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A Zayed

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  1. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Stuart Silvester for a blog entry, Marketplace: The Next Steps   
    The Marketplace is closing on October 30th 2023. If you haven't already read the announcement, please read it first.
    As our Marketplace prepares to close its doors, we want to ensure a seamless transition for our customers. To facilitate this process, we're introducing a new 'license key' system to allow you to transfer your purchases to the third-party developer website in a privacy-conscious way.
    On the 'My Purchases' page, you'll find an improved layout displaying each resource you've purchased from the Marketplace. This includes the original purchase date, the expiry date (if applicable) and the current renewal term (if applicable).
    Additionally, we've added two new enhancements. First, you'll notice the purchase-specific license key (depicted as XXXX in the screenshot). This license key is accessible to the third party author and can be provided to them through their website or other means. It enables them to confirm your payment for the resource and check its activation status. Secondly, we've added a link to their profile in the Providers Directory (if applicable).

    You can find contact details and a link to the provider's website on their profile. We hope that these additions will help make the transition as smooth as possible.
     
    Third Party Developers
    Developers can now access the new 'My Sales' area, where you'll find a searchable list of resources that have had sales on the Marketplace. This list may include resources that were previously hidden.

    Clicking on any of these resources will display a list similar to the old 'my paid files.' Here, you'll find detailed information for each purchase, including purchase and expiry dates. Additionally, the list now includes the customer's current renewal term, which may differ from the initial purchase due to pricing changes.
    Furthermore, you'll notice the new license key, conveniently searchable in the top right corner. We've also made the list of purchases available in CSV format, allowing for easy integration into your own website or marketplace.

    Please let us know if you have any questions and we hope these new tools will ease the transition from the Marketplace.
  2. Agree
    A Zayed reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Twenty years of Invision Community   
    Twenty years ago today, Invision Community was founded and within months the first version of Invision Community was released. Little did we know, this would be the start of a remarkable journey spanning several decades.
    Our first version appeared shortly after we founded the company. It might be hard to imagine a time before social media and YouTube, but when we started out, the web looked very different.

    The first version of Invision Community was called Invision Board, reflecting the popular term for forums back in the early 2000s. It was full featured and you may recognise some elements that persist today.
    Like today, it even had a separate control panel where you could create new areas of discussion and customise the theme.

    Twenty years is a long time and we've continued to adapt with the ever-changing needs of community managers. We've seen the rise of social media impact how people consume content and found ways to compliment Twitter and Facebook by offering a place for long-form permanent discussion.
    Several elements remain from those early days but the concepts behind the theme have change significantly. New workflows, UI elements and views have helped the platform stay fresh and we've certainly innovated a few features that have since become industry standard over that time.
    I can't express how proud I am of what we've built together. From those humble beginnings working until 2am to growing a creative and talented team around our passion for community.
    I'm still as excited today as I was back in 2002. This year will see us build and release new tools to help guide and inform community managers. Our community platform continues to go from strength to strength.
    Of course, the platform is only one part of Invision Community. Over the last twenty years I've been grateful to get to know many of you and watch your lives unfold.
    This is as pure as community can get and I'm privileged to be part of it.

    We have a few other surprises to celebrate our twentieth anniversary. We can't wait to share them!

    I'd love to hear your memories of Invision Community! When did you first use our products and what was your community for? Please let me know in the comments below.
  3. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Jordan Miller for a blog entry, In Case You Missed It: Watch our 4.6 Live Event   
    Invision Community's latest update, 4.6, is officially out! 
    To celebrate, we hosted a live event on Zoom.
    I, alongside two of the three Invision Community co-founders @Charles and @Matt (shout-out to @Lindy) sat down for a roundtable talk to chat about some of the slickest features 4.6 has to offer.
    If you'd like to refresh your memory with exactly what features we implemented in 4.6, check out our detailed blog post (after you're done watching our live event above, of course). 
    It includes:
    Achievements Spam Improvements Health dashboard Web app and push notifications Anonymous posting Solved content Show when a team member has replied
    Did you catch the low-key Smart Community announcement? 🙃

    We also wanted to take the time to answer a few questions we received during the live event that we couldn't get to in the moment.
    Question: regarding the anonymous posting... is it completely anonymous (like no record is stored of who posted it) or is just a pseudo thing, like it shows "anonymous" but admins/mods can see who posted it?

    Answer: The community owner can choose whether moderators can see the true identity of the user. This uses the built in moderator permissions so they can have it so all moderators, just specific moderators or nobody can see this info.
    ---
    Question: Is the translation service be hosted by IPS or do we need to use Google or Bing services on our community?
    Answer: It will be a turnkey service provided by Invision Community.
    ---
    Question: Does Achievements show how many x Points are left to the next level?
    Answer: Yup!

     
    ---
    Question: When will Smart Community be available?
    Unsatisfying Answer: We are excited to share more details on Smart Community soon!
    ---
    We appreciate you participating / watching our first-ever live event. We're planning on doing more, so keep an eye out for the next one.
    Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Concerns? Drop us a line in the comments!
  4. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Rikki for a blog entry, Web push notifications, native sharing & offline support   
    As we approach the release of Invision Community 4.6, I wanted to take you through some improvements for using Invision Community on a mobile device.
    Web push notifications
    For some time, we've used the local browser notification API to show users notifications. There's a big drawback though: users had to have the site open in a tab for these to work. This is particularly problematic for mobile devices.
    In 4.6, we've added support for the WebPush API, which allows sites to push notifications to users' browsers & devices even if the site isn't open - or even if the device is asleep.
    We already have support baked in for push notifications via our beta mobile app, so we've piggy-backed on that system and expanded it to support browser-based push notifications.

    Choosing push notifications
    For users, it's a simple process. A little while after joining a community they will prompted to accept notifications from the site when they open the notification list dropdown (or they can opt-in any time from the notification settings screen). After accepting, they will be able to choose a "Notification List + Push" option for any of the available notification types.

    Push notifications enabled
    Existing users, who may have already granted permission to the site in the past, will be re-prompted to accept push notifications upon logging in after the 4.6 upgrade.
    Push notifications typically show on the homescreen of a phone or in the notification tray of a desktop computer, so receiving dozens of notifications could be overwhelming. For that reason, Invision Community will automatically merge related notifications - for example, multiple mentions from the same topic, or multiple new topics from the same forum.

    Grouped push notifications
    And, of course, users can stop push notifications across all of their devices with a single click if they want to opt out.
    We're excited about the engagement potential of push notifications, since they allow you to immediately reach users who aren't currently on your site - a job previously left to email alone.
    On the subject of notifications, one more thing: we've heard your feedback about notifications for new replies/mentions being merged with notifications for likes/quotes, and will be separating these two types into their own permissions in 4.6. We're acutely aware that making notifications annoying results in users turning them off, so we're always looking to ensure there is a reasonable balance.
    Splash Screen Images
    When you add a website to your phone's desktop, it appears like a native app. Tapping to launch the site can show a blank screen for a few seconds while the website is loaded. Fortunately, you can now set a 'splash' image in the Admin CP which is shown when launching the app.
     

    Sharing using native share options
    Another enhancement coming in 4.6 is the addition of the device share sheet when sharing content from within Invision Community. Users will now see a "More Sharing Options" button (providing their device/browser supports the underlying API) which, when tapped, will open the device share sheet. The options available depend on the device, but typically include actions like sharing links in WhatsApp, posting to Facebook or creating a note.

    Offline support
    With a larger share of users now using mobile devices for most of their browsing comes the problem of patchy phone signal and internet connections dropping out. For a dynamic web-based platform like Invision Community, it's difficult to offer much in the way of full offline support, but starting in 4.6 we will present a branded offline page to users when they have no internet connection and try to access the community.

     
    We hope that you are looking forward to these PWA improvements coming in Invision Community 4.6!
  5. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Joel R for a blog entry, 4x4 Growth Hacks 🚀   
    Are you curious 🤔about ways to boost your engagement that don't require a lot of effort?  Want some shortcuts to set your engagement on fire 🔥?   
    Check out these 4x4 tips of four growth hacks that you can implement in less than four minutes ⏳ to boost engagement.
    1. Add a content block at the bottom of topics.  Sounds upside down 🙃, right?  Most admins add content blocks at the tops of pages to attract users.  But what do users do when they're finished reading or replying to a topic?  Nothing. They're finished ... unless you add a block such as similar content, popular posts, recent topics, or another content block at the bottom of topics that help them discover new content.
    2.  Tag in your superusers 🌟 to stimulate a conversation.  Your community's superusers are probably just as active as you are, and thoroughly involved in the community.  They're comfortable in the community and would love to provide input.  Wouldn't you agree with me @AlexJ @GTServices @Sonya* @Maxxius @media  @Nebthtet@Ramsesx @tonyv??  
    3.  Run a poll ☑️.  It makes the topic more interactive, and people love voting.  
    4. Write a contrarian topic or blog "Why XYZ isn't for you?"  That's a surefire way to grab 😲 attention and begs the user to challenge back.  And if you can't write a contrarian topic, then maybe ... being a community manager isn't right for you.  Or is it?? 😜
    Hope you enjoy these tips, and and share your growth hacks in the comments below! 
  6. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Why I try and avoid the F word in public   
    I've had this similar conversation dozens of times in the recent past when someone has taken an interest in what I do.
    Person: So what does Invision Community do?
    Me: We develop and sell an independent community platform.
    Person: Oh. Neat.

    I used to say the F word. But this used to cause some confusion.

    'We develop and sell a forum system'.
    This used to elicit a response similar to this:
    "Forums? They're still going?"
    This line of thinking is quite prevalent among those who frequent Facebook, or use Facebook Groups to manage their micro communities. Even though they probably use forums regularly, or end up on forum topics when searching for things like "Why is my iPhone not charging", they don't realise this.
    I recently guested on a podcast, where we spoke about "Facebook or Forums?", and I received this comment.

     
    It appears, then, that the word "forums" has a lot of legacy connotations attached to it. It conjures up images of the past when Netscape Navigator was the world's favourite browser, and AOL was still mailing out CDs.

    That is all ancient history now, and we've moved with the times. The product we have now has roots in the product from the early 2000s but it is wildly different and much more capable.
    When you explain that you can segment discussions into separate areas (aka forums), and even set up independent micro-communities (clubs), you can see lightbulbs going off.

    "That's amazing! I had no idea! So you mean I don't have to have my community in a single stream struggling for attention among adverts?"

    Nope, there is another way.

    Why not try an independent community platform?

    I'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you avoid the F word too?
     
  7. Thanks
    A Zayed reacted to Mark for a blog entry, 4.4: Increase visitor registrations with Post Before Registering   
    It's very easy to focus on a single metric to gauge the success of your community.
    It's very common for community owners to look at page hits and determine if their SEO and marketing efforts have paid off.
    Getting traffic to your site is only half the equation though. The most valuable metric is how many casual visitors you're converting to engaged members.
    Invision Community already makes it easy for guests to sign up using external services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.
    However, there has to be a conscious decision to click that sign-up button. For some, this may be a barrier too many.
    Invision Community 4.4 reduces this barrier by allowing guests to create a post to a topic they want to engage with.
    Once they have posted, they are asked to simply complete their registration. They are more likely to do this now they have invested in your community.
    This will be incredibly valuable when you consider how much traffic a forum receives from inbound Google searches. With Post Before Registering, you'll increase your chances of turning that inbound lead into a registered member contributing to your site.
    Let me take you through the feature and show you how it works.
    When browsing the community guests will see the ability to submit a post, with an explanation that they can post now and complete registration later. The only thing they have to provide in addition to their post is an email address.

    Posting as a guest
    This works in any application for new content (topics, Gallery images, etc.) as well as comments and reviews. It will only show when a newly registered member would be able to post in that area - for example, it will not show in a forum that only administrators can post in. 
    After submitting the post, the post will not be visible to any user, but the user will immediately be redirected to the registration form with an explanation to complete the registration. The email address they provided will already be filled in.

    Registration form after posting as a guest
    At this point, the user can either fill in the registration form, or use a social sign in method like Facebook or Twitter to create an account. After the account has been created, and validation has been completed if necessary, their post will automatically be made visible just as if they had registered and then posted.
    If the user abandons the registration after they've submitted their post, an email will be sent to them to remind them to complete the registration.

    Email reminding user to finish registering
     
    Some Notes
    Invision Community already has a feature that allows guests to post as guests without registration if granted permission. That feature has not been removed and so if you already allow guests to post, the behaviour will not change. This new feature is only available when a guest can't post in a given area, but a member would be able to. The entire feature can also be turned off if undesired. If the area the guest is posting in requires moderator approval, or newly registered members require approval of new posts, the post will enter the moderation queue as normal once their account has been created. Third party applications will require minor updates to support this feature. Once your casual visitor has invested time in your community by crafting a post, they are much more likely to finish the registration to get it posted. If you have set up external log in methods, then registration only takes a few more clicks.
    This blog is part of our series introducing new features for Invision Community 4.4.
  8. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Team Talk: Show us your workstation   
    You have probably spoken to us in support tickets and on our community forums, and you've likely seen our photos.
    But what about our workstations? What do they reveal about our personalities? Do none of our team have lights in their office?
    Mark H
    This is an old picture [Not as old as your Facebook photo -Ed], I now have a 4K monitor in the center, attached via Thunderbolt to my MBP. But that image was taken when I used my PC, a now-old EVGA x79 Dark mobo, i7 3930k, twin GTX 580's, and all watercooled.
    When I game, I swap out the leads so the PC can use all 3.
    At the moment I'm revisiting an old, but still apparently very popular game. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.

    Where's the light switch?
    Marc S
    For my main machine I have a late 2014 iMac with 2 x iiyama external monitor, which I spend most of my day on.
    When out of the house or just generally wanting a break from the office, I have a MacBook pro. Great for what it is, but I hate sitting on a laptop [You're supposed to sit in front of it -Ed], so I'm generally found hiding away in my office.
    When I'm not responding to tickets from you lovely lot, I'm generally doing some of my own development. As a Windows developer primarily [That explains a lot -Ed], I have parallels desktop set up so I can work with visual studio and sql server as if they were native mac applications. I also spend a fair amount of time with Ableton live and Logic, where I play about with trance production, as its something nice to immerse yourself in during spare time.

    Who let the dogs out?
    Jim M
    The few, the proud, the Windows users of IPS [We only keep them so we can assign all IE bugs to them -Ed]. Love my two 27" Dell monitors. Plan to add a third eventually. I may also be a big Tom Petty fan.

    Our Tom Petty fan
    Matt M
    I switched from a desktop only set up to the new retina MacBook Pro last year. It's nice to work in the office with the LG monitors but have the flexibility of unplugging and taking the MacBook with me to work elsewhere [What? Like the garden? -Ed]. 

    Clowns, Drug Lords and Funny Men
    Daniel
    It took hours to clean up for a picture. [This is literally all Daniel supplied as text for this month's blog. For example, he could have pointed out the little keypad thing shown under the right hand monitor which acts like an app launcher, but didn't. So thought I would -Ed]

    Precise angles and a lot of work to clean up
    Ryan
    My office is actually going through a slow renovation process so that it can double as an office as well as a studio, so this will all likely change in a few months (you can see color swatches for paint options on the left) [We can't see anything. You have an expensive Philips Hue set up but clearly never switch it on -Ed]. I'm currently working through a Late 2014 iMac Retina 5k, and apparently I'm one of the few that doesn't have any external monitors (I used to, but I find them cumbersome most of the time, so I took them down [Were you holding them up yourself? -Ed]). When working remotely, I use a 2011 13" MacBook Pro.
    My favorite thing, though, is the "poster" I have on the right - my father gave it to me for my thirtieth birthday this year, and it's actually a sheet of uncut one dollar bills (funnily enough, though, there are actually 32 rather than 30).

    Coke and Coffee
    Mark W
    I'm currently in the process of moving from the UK to Australia so I don't really have an office right now, but this is what my office back home looks like [it's always this tidy. He is obsessive -Ed]:

    Captain Raymond Holt
    Jennifer
    2 x 32" inch curved Samsung Monitors a 4K Samsung Smart TV. Razer Chroma Keyboard, Razer Chroma Death Adder, Corsair Yellow Jacket Headphones and a really awesome PC.
    I am basically surrounded by screens [FYI, keep an eye on J.A.R.V.I.S, he has a Vision -Ed].

    Tony Stark's first set up
    Stuart
    Up until this month my wife has been studying in Cardiff, so half of my time has been spent working on a dining table in our apartment [Can't wait to see how the table turned out, if you've spent a month on it -Ed].
    Now, back home I have my desk set up with the worlds largest laptop [Dear reader, you have no idea -Ed](i7-4720HQ, GTX960M, 16GB Ram, 17.1" 1080p)  connected to an external 22" 1080p monitor. We're still in the middle of restoration so my office is really the lowest priority buy my long term plans include a standing desk, Surface Book 2 (or similar) with twin external 4k displays. Those two PC towers aren't really used anymore (one is Windows Server 2008 which used to be used as a local file server, the other is my old gaming PC)

    We're huge fans of LEGO®
    Andy
    Like Mark I’m constantly on the move so my working environment tends to be wherever I can find that’s quiet with a good Internet connection. When I’m “home” though my office looks like this: [Seriously, switch on a light -Ed]

    Dark and moody, just like his coffee
    So there we go. We've exposed our team's set ups, expressed our concern about a lack of lighting in many offices and found out who had to tidy up their desk before taking a photo.

    We'd love to see your workstations too, post them below!
  9. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Mark for a blog entry, New: Editor Uploading   
    This entry is about our IPS Community Suite 4.2 release
    IPS Community Suite has supported drag and drop uploading to the attachments area at the bottom of the editor since 4.0. In 4.2 we're pleased to add the ability to drag and drop right into the editor, so you can drop your attachment exactly where you want it to show without having to add it afterwards.

    Drag and drop into editor
    If your browser and OS supports it you can also copy and paste, either from the desktop or from other content on the web:

    Copy and Paste
    Naturally this works for ordinary files as well as images:

    Drag and drop a file
     
  10. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Rikki for a blog entry, New: Clubs   
    This entry is about our IPS Community Suite 4.2 release.
    We are happy to introduce the next major feature that will be available in IPS Community Suite 4.2 - Clubs.
    Clubs are a brand new way of supporting sub-communities within your site. Many people have requested social group functionality in the past and Clubs are our implementation of this concept. Let's take a look at a few screenshots, and then go over what they are capable of doing.

    The Club directory

    A Club homepage

    Club member listing

    Example of content within a club (topics, in this case)
    There's a lot to digest there! Let's go over the basic functionality.
     
    Club Types
    Four types of club are available:
    Public clubs
    Clubs that anyone can see and participate in without joining. Open club
    Clubs that anyone can see and join. Closed club
    Clubs that anyone can see in the directory, but joining must be approved by a Club Leader or Club Moderator. Non-club-members who view the club will only see the member list - not the recent activity or content areas. Private club
    Clubs that do not show in public, and users must be invited by a Club Leader or Club Moderator As the site admin, you can of course configure which club types can be created and by whom. You could, for example, allow members to create public and open clubs, but allow a "VIP" group to also create Closed and Private clubs.

    Admin configuration option for Club creations
     
    Club Users
    Each club has three levels of user:
    Leader
    A leader has all of the permissions of a moderator, and can add other moderators. They can also add content areas (see below). The club owner is automatically a leader. Moderators
    Moderators, as the name implies, have the ability to moderate content posted within the club. As the site administrator, you can define which moderator tools can be used. You could, for example, prevent any content being deleted from clubs, but allow it to be hidden. Moderators can also remove members from a club. Users
    Anyone else that joins the club.
    Defining the moderator permissions available to club moderators
    Your site administrator and moderators, with the appropriate permissions, are able to moderator content in any Club regardless of whether they are a member of it. 
    Clubs can be created by any user who has permission. As you would expect, this is controlled by our regular permission settings.
    For closed clubs, there's an approval process. Users can request to join and the request must be approved by a leader. Leaders get a notification when a user requests to join; the user gets a notification when their request is approved or denied.

    Approving and declining join requests
     
    Club Content
    Club Leaders can add a variety of content areas to their club - forums, calendars, blogs and so on. It's important to note that these content areas are fully functional just as if they existed as a top-level admin created area. They will appear in search results, activity streams, users can follow them, embed links to them, and so on. If a user has permission to see a forum (for example) within a club it will behave exactly like other forums they see - and the same for all other kinds of content.
    Each content area a leader adds can have a custom title, and will appear in the club navigation. This means, for example, that you can have multiple forums within a club, and give each a different name.

    Adding content areas to a club
     
    Club Custom Fields
    Clubs also support custom fields. Custom fields are defined by the site administrator and can be filled in by Club Owners. The values they enter are shown (along with the club description) on the club homepage.

    Custom fields in a club
    On the Club Directory page, users can filter by the custom club fields.

    Filtering clubs
     
    Club Locations
    Clubs have built-in support for Google Maps, allowing users to specify a physical location for their club. Let's say you run a community for car enthusiasts; each club might be tied to a particular region's meetup. The Club Owner specifies the location when setting up the club, and clubs are then shown on map on the directory page:

    Club locations
    And within a club, the location is shown too:

     
    Club Display
    We offer two ways to display club headers within the club - the standard way, shown in the screenshots you've seen up to this point, but we also have a sidebar option. This is something the admin sets globally for the site, rather than per-club. This is useful where your site design doesn't facilitate another horizontal banner taking up valuable screen real-estate; moving the club banner to the sidebar alleviates this pressure on vertical space.

    Sidebar club style
    Using Clubs in Other Ways
    There's a lot of scope for using clubs beyond allowing users to create their own groups. You do not even have to call them "clubs" if that does not suit your use case. For example, on a company intranet you could rename Clubs to "Departments", and create a private group for each of your main roles. This would allow each department to have its own community, with its own forums, gallery, file sharing and so on, private and separate from other departments.
    Similarly, they'd also work well in situations where you as the site admin want to create entire micro-communities. Take for example a video game publisher. Using Clubs, they could create a micro-community for each of their games, complete with forums, galleries and so forth, and then set the Clubs directory as their overall community homepage. Immediately, they have a setup that hasn't until now been possible out-of-the-box with IPS Community Suite.
     
    We expect our clients will come up with some really innovative uses for the new Club functionality, and we can't wait to see what you do. We'd love to hear your feedback - let us know what you think in the comments.
  11. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Rikki for a blog entry, New: Reactions   
    This entry is about our IPS Community Suite 4.2 release.
    IPS Community Suite has long had a reputation system; first we had a simple up/down system, later updated to introduce a Likes system as an alternative. Whichever system you chose to use, it tied in with our reputation system.
    We're pleased to introduce the latest updates to the reputation system, and it's something that has been requested for quite some time: Reactions.
    Quite simply, reactions allow users to offer more fine-grained sentiments towards content than a simple up/down or 'like'. They are now in common usage on social networks, and so users expect to be able to be more nuanced in their response to something they see.
    Let's see how they work in a post, and then cover the options you'll have available.

    What you see above is the default setup for a site that has used the Like system in version 4.1. We include 5 reactions by default:
    Like Thanks Confused Sad Haha If you currently use the older style up/down reputation system, don't fret - you'll still get the new reactions on upgrade, but they'll be disabled by default and instead the new reaction UI will show up/down reactions. This gives you the flexibility to decide which of the new reactions, if any, you want to allow.
    So, those are the basics - but what configuration options can you expect to see? First, you can of course add your own reactions! We expect that beyond the default reactions you'd expect to find, some sites will want reaction types specific to their use-case. On an intranet, you might want to have 'agree' and 'disagree' reactions for staff to use when responding to discussions. On a gaming community, you might replace the icons to be some graphic from a video game that means something to your particular userbase. There's a wealth of possibilities.
    Each reaction you set up can be configured to adjust the original author's reputation count - a reaction can be positive (i.e. award a reputation point), negative (i.e. subtract a reputation point), or neutral (i.e. leave the reputation count unchanged). Our default set won't include any negative reactions, but you are free to configure these and new reactions to suit your own use-case. A user's total reputation count is still shown alongside their content and in their profile, of course.
    If you don't want to use the new reactions for whatever reason, you can disable all of them except Like, and it'll behave just the like 4.1-and-earlier system:

     
    Sites that currently use the up/down system don't show a list of names of users, and instead show an overall reputation score for the content. With the new reaction system, you can enable this even if you don't use up/down reactions. This is great if you plan to use reactions as, for example, an agree/disagree system, or where the content score is more important to your site than the individual reaction types.

    How the reaction UI looks with the 'count only' setting enabled
    As you'd expect, you can click individual reaction counts (or the overall reputation score, if you enable that setting) to view who reacted to the content. This remains a permission setting that you can apply per-group.

    On touch devices, on-hover functionality is not suitable, and so for these devices the reactions UI looks like this:

    Reactions play well with all areas of the suite, including Recommended Replies:

    ...and activity streams...

    ...and a couple of places we aren't quite ready to reveal yet  
     
    We hope you're looking forward to this new feature as much as we are. It's already been a hit on our internal testing site, and we're looking forward to seeing how clients customize it for use on their own community.
    Developer note: Reactions are one of two new features (the other currently unannounced) so far that make use of PHP Traits.
  12. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Rikki for a blog entry, Introducing our new Developers area   
    I'm pleased to announce we're finally ready to open our new Developers area. The aim of this project has been to improve our existing developer documentation by building a central place to contain it, as well as update and expand the content available.
    As of today, we have the regular documentation and REST API documentation ready to use. Over the coming weeks and months, we'll be expanding what's available further, going into more detail about the tools available within the framework. We've also started work on comprehensive Getting Started guides, that will walk you through simple developer projects from start to finish - these will be available soon, once they're complete.
    If there's a particular aspect of IPS4 development that you don't feel is adequately catered for right now, please let us know! This will help us direct our efforts to the most useful places.
    Enjoy!
  13. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Rikki for a blog entry, New in 4.1.13: Personal Messenger Improvements   
    In line with our aim to make incremental improvements in each release, I wanted to go over a few of the small but useful changes to the personal messenger that you'll find in our next release, 4.1.13.
     
    Read/unread filtering
    The first improvement is that you can now filter the message list by read and unread, making it a little easier to browse through just the messages you're interested in.
     
    Search improvements
    Next up, the messenger search has been improved in a couple of ways; first, you can now also search the names of both the recipients and the senders, and second, we've added a menu so you can specify which fields in particular you want to search by.
     
    Easier moving
    Finally, we've added a popular request - the ability to use the mass-move tool inside the messenger. You can now check multiple messages, and the usual mass-action toolbar will appear that will allow you either move them to another folder, or, has been the case in the past, delete them.
     
    While these are each small improvements by themselves, we hope the incremental changes in each release add up to a more pleasant experience for users. 
  14. Like
    A Zayed reacted to Charles for a blog entry, Post Color Highlight   
    Often when you are reading a topic, comments, or other posts, you will see team members replying. Although IPS Community Suite already allows groups to set up custom images and member titles, these replies can get lost in the noise.
    Version 4.1.13 now allows you to switch on post highlighting per member group. This makes sure the reply stands out from the rest of the replies.

     
    Of course, this feature works everywhere; from calendar comments to article replies.

     
    The feature is switched on via the Group form in the ACP.

     
    You can edit the look of the highlighting via the theme’s settings which allows for different color schemed per-theme.

     
    We have also ensured that theme designers can get the most out of the system by embedding a data attribute noting the group of the author. This means that you can add custom CSS to use different colours per member group.

     
     
     
    We think post highlighting will be a simple way to bring attention to member posts in groups that you define.
     
     
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