Lindy

Please make it 8PM on a Friday (EST) and be sure to run the upgrader on mobile with 2% battery life left. Thanks and tell the boys in support Lindy sent you!

Please make it 8PM on a Friday (EST) and be sure to run the upgrader on mobile with 2% battery life left. Thanks and tell the boys in support Lindy sent you!

(bonus points if you guess the show)

Please make it 8PM on a Friday (EST) and be sure to run the upgrader on mobile with 2% battery life left. Thanks and tell the boys in support Lindy sent you!

Hey team, it's been 84 years (if you know you know), but...
We're excited to announce that Invision Community 4.6.0 Beta 1 is officially live! 🎉 
@Matt has a blog post on the way detailing all of the amazing additions, including how many commits and lines of code that were changed. A lot. The answer is a lot. 
Just to refresh your memories, some of the biggest changes/additions include:
Achievements (Points!) Web app and Push notifications Anonymous Posting when posting as a member Highlight Topics with replies from specific Groups Spam Improvements (And more!) It's available per request for Cloud customers or, if you're self-hosted, by manually downloading it.
Self-hosted: please make the necessary backups before upgrading. Because this is a Beta, please understand there is an inherent risk when upgrading.
The more information/feedback we get, the better we can optimize and improve things 🙂
If you find something and would like to submit a bug, please do so here.
Looking forward to hearing what you think! Sound off in the replies below. 

Happy Hump Day, fam! 
Been receiving a lot of messages about 4.6 and Achievements. We're near the finish line (I know that's annoying to hear but we're close!).
Why the wait? We absorbed a ton of useful feedback from you and are implementing it 👏 Achievements is turning out even more epic than what we launched here a few weeks ago 😭. It'll be worth the wait (again, annoying I know, but sit tight).
Our talented team of Code Yodas™ (aka our developers) implemented some cool additions that'll make their red carpet debut in 4.6. 📸 
The ones we're highlighting today are the improved appearance of Notifications Settings and Top Files reporting in the ACP. Shout-out to YouTube Short URLs being fixed as well.

Improved appearance of Notifications Settings
You'll notice we're adding more flexibility to control what kinds of notifications show, and incorporating them with the Push notifications feature. 😍 . Thanks to @Rikki for hooking up the screen shot preview!
 

 
 
Most Downloaded files statistics in the ACP
And for the data junkies, we've also added statistics for the most downloaded files in the ACP. Shout-out to @Matt Finger for this implementation!




 
Our full list of changes made in the last week:
- Fixed an issue where changing table filters could cause the table to be stuck in loading state due to an underlying error.
- Fixed an issue where Stripe webhook events may fail in some circumstances.
- Account settings will no longer prompt for re-authentication if the account does not have a way of re-authenticating. Applies mostly to custom SSO integrations.
- Fixed an issue where Youtube Shorts URLs would not embed.
- Fixed an issue where API requests may cause an error if referencing transactions from deleted members.
- Improved the appearance of the Notification Settings screen.
- Added support for converting Markdown formatted posts in Vanilla.
- Fixed some issues when converting from Vanilla and your files used to be in S3.
- Added statistics pertaining to the most downloaded files

Lots of exciting things going on here. What's your favorite from the list? Sound off in the comments - we'd love to hear from you! 

And smash that cat button if you want to be a member of Team Meow.

For this image, a better presentation is if it is transparent ... Here is a version that will look good.

Jordan wanted to make Achievements cloud-only but I said no.

If you're using it for true mass payment purposes, you should still be within the spirit of the AUP. That policy suggests you would not be in compliance, however, if you are making payments through the system on an individual basis. 
In any event, there doesn't appear to be any technical changes or impact; it's merely a clarification of policy. 
 

If you're using it for true mass payment purposes, you should still be within the spirit of the AUP. That policy suggests you would not be in compliance, however, if you are making payments through the system on an individual basis. 
In any event, there doesn't appear to be any technical changes or impact; it's merely a clarification of policy. 
 

If you're using it for true mass payment purposes, you should still be within the spirit of the AUP. That policy suggests you would not be in compliance, however, if you are making payments through the system on an individual basis. 
In any event, there doesn't appear to be any technical changes or impact; it's merely a clarification of policy. 
 

The Marketplace is a service. While you are of course acquiring third party resources, you are not obtaining them directly from third party authors and it is really no different than other app stores. Your transaction is conducted through IPS and the Marketplace is a remote service. The point here is just to dispel the silly notion that we're in "breach of contract." The EULA makes clear the fact that a renewal is required for all updates, services, etc.
To provide further clarification, an expired license does not shut off the software and you may continue its use in an "as-is" state (at time of expiration), but it does effectively render both the license and status as a customer as inactive. It is no secret that our company is based on the recurring investment model, so while we don't want anyone to feel held hostage to renewals and we try to reasonably accommodate all customers past and present, our decisions and prioritization of goals will ultimately be in the interest of those continuing along side of us, sharing our overall vision.
With all of that said, this topic has been discussed several times and ultimately, the Marketplace was moved to the AdminCP for what I hope are obvious reasons. A significantly improved and smooth experience for the majority of customers who want a point-and-click experience, consistent with most non-classic "forum" platforms. We want to take every reasonable measure possible to ensure that when you click to install something from the Marketplace, it will be a successful and safe experience for you. We've tightened the framework around that to ensure you're notified with seamless updates from authors and anything installed through the Marketplace framework has been reasonably reviewed by us. We made the decision to disallow manual downloads from the Marketplace as it is entirely counterproductive to the goal we set out to achieve in the first place.
I want to stress that you are welcome to contact an author for manual file provisions if you would like and we do not prohibit them from providing it. You may also purchase from some authors directly if you wish. The only caveat for both cases is, you would use the manual (old) framework to install and update these resources manually. A warning will also be generated because these are untested files - similar to Mac and Windows. Beyond that, we're not standing in your way of using the "old school" way - we are just not facilitating it as again, it is counterproductive to our goal of something that resembles more of a proper app store and not just a repository of "files."
I'm sorry for the disappointment to those find the previous method to work better for them. As you know, we try to take on board as much feedback as we can - after all, there's no point to any of this without customers. Nonetheless, while we've heard the feedback loud and clear, we do not intend on reversing course on downloads or policy changes, so at this juncture, I would very respectfully ask that we move on to other, more actionable feedback items.
Thank you as always for your continued business.
 

Search is pretty complex in IPS4 and to be honest, lack of Commerce search was a mere oversight. Unfortunately, it's not something that can just be easily plopped in, but it is something, along with pages in Pages that we have slated to be added in a search overhaul. 

Sorry you're having difficulties, @MorriganIt's certainly not been a wonderful 10 months, by any stretch. 😞
I'm also sorry the notifications are causing you stress. They're intended to emphasize the importance of updates - if you're like me, you've likely clicked the "remind me later" button on OS updates a few dozen times before actually going through with it. Unfortunately, there is no distinction between licensed/unlicensed at this time - if we recommend an update, it's recommended regardless of license status. Nonetheless, I truly understand and empathize with the sentiment -- these are difficult times for many and we don't necessarily want reminders. I'm sorry this has been an example of that for you. 
I hope things improve for you soon. 

Sorry you're having difficulties, @MorriganIt's certainly not been a wonderful 10 months, by any stretch. 😞
I'm also sorry the notifications are causing you stress. They're intended to emphasize the importance of updates - if you're like me, you've likely clicked the "remind me later" button on OS updates a few dozen times before actually going through with it. Unfortunately, there is no distinction between licensed/unlicensed at this time - if we recommend an update, it's recommended regardless of license status. Nonetheless, I truly understand and empathize with the sentiment -- these are difficult times for many and we don't necessarily want reminders. I'm sorry this has been an example of that for you. 
I hope things improve for you soon. 

Sorry you're having difficulties, @MorriganIt's certainly not been a wonderful 10 months, by any stretch. 😞
I'm also sorry the notifications are causing you stress. They're intended to emphasize the importance of updates - if you're like me, you've likely clicked the "remind me later" button on OS updates a few dozen times before actually going through with it. Unfortunately, there is no distinction between licensed/unlicensed at this time - if we recommend an update, it's recommended regardless of license status. Nonetheless, I truly understand and empathize with the sentiment -- these are difficult times for many and we don't necessarily want reminders. I'm sorry this has been an example of that for you. 
I hope things improve for you soon. 

Hi there. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback and I'm sorry for your disappointing support experience. I've taken the liberty to review your ticket history as well as your community itself. I counted almost 50 third party plugins, 15 third party applications for a total of over 200 "hook" points. That is, by most definitions, a fairly significant amount of modifications. There is nothing inherently wrong with that and we of course welcome and encourage you to personalize and tailor the software to meet your needs, however, it does limit the amount of support we are able to provide.
I often use an automotive analogy... there are some vehicle owners that make a significant amount of customizations to their vehicle. Some, such as cosmetic changes (tinted windows, spoilers, etc.) have no real impact on the integrity or reliability of the vehicle and there are no warranty issues with the dealer. If, however, you add an aftermarket device designed to change the behavioral parameters of the vehicle (eg. an ECM 'tuner', an electronic device that plugs into the ODB port, an aftermarket head unit, etc.) - it is not a realistic expectation for the manufacturer (and dealer) to warrant and support the vehicle unless the concern is directly related to a "stock" defect or root cause.
In the case of your current support request (RSS feeds and image dimensions) - I've looked at the origin feed and the height/width attributes are indeed being sent in the feed itself. Invision Community simply imports what is provided in the feed. You would, as noted in the request, unfortunately need to work with the feed author to remove the hardcoded attributes in the feed.
I wish I had better news for you and I understand how difficult and frustrating it is sitting between developers/manufacturers and third parties/aftermarket, as a consumer.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and I hope your experience improves moving forward.

I'm sorry it's felt that we were dismissive and it's never our intent to insult anyone who are trying to provide us heartfelt feedback. Admittedly, I think our frustration with demands for legacy functionality does bleed through on occasion, for which I apologize. It is taxing at times when you are moving forward, the vast majority of your clients are happy, but there's the occasional desire to pull us backwards and believe me, cluttering up the interface with inconsequential numbers, is by ALL modern web standards - a step backwards.
I know it sometimes feels like we make decisions in a vacuum and without regard to clients, because you are the client that feels passionately about a given issue - it IS an issue to you and we get and expect that. Nonetheless, I sometimes wish some of you had the vantage point of being in our office and on our internal systems in which we gather collective feedback from various avenues, technician notes, sales notes and see the exhaustive vetting that goes into something. You would see that this, for example, was removed because:
1) It's 2020 - post 390 right now, may not be 390 5 minutes from now or may not even be 390 right now to another user.

2) There are legacy forum platforms that have grown to be quite successful in maintaining legacy functions for a niche demographic and that's great for them, but we our goal is not at all to compete with legacy forum platforms. Consider us the FedEx of Communities: Moving Foward. 😉 We are a modern community platform and very respectfully, there isn't anything modern social related that uses arbitrary, visual IDs. I can't imagine you would tell a colleague "Hey Bob, check out tweet 9832441068311 on Tim's twitter feed" - nobody does that, right? 🙂 You send a link to the tweet and save Bob 10 minutes of needing to energize the flux capacitor to find content. Same with Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and other platforms the majority of customers and their end users are going to be familiar with.
3) Because, as noted in #2, it's inconsistent with literally the rest of the Internet, it caused confusion. "How do I remove this?" "Why is this here?" etc. It all prompted the question "why IS this here? it serves no functional purpose beyond familiarity and personally speaking, I would be extremely annoyed if someone sent me an arbitrary ID number for content I'm suppose to find myself when they could literally click the date of the post and send me the link to it.
I realize it used to exist and at one point, it was a good idea. Hand cranking an old Model A was also a good idea too before electric starters. I think we can mostly agree ehhh, maybe we'd rather just jump in and turn a key and/or push a button. Likewise, most agree they don't need an arbitrary number as a visual cue or as directions to a post - that's not how the 2020 Internet works. Simply click, copy and paste the link. Bob thanks you in advance.
@BankFodder I could see how that number could be misleading. I just looked, as I was curious too, but there are folks who have downloaded i 10+ times and it counts each one. This is the number of reporting installations that have ever had the plugin:

Hi there. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback and I'm sorry for your disappointing support experience. I've taken the liberty to review your ticket history as well as your community itself. I counted almost 50 third party plugins, 15 third party applications for a total of over 200 "hook" points. That is, by most definitions, a fairly significant amount of modifications. There is nothing inherently wrong with that and we of course welcome and encourage you to personalize and tailor the software to meet your needs, however, it does limit the amount of support we are able to provide.
I often use an automotive analogy... there are some vehicle owners that make a significant amount of customizations to their vehicle. Some, such as cosmetic changes (tinted windows, spoilers, etc.) have no real impact on the integrity or reliability of the vehicle and there are no warranty issues with the dealer. If, however, you add an aftermarket device designed to change the behavioral parameters of the vehicle (eg. an ECM 'tuner', an electronic device that plugs into the ODB port, an aftermarket head unit, etc.) - it is not a realistic expectation for the manufacturer (and dealer) to warrant and support the vehicle unless the concern is directly related to a "stock" defect or root cause.
In the case of your current support request (RSS feeds and image dimensions) - I've looked at the origin feed and the height/width attributes are indeed being sent in the feed itself. Invision Community simply imports what is provided in the feed. You would, as noted in the request, unfortunately need to work with the feed author to remove the hardcoded attributes in the feed.
I wish I had better news for you and I understand how difficult and frustrating it is sitting between developers/manufacturers and third parties/aftermarket, as a consumer.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and I hope your experience improves moving forward.

The Marketplace is a service. While you are of course acquiring third party resources, you are not obtaining them directly from third party authors and it is really no different than other app stores. Your transaction is conducted through IPS and the Marketplace is a remote service. The point here is just to dispel the silly notion that we're in "breach of contract." The EULA makes clear the fact that a renewal is required for all updates, services, etc.
To provide further clarification, an expired license does not shut off the software and you may continue its use in an "as-is" state (at time of expiration), but it does effectively render both the license and status as a customer as inactive. It is no secret that our company is based on the recurring investment model, so while we don't want anyone to feel held hostage to renewals and we try to reasonably accommodate all customers past and present, our decisions and prioritization of goals will ultimately be in the interest of those continuing along side of us, sharing our overall vision.
With all of that said, this topic has been discussed several times and ultimately, the Marketplace was moved to the AdminCP for what I hope are obvious reasons. A significantly improved and smooth experience for the majority of customers who want a point-and-click experience, consistent with most non-classic "forum" platforms. We want to take every reasonable measure possible to ensure that when you click to install something from the Marketplace, it will be a successful and safe experience for you. We've tightened the framework around that to ensure you're notified with seamless updates from authors and anything installed through the Marketplace framework has been reasonably reviewed by us. We made the decision to disallow manual downloads from the Marketplace as it is entirely counterproductive to the goal we set out to achieve in the first place.
I want to stress that you are welcome to contact an author for manual file provisions if you would like and we do not prohibit them from providing it. You may also purchase from some authors directly if you wish. The only caveat for both cases is, you would use the manual (old) framework to install and update these resources manually. A warning will also be generated because these are untested files - similar to Mac and Windows. Beyond that, we're not standing in your way of using the "old school" way - we are just not facilitating it as again, it is counterproductive to our goal of something that resembles more of a proper app store and not just a repository of "files."
I'm sorry for the disappointment to those find the previous method to work better for them. As you know, we try to take on board as much feedback as we can - after all, there's no point to any of this without customers. Nonetheless, while we've heard the feedback loud and clear, we do not intend on reversing course on downloads or policy changes, so at this juncture, I would very respectfully ask that we move on to other, more actionable feedback items.
Thank you as always for your continued business.
 

I'm sorry it's felt that we were dismissive and it's never our intent to insult anyone who are trying to provide us heartfelt feedback. Admittedly, I think our frustration with demands for legacy functionality does bleed through on occasion, for which I apologize. It is taxing at times when you are moving forward, the vast majority of your clients are happy, but there's the occasional desire to pull us backwards and believe me, cluttering up the interface with inconsequential numbers, is by ALL modern web standards - a step backwards.
I know it sometimes feels like we make decisions in a vacuum and without regard to clients, because you are the client that feels passionately about a given issue - it IS an issue to you and we get and expect that. Nonetheless, I sometimes wish some of you had the vantage point of being in our office and on our internal systems in which we gather collective feedback from various avenues, technician notes, sales notes and see the exhaustive vetting that goes into something. You would see that this, for example, was removed because:
1) It's 2020 - post 390 right now, may not be 390 5 minutes from now or may not even be 390 right now to another user.

2) There are legacy forum platforms that have grown to be quite successful in maintaining legacy functions for a niche demographic and that's great for them, but we our goal is not at all to compete with legacy forum platforms. Consider us the FedEx of Communities: Moving Foward. 😉 We are a modern community platform and very respectfully, there isn't anything modern social related that uses arbitrary, visual IDs. I can't imagine you would tell a colleague "Hey Bob, check out tweet 9832441068311 on Tim's twitter feed" - nobody does that, right? 🙂 You send a link to the tweet and save Bob 10 minutes of needing to energize the flux capacitor to find content. Same with Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and other platforms the majority of customers and their end users are going to be familiar with.
3) Because, as noted in #2, it's inconsistent with literally the rest of the Internet, it caused confusion. "How do I remove this?" "Why is this here?" etc. It all prompted the question "why IS this here? it serves no functional purpose beyond familiarity and personally speaking, I would be extremely annoyed if someone sent me an arbitrary ID number for content I'm suppose to find myself when they could literally click the date of the post and send me the link to it.
I realize it used to exist and at one point, it was a good idea. Hand cranking an old Model A was also a good idea too before electric starters. I think we can mostly agree ehhh, maybe we'd rather just jump in and turn a key and/or push a button. Likewise, most agree they don't need an arbitrary number as a visual cue or as directions to a post - that's not how the 2020 Internet works. Simply click, copy and paste the link. Bob thanks you in advance.
@BankFodder I could see how that number could be misleading. I just looked, as I was curious too, but there are folks who have downloaded i 10+ times and it counts each one. This is the number of reporting installations that have ever had the plugin:

We are going to add additional storage options as S3 can be mind blowing for some, but have not landed on any specifically. We're certainly open to suggestions and will consider Google.

Wouldn't it be easier to create a 'Banned' group for visual representation if you're going through that trouble?

Naturally, we try to consider anything that gains traction, however, this goes against the grain of every aspect of life. No where else that I'm aware of, other than "old school" forums, are those that have been subjected to disciplined paraded in front of the public with a naughty tag. I'm not aware of any social media platform that indicates a user has been banned or disciplined. Imagine getting a sticker placed on your car after getting a speeding ticket to let the world know you had your hand slapped. We are not likely to incorporate any feature that promotes public humiliation of members. 
As a tip for moderation - if content is being reported and you find it rises to the level of banning a user, the usual course of action would be to remove the offending content. You cited letting users know someone has been banned so they stop replying, but removing the content would accomplish this as well. 
If you're insistent on this, please consider using a third party resource or custom user group is likely your best option. You are, however, likely going to receive a higher number of GDPR "right to be forgotten" requests if you start publicly shaming your members for moderation actions taken.