interview touches on Invision Community's past, present and future thanks to the invaluable insight from  @Charles, @Matt and @Lindy. 
     
    In our chat together, these gentlemen...
     
    Take a nostalgic trip down memory lane and reflect on the company's origins Explain the power of community amidst the social media boom Offer advice for new community leaders on how to grow Share some of the biggest changes to the platform Recant fond memories from the earlier days Reveal a teaser of what's next for Invision Community  
    Noteworthy quotes:
    Charles:
     
    Lindy:
     
    Matt:
     
    Thoughts on the interview? We'd love to hear from you in the comments! 🎂 
  5. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, The numbers don’t lie: Invision Community in 2021   
    2021 was a big year for Invision Community. 🎉 
    We launched no-code automation with our Zapier integration, added web push notifications, offline support, stock replies and new reporting metrics.
    We also improved spam management, SEO crawl efficiency, Clubs, Activity Streams and introduced a native gamification system named Achievements.
    Not to mention the team grew! 👋  @Matt Finger @Marshall Slemp (and me 🙋🏼‍♂️).
    We have lots to look forward to in the new year, but before we reveal more let's take a trip down memory lane. 
    2021 was one of our best-performing years ever! Here are some highlights:
     
    Community Activity 2021
    We saw an influx of members contributing to our community support forum. 3,832 members submitted new content, followed something, or reacted to something in the community.
     

     
     
    Points earned:
    Thanks to the introduction of the Achievements system, members had the opportunity to earn points for contributing to the support community. In total, the community racked up 361,363 points. 📈




     
    Topics created:
    Members fired off more than 4000 topics, including questions, feature suggestions and community management tips. 😳 



     
    New posts:
    Inside those topics included an array of replies. 31,488 posts to be exact. 😱 


     
     

    Top 10 members with the most amount of Reactions given:
    Members also engaged with the community using our Reputation system (think of it as our "likes" 👍 system). Here are the top 10 members who gave the most Reactions. 


    @sobrenome @Jordan Miller @SeNioR- @Linux-Is-Best @OptimusBain @Matt @Adriano Faria @Davyc @Marc Stridgen @Unienc
     
    Top 10 members with the most amount of Reactions received:
    If a member's topic or reply is well received, it earns Reputation using our Reactions system. Here are the top 10 members who received the most love. ❤️ 



    @Matt @Adriano Faria @Nathan Explosion @CoffeeCake @opentype @Marc Stridgen @Daniel F @Davyc @Jimi Wikman 
     
    Members who earned the most badges:  
    Participating in the community also earns members special badges. You get a badge and you get a badge! ✅ 
     

    @CoffeeCake @TAMAN @opentype @PPlanet @SUBRTX @Sonya* @Afrodude
     
    Top Marketplace contributors:
    Shout-out to our crazy talented third-party developers who take time out of their busy schedules to innovate and create downloads for other Invision Community clients to use! Here are the top Marketplace contributes: 
     

    @Nathan Explosion @Michael.J @Miss_B @IBTheme @Kirill Gromov @ReyDev @Adriano Faria @shahed 
     
     
     
    Most active forum:
    You have questions and we have answers. Our support system shifted to our help & support forum and it paid off big time! 
     

     
     
    Thanks to everyone who contributed to making Invision Community a better place. Whether you're an active poster in our community support forums, or a customer who lives to learn and absorb, we greatly appreciate you. Cheers to the exciting ventures on the way in 2022! 🎉 
     
  6. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Matt for a blog entry, SEO: Improving crawling efficiency   
    No matter how good your content is, how accurate your keywords are or how precise your microdata is, inefficient crawling reduces the number of pages Google will read and store from your site.
    Search engines need to look at and store as many pages that exist on the internet as possible. There are currently an estimated 4.5 billion web pages active today. That's a lot of work for Google.
    It cannot look and store every page, so it needs to decide what to keep and how long it will spend on your site indexing pages.
    Right now, Invision Community is not very good at helping Google understand what is important and how to get there quickly. This blog article runs through the changes we've made to improve crawling efficiency dramatically, starting with Invision Community 4.6.8, our November release.

    The short version
    This entry will get a little technical. The short version is that we remove a lot of pages from Google's view, including user profiles and filters that create faceted pages and remove a lot of redirect links to reduce the crawl depth and reduce the volume of thin content of little value. Instead, we want Google to focus wholly on topics, posts and other key user-generated content.
    Let's now take a deep dive into what crawl budget is, the current problem, the solution and finally look at a before and after analysis. Note, I use the terms "Google" and "search engines" interchangeably. I know that there are many wonderful search engines available but most understand what Google is and does.
    Crawl depth and budget
    In terms of crawl efficiency, there are two metrics to think about: crawl depth and crawl budget. The crawl budget is the number of links Google (and other search engines) will spider per day. The time spent on your site and the number of links examined depend on multiple factors, including site age, site freshness and more. For example, Google may choose to look at fewer than 100 links per day from your site, whereas Twitter may see hundreds of thousands of links indexed per day.
    Crawl depth is essentially how many links Google has to follow to index the page. The fewer links to get to a page, is better. Generally speaking, Google will reduce indexing links more than 5 to 6 clicks deep.
    The current problem #1: Crawl depth
    A community generates a lot of linked content. Many of these links, such as permalinks to specific posts and redirects to scroll to new posts in a topic, are very useful for logged in members but less so to spiders. These links are easy to spot; just look for "&do=getNewComment" or "&do=getLastComment" in the URL. Indeed, even guests would struggle to use these convenience links given the lack of unread tracking until logged in.  Although they offer no clear advantage to guests and search engines, they are prolific, and following the links results in a redirect which increases the crawl depth for content such as topics.
    The current problem #2: Crawl budget and faceted content
    A single user profile page can have around 150 redirect links to existing content. User profiles are linked from many pages. A single page of a topic will have around 25 links to user profiles. That's potentially 3,750 links Google has to crawl before deciding if any of it should be stored. Even sites with a healthy crawl budget will see a lot of their budget eaten up by links that add nothing new to the search index. These links are also very deep into the site, adding to the overall average crawl depth, which can signal search engines to reduce your crawl budget.
    Filters are a valuable tool to sort lists of data in particular ways. For example, when viewing a list of topics, you can filter by the number of replies or when the topic was created. Unfortunately, these filters are a problem for search engines as they create faceted navigation, which creates duplicate pages.

    The solution
    There is a straightforward solution to solve all of the problems outlined above.  We can ask that Google avoids indexing certain pages. We can help by using a mix of hints and directives to ensure pages without valuable content are ignored and by reducing the number of links to get to the content. We have used "noindex" in the past, but this still eats up the crawl budget as Google has to crawl the page to learn we do not want it stored in the index.
    Fortunately, Google has a hint directive called "nofollow", which you can apply in the <a href> code that wraps a link. This sends a strong hint that this link should not be read at all. However, Google may wish to follow it anyway, which means that we need to use a special file that contains firm instructions for Google on what to follow and index.
    This file is called robots.txt. We can use this file to write rules to ensure search engines don't waste their valuable time looking at links that do not have valuable content; that create faceted navigational issues and links that lead to a redirect.
    Invision Community will now create a dynamic robots.txt file with rules optimised for your community, or you can create custom rules if you prefer.

    The new robots.txt generator in Invision Community
    Analysis: Before and after
    I took a benchmark crawl using a popular SEO site audit tool of my test community with 50 members and around 20,000 posts, most of which were populated from RSS feeds, so they have actual content, including links, etc. There are approximately 5,000 topics visible to guests.
    Once I had implemented the "nofollow" changes, removed a lot of the redirect links for guests and added an optimised robots.txt file, I completed another crawl.
    Let's compare the data from the before and after.
    First up, the raw numbers show a stark difference.

    Before our changes, the audit tool crawled 176,175 links, of which nearly 23% were redirect links. After, just 6,389 links were crawled, with only 0.4% being redirection links. This is a dramatic reduction in both crawl budget and crawl depth. Simply by guiding Google away from thin content like profiles, leaderboards, online lists and redirect links, we can ask it to focus on content such as topics and posts.

    Note: You may notice a large drop in "Blocked by Robots.txt" in the 'after' crawl despite using a robots.txt for the first time. The calculation here also includes sharer images and other external links which are blocked by those sites robots.txt files. I added nofollow to the external links for the 'after' crawl so they were not fetched and then blocked externally.

    As we can see in this before, the crawl depth has a low peak between 5 and 7 levels deep, with a strong peak at 10+.

    After, the peak crawl depth is just 3. This will send a strong signal to Google that your site is optimised and worth crawling more often.
    Let's look at a crawl visualisation before we made these changes. It's easy to see how most content was found via table filters, which led to a redirect (the red dots), dramatically increasing crawl depth and reducing crawl efficiency.

    Compare that with the after, which shows a much more ordered crawl, with all content discoverable as expected without any red dots indicating redirects.

    Conclusion
    SEO is a multi-faceted discipline. In the past, we have focused on ensuring we send the correct headers, use the correct microdata such as JSON-LD and optimise meta tags. These are all vital parts of ensuring your site is optimised for crawling. However, as we can see in this blog that without focusing on the crawl budget and crawl efficiency, even the most accurately presented content is wasted if it is not discovered and added into the search index.
    These simple changes will offer considerable advantages to how Google and other search engines spider your site.
    The features and changes outlined in this blog will be available in our November release, which will be Invision Community 4.6.8.
  7. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Proud to Present: An interview with Invision Community President Charles Warner   
    Nearly two decades ago, Invision Community President, @Charles , set out to make a leading online community platform. 
    Around that time, Charles also met his now-husband of 18-years and hasn't looked back since. Until now. 
    Behind the code, product updates and newsletters are a group of people who share a passion for community building. Considering how volatile and toxic the Internet can be, we want to become more visible, transparent and vulnerable.  To help you familiarize yourself with the masterminds behind Invision Community, starting with Charles, we're kicking off a new series that'll highlight our team.
    I interviewed Charles for the first installment. In it, he commented on the state of the Internet: "I do think some times, for or better or for worse, people forget there are real people on the other end," he said.
    Mr. Warner also touched on Invision Community's evolution over the years. 
    "People don't like change. No one likes change," Charles said, adding "sometimes you say, 'we really need to change something' either in the software, or how you do things, and people push back. It might be we change a feature or maybe internally we change the way we do something. Sometimes you have to move forward. Sometimes it's irritating at first. 'Why did you change that?!' And also you have to recognize that sometimes you're wrong. Sometimes you might change something [and think], 'no, it's not better...' I really find that that's a big thing – to constantly be looking at all those other options and try stuff out. It doesn't harm [anything] to try things."
    And in the spirit of Pride Month, Charles opened up about being part of the LGBTQ community and also President of a successful company. He hopes it'll inspire others.
     

    The full interview is available to watch up top. 
    After watching, please drop us a line in the comments and let us know your thoughts! 🌈 
  8. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, Drum roll please… announcing Achievements!   
    One of the overarching goals for any community leader is to shine a bright light on your members. Their contributions should be publicly recognized. Now with Invision Community’s new Achievements system... you can!
    Achievements is Invision Community’s native gamification system baked into our latest update, 4.6. 
    We’ve dreamed up innovative actions for community leaders to publicly recognize members who show up and participate in meaningful ways.
    Award Points and badges based on conditional Rules!
    Here’s what you need to know...

     

    Points
    Our Achievements Points system keeps a running tally of Points. Members may earn Points in a multitude of ways. Essentially, it’s achieved by participating in the community. 
    Create a topic? Points! Post a reply? Points! Follow another member? Nothing. Just kidding… Points!!!
    This is done through creating Rules.

     

    Rules
    Rules are actionable processes set up in the admin panel. 
    Here are what members can earn Points for:
    When a...
    Member joins a club Reaction is given New poll is created User follows a content item Review is posted Member logs in for the first time that day New club is created Content item/comment is promoted or featured Comment/reply is posted User follows a forum, blog, gallery, category etc User votes on a poll User is followed New content item is posted Post is marked as best answer There are also corresponding When/Then Rules for each item listed above. 
    When this action happens, then this subsequent action happens.
    Example: when a member posts 10 times, then this Badge is awarded.
     

     
     

    Badges
    Community leaders can also create specific Rules when deciding what actions earn Badges. 
    For example, reward your members with a Badge for visiting your community for 20 days.
    Once a member reaches 20 visits or more over 20 days, the Achievements system will automatically award them a ‘20 Visits’ Badge you’ve previously created.
     

     
     
    Ranks
    In 4.6, we’ve completely revamped our Ranks system to communicate with Achievements. 
    Achievements’ Ranks system will replace our previous Ranks system*
    Set up different Ranks based on how many Points a member earns. Ranks display a members’ perceived value to the community. The higher a members’ Rank, the greater their influence because the more they’ve participated. 
    Ranks are currently for prestige at the moment. 
    Here's our example for a pretend Coconut community:
     
     

     

    There’s a lot of information to absorb here, but if there’s anything to take away from this blog post it’s this: empower your contributing members with Achievements and watch your community grow. It creates an immersive and elevated experience for your die-hards. And hey, who doesn’t love to earn? 
    When 4.6 and Achievements is officially released for all, we’ll hold a live Q&A event for you to join and ask any questions you may have.
    Props? Concerns? Comments? Questions? We’d love for you to sound off in the comments! Not only because we want to hear from you, but because it’ll earn you some sweet, sweet Points, too!
  9. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, The Importance of Moderation, err... Community Guidance (New Video!)   
    Moderation feels a bit like an outdated term created pre-social media, but it stuck. We’d like to re-frame your thinking in terms of guiding your community versus moderating it.
     

    Guidance is an essential component to any thriving community because it creates structure and boundaries for the community.
    Oftentimes, people think community guidance is about restriction, but in reality it allows your community to express itself in a healthy way. 
    All communities run into issues unless there are clear guidelines laid out for all members. It only takes a couple of toxic trolls to bring down an entire community of thousands of members.
    As a community leader, it's important to find the balance between allowing freedom of speech and restricting what people can and can't say. 
    An Internet troll tends to want to see what they can get away with and push the boundaries to the brink. They’ll claim that they are not allowed to speak their mind, but I want to stress the importance this:
    Freedom of speech has some limitations. 
    For instance, you can't just shout ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded room because you believe you have the right to freedom of speech (though some would argue you can, which is why guidance is imperative). There are certain rules that everyone needs to follow in order for an online community to function.


     
    The first thing you'll want to do when guiding your community is... to create community guidelines.
    These guidelines must be visible and easy to access. There, you can lay out all the nitty-gritty rules you want, but essentially it should boil down to this:
    Be kind. 
    Treat people with respect when posting and remember that there’s a person behind the user name. It's important not to hide behind anonymity just because you can. 
    Being a part of the community means that all members must abide by these guidelines.
    Now what happens if someone "breaks the rules” or ignores these guidelines? As your community’s leader how do you proceed?
    You do so by creating actionable rules that can adversely affect a member’s standing in your community if they break them. 
    I know that sounds kind of threatening, but it's important to establish to your community that you're there for them and that your priority is to hear them out, but at the same time you must take action to keep the peace. 
    Invision Community has automatic moderation tools and a warning system section baked into the software. Below is a snapshot of Invision Community's administration panel where community leaders may set up custom automatic moderation rules:
     


    Tap here for more specific information on how to implement community guidance/moderation to your community. 
    One important component to these rules is that you enforce them across-the-board to all members and do so consistently. 
    If you leave the door open for one member and not another, it's going to create an unwanted hierarchy and instigate chaos.
    One of the best ways to be consistent is by walking the walk. 
    Show your community how you want them to post by posting and contributing that way yourself. What that does is it sets a visible precedent.
    From there, you'll begin to notice other community members contributing in a way that is similar to you (lead by example).
    This is a great opportunity to consider them to join a new moderators team. Whether they are paid moderators or are volunteering their time, you still want them to be mini leaders inside your community. It's important that you are a positive role model for them. 
    Watch the video up top, then drop us a line in the comments! And hey, while I've got you... check out what our own community has to say about moderation (aka community guidance 😉).
     
    Remember, guiding your community starts from the top (a.k.a. you!). Now get out there and moder-... guide!
    Stay tuned for more Invision Community video content coming soon!
  10. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Updates to our community   
    You’ve probably already noticed that something looks a little different in our community today.
    As part of our ongoing community improvements, we’ve performed some housekeeping to streamline the forum structure, make more distinction between areas and open up a few areas to guests and friends.
    The big visual change is that we now have four separate areas: support, community, marketplace and developers. It should hopefully be clear what each section does, but let's go through a few examples.
    Support
    This area is where you can leave feedback on existing features, help shape Invision Community’s future by suggesting new functionality and also where you can get quick support from fellow Invision Community owners and our team.
    Starting today, you can post in the Help & Support forum to get help from our team. If you’re unsure what a feature does, or think you’ve spotted an issue that needs our help, then you’re welcome to start a topic. Of course, if you want private support, then you are welcome to create a ticket in the client area as normal.
    Community
    Even the most seasoned community manager needs a little help from time to time. This section is the place to ask about strategy, to blow off steam in the lounge or to ask for fellow owners to help with support requirements outside of official support, such as configuring servers, databases and so on.
    Marketplace
    Our Marketplace brings hundreds of new features, themes, language translations and plug-ins to your Invision Community. If you need support or have a request for something you’ve purchased from the Marketplace, drop into the forums here.
    Developers
    Invision Community is blessed with a strong developer community extending the rich functionality of Invision Community. If you’re looking to develop an idea for Invision Community, these forums will let you connect with our development team to answer questions as well as get help from other marketplace authors.
    Other Changes
    There are a few other changes of note that I’d like to go through. Firstly, ‘Visitors’ (that is a registered member without an active license) are now ‘Friends’. Who doesn’t need new friends? Guests and Friends can now view the official support forums, but cannot post a new support request or reply to existing ones.

    We’ve merged ‘General Chat’ in with the Client Lounge to form ‘The Community Managers’ Lounge’. This is still a perk for active customers and the topics are not viewable unless you have an active license.
    Finally, we’ve gone through and spruced up some of the forum rules, descriptions and custom error messages.
    I hope these changes make it easier to find what you need and get a little help when you need it.
     
  11. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Welcome to the team, Jordan!   
    I'm thrilled to introduce the newest member of team Invision Community.
    You may recognise Jordan from his photo as he's been an active member of our community as BreatheHeavy. Jordan has been running his site BreatheHeavy.com using Invision Community for nearly a decade.
    Jordan's official title is "Community Advocate" which means that he will be working very closely with our community to guide and curate feedback, assist with support questions, to help educate and inform and to bring you news of the latest developments being cooked up by our development team.
    Jordan says:
    Your feedback, ideas and questions matter.
    I've spent the last decade discovering what it means to be a community leader in my own Invision Powered community, BreatheHeavy. Community building is an ongoing journey that's taught me invaluable lessons, namely the importance of absorbing feedback from the community then taking decisive action. I'm excited and honored to share that insight with the Invision Community. My new role is designed to shed light on what Invision Community members (that's you!) want and share it with the team.
    I'm looking forward to getting to know you! 
    We're very excited to start a new chapter within Invision Community to improve communication, engage more Invision Community owners and make the most of the excellent feedback we receive.
    You'll be seeing more of Jordan on the forums in the coming days.
  12. Like
    Ocean West reacted to bfarber for a blog entry, 4.4: Application manifest and icon management   
    Who remembers the earlier days of the internet? Back when you popped your logo at the top left of your site and you were largely done?
    Invision Community has continually developed to account for all the new services that have been built during our 16 years.
    We now have social media sharing images, favicons and more to consider.
    Invision Community 4.4 also adds mobile application icons, Safari mask icons and data for an application manifest. Handling of these logos and icons was a prime candidate for improvement in 4.4.
    Moving our current options
    Step one for improving our handling of these images was to move our current options out of themes and to allow them to be managed suite-wide from a single area. You can still upload a logo image per-theme (which shows in the header area), but the rest of the options have now been relocated to a new area: Customization > Appearance > Icons & Logos.

    Adding new options
    After giving favicon and share logo management its own dedicated area, we took a look at enhancing the configuration options made available through the interface without requiring theme template edits.
    Multiple share logos
    You can now upload multiple share logos. If you elect to upload more than one share logo, Facebook and similar sites will generally either show a carousel to allow you to choose which logo to use when sharing, or simply use the first image referenced.
    Application icons
    You can now upload an image to represent your website which will be used to generate the "home screen" icons for iPhones and Androids automatically. Uploading a single image will result in several different copies of the image (in different dimensions) being generated, and mobile devices will automatically choose the best option from the list as needed.
    Safari mask icon
    You can also now upload a Safari Mask icon, which is used to represent your website in certain areas on Apple computers (such as on the "touchbar" of certain keyboards). This image must be an SVG image with a transparent background, and all vectors must be 100% black.
    Additionally, you can specify the mask color which is used to offset your image when necessary (e.g. to represent it as "selected" or "active").
    Application manifest
    In order for devices to support the application icons that you upload, a file known as a web manifest must be generated and delivered to the browser. This now happens automatically, using details and icons specified in the AdminCP. Certain details, however, can be configured explicitly from the Icons & Logos page:
    Short name
    This is a short name to represent your site in areas with limited screen space, such as below your application icon on a mobile phone home screen. Site name
    This is the name of the site. The "Website name" setting is automatically used if you do not explicitly override it when configuring the manifest. Description
    A short description of your site Theme color
    You can choose a (single) color to represent the general theme of the site. This color may be used by devices in areas such as the address bar background. Background color
    You can also choose a (single) color to use as the background color for your site when the application is launched from a shortcut saved to the user's device home screen. Display mode
    Finally, you can specify the display mode your site should launch in. For our more astute designers and developers, you may have already realized that generating the manifest file lays the groundwork for future PWA (Progressive Web App) development and support. Additionally, some Android devices will automatically prompt users to add your website to their home screen now that a manifest file is generated by the site.
    Oh, and for the sake of completeness, we also generate the special browserconfig.xml file that Microsoft products (including Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, X-Box, and Microsoft-based mobile devices) look for when pinning sites and generating live tiles. There are no additional configuration options for this file - everything is automatically generated from the aforementioned options.



    The end result?
    Your community can now better convey, automatically, certain details to the myriad of devices out there that may be accessing your site, and you now have much better control over those details. You can more easily fine-tune the "little things" that help paint a complete picture of your web presence, and the groundwork has been laid for bigger and better things in the future as standardization and adoption of PWA functionality improves.
    This blog is part of our series introducing new features for Invision Community 4.4.
  13. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Matt for a blog entry, 4.3: Commerce Subscription Manager   
    We've recently spoken about how we've brought our Gallery and Blog apps up to date with interface overhauls to bring them inline with the high standards our customers expect.
    Keeping this in mind, we're thrilled to announce that we've taken Commerce right back to 2009.
    This needs an explanation.
    Way back in 2009, Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President. Minecraft was put into beta, Slumdog Millionaire was released to critical praise and we had a product called IP.Subscriptions.
    IP.Subscriptions was a lightweight member subscriptions manager that allowed members to purchase elevated permissions via a user group upgrade.
    It was a fine little app. However, on the horizon we had a brand new eCommerce app in development. Then called Nexus, now called Commerce (we took months to come up with that).
    It made sense for us to merge the products into one app given they both had overlapping functionality. They both could create packages to promote members to a new user group. Commerce was much more developed as an invoicing and billing system.
    Everyone was happy.
    Almost.
    Commerce has grown to be an incredibly powerful app. It can sell anything from physical products like t-shirts, to digital products such as license keys and it can even manage your hosting set-up.
    We use it for our support and billing systems, so we know how robust it is.
    While it's an incredibly powerful commerce system, setting up basic subscriptions packages became a little more complex.
    Over the past few years we've received a lot of feedback on this.
    We've listened.
    Commerce Member Subscriptions
    We've built a brand new section into Commerce specifically for membership subscriptions.
    Let's take a look at this in more detail.
    On the front end, there's a very clear and easy to understand page for membership subscriptions.

    The main subscriptions interface
    Here you can see all the available packages, which one you're currently subscribed to and the upgrade and downgrade options.

    A simple way to upgrade
    There's several choices for costing upgrades in the Admin CP, here we have chosen to charge the difference between packages.

    Get to your subscriptions easily
    Your subscriptions are easily found in the user menu.
    If the Admin allows, the package you're subscribed to appears as a badge on your profile.

     
    There's also a little widget showing the packages which you can drag and drop to the sidebar for an additional prompt for non-subscribers.

     
    This gives Invision Community a very clear and easy to understand interface for subscriptions which lives outside of the Commerce store and its packages.
    Now, let's dive into the Admin CP
    The main engine for this feature is the package list. This is in a separate area within Commerce.

     
    The list also shows the number of currently active and inactive subscribers. This links to the list of subscribers.

     
    Other than Bob having a total nightmare, you can easily view which members are currently active. The buttons link you to the Commerce invoice and purchase.
    If you wish to add a member to a subscription without charging them (you generous soul, you), then that is easily possible.

     
    Creating a new subscription package is very straight forward. We've built a new form which is stripped down to the fundamental items you'll need for a subscription.

     
    As you would expect, there are several settings to control the system.

     
    A few things worth mentioning here:
    You can force new members to purchase a subscription on sign-up You can show or hide the profile badge indicating which package they purchased. You can choose to allow upgrades or downgrades. You can choose how you'd like to charge for upgrades or downgrades Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback over the years. We're really pleased to present this new feature and hope that it'll make your daily lives just a little easier.
    Let us know what you think!
     
  14. Like
    Ocean West reacted to bfarber for a blog entry, 4.3: REST API Enhancements   
    "No man is an island" wrote John Donne. He wrote that a good 200 years before computers were invented, but it rings true for any well written framework like Invision Community.
    The included REST API allows developers to fetch data from Invision Community and also allows data to be added.
    This data can be used to power widgets on your website, or to be used within other applications you  are already using in a very simple way.

     
    Several enhancements have been made to the REST API for Invision Community 4.3 that we wanted to let you know about.
    These changes are developer-oriented, so if you do not use the REST API with your community please feel free to skip this update.
    If you would like to learn more about the REST API available with Invision Community, please see our REST documentation.
    Search capabilities
    As previously noted, you can now perform searches through the REST API. You can perform searches based on keywords, tags, or both, and you can limit and filter results with parameters similar to when you perform a regular search on the site (e.g. to specific containers, returning only results over a set number of comments, or searching within clubs).
    Permission awareness
    Several REST API endpoints are now permission-aware when combined with Oauth functionality built into Invision Community 4.3. This means that many REST API endpoints can be called using a specific user's access token, and only results that the specific user would normally be able to see will be returned (and/or they will only be able to submit to areas they normally have permission to). 
    Ability to search members
    While an endpoint has always been available to retrieve (and add/edit/delete) members, the ability to search for members has now been implemented. You can search by name, email address, and (one or more) group(s), and a paginated response will be returned.
    Private conversations
    You can now start a new private conversation, reply to an existing private conversation, and delete a private conversation through the REST API.
    Other REST API changes
    You can now specify member's secondary groups when adding or updating a member through the REST API. You can specify the member's registration IP address through the REST API when adding or updating a member. You can now specify other member properties not directly exposed through the REST API when adding or updating a member by setting the rawProperties input field. You can now specify other member properties to retrieve through the REST API through the otherFields request parameter. The REST API now better logs changes to member accounts (so you will be able to more easily identify how a user's name, email address, password, etc. has changed when looking at the member history). You can now retrieve all content a member is following through the REST API, as well as follow a new container/content item, and delete an existing follow. You can now validate an account through the REST API You can now specify a 'perPage' parameter for paginated responses to control how many items are returned per page.  
    Most of these changes were directly culled from client feedback and implemented per specific requests. If there are other REST API changes you would like to see implemented please don't hesitate to leave your feedback!
  15. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Charles for a blog entry, IPS Community Suite 4.1.9 Available   
    We have released version 4.1.9 with many bug fixes, performance improvements, and feature enhancements. Our thanks to the QA team and all our clients who participated in the beta release.
    This is also a security release so please upgrade as soon as possible. All Suites will see the red alert banner show.
    To be notified of updates as soon as they are available you can add an email address in your AdminCP under General Configuration.
     
    New or Changed Features
    When your link auto-embeds in a post such as with an image, YouTube video, Twitter link, etc. an option will now display to revert the embed back to a plain text link if you do not want the embed. New setting to disable embedding. Facebook/Twitter integration improvements If you are an administrator and encounter a system error, additional debug output will now display. Regular members will see the normal error message. Custom Fields for Support Requests in Commerce now show on the front-end. If an advertisement is set up with a main image, but not smaller images for tablets/mobiles, the ad would not show at all on tablets/mobiles. This has changed so the main image will display on all devices unless smaller images are provided. Topics scheduled to automatically lock or unlock will now reflect this in the topic listing and when viewing the topic. Placing a link to a Facebook status will embed when possible. When viewing a report, the container (for example, the forum) the content is from is displayed. Three character searches are now allowed in the Admin CP Live Search. The Account Settings page now uses vertical rather than horizontal tabs to prevent overflow. If Gravatar is enabled, and a user has not defined an profile photo, then their email address will be used to fetch from Gravatar unless explicitly set not to. Gfycat embeds now use their oEmbed endpoint rather than their JS API. Using Amazon CloudFront as https provider will now be recognized as valid secure connection. The member REST API endpoint will now return custom fields. The Developer Center for Plugins now shows the filename in the list of hooks, and when editing a hook, a breadcrumb includes a link back to the list. Inline notifications can now be dismissed Efficiency improvements to the search index You can now close a poll independently of the topic You may want to read a bit more on our embed improvements:
    And Activity Stream improvements:
    We are well into development on version 4.1.10 which will follow along soon. Keep an eye on our Release Notes for updates on what will be coming in that release.
    If you have any issues please open a support ticket. You can also submit reports to our bug tracker. Thank you!
  16. Like
    Ocean West reacted to Charles for a blog entry, Activity Stream Interface Improvements   
    Activity Streams were first introduced in version 4.1 and have been very well received by people who enjoy all the flexibility they create in filtering and sorting content in a community for easy discovery of what is being posted.
    As with any new feature, we received a lot of feedback and have had time to take that in and make improvements to mature the Activity Streams with key changes in 4.1.9 being interface, performance, and bug fixes in the system.
    One recurring theme we heard were people saying "the new Activity Streams cannot do..." when actually they could do it but the options were not obvious. We used to have the options in a large drop down box that users could edit and then save to update their Stream. This meant that options were not clearly visible and therefore people did not even know all the powerful settings available to them. So in 4.1.9 we have moved those options into a new dynamic filter bar.

    With the new filter bar you see all your options available right there. We also changed the interface so Streams instantly update when you make a change. You no longer have to click save and update, wait for interface to collapse, and so on. Now your changes instantly update your Stream.
    When you do change your Stream settings a save button appears prompting you to save your new selection. You can choose to save if you like the new options or not if it is just a temporary change you made. If you edit filters on a stream you do not own then it will prompt you to save your options as a new stream.
     
    We hope you enjoy this more dynamic approach to Activity Streams.
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