Ioannis D

Finally, one of the most requested features for clubs in Invision Community is coming with our March 2024 release: Pages databases in Clubs.
You may be surprised to see a new feature being introduced for Invision Community 4 during our flow of news for Invision Community 5, but as we're committed to Invision Community 4, we wanted to continue to bring optimizations and improvements to the platform.
What is the benefit of this new feature?
Clubs enable communities to host multiple micro-communities with many benefits. Clubs allow more specialized and focused discussions on specific topics. This can lead to higher-quality content and a deeper exploration of niche subjects that may get overlooked when posted on a busy forum. Clubs also offer the ability to tailor the community experience based on the needs of that community. That customization is what this feature focuses on.
Pages is a powerful application that allows truly custom layouts for content areas. Simply by adjusting templates, you can create a news feed layout (it is what we use for this news blog area!) or something even more customized to your needs.
The March 2024 release allows you to create Pages database categories directly inside clubs, including custom fields and templates.
How does it work?
Setting up your Pages database to allow clubs to use categories is simple. Simply allow categories to be created within clubs when creating or editing a database.

Once that is done, club owners can add a Pages database category to their club in the same way they can add topics, galleries, etc.

Once the Pages database category has been added, you can then add content as you would any other club area with the added features of Pages, including custom templates and custom fields.
This example club uses a custom Pages database listing template to show the articles in a custom format along with custom field data.

Likewise, viewing an article in this example club showcases the use of custom templates to present the content differently from the standard topic templates Invision Community uses elsewhere.

Allowing Pages database categories inside clubs brings the opportunity for more complex custom areas making use of multiple custom fields along with truly custom layouts using templates. This is a great way to bring additional areas, such as news articles, into your club areas to compliment discussions.
We hope you enjoy this feature, and if you have any comments, please leave them below!

View full blog entry

As you may know, Invision Community 5 is currently in development, and progress has been great, with many areas starting to come together.
Almost all of the significant code restructuring has been completed, with much progress on the UI and the new theme bearing fruit. A fair few new features are complete, but some aren't quite ready to show, as they need a little love from Ehren.
I wanted to share a little teaser of Invision Community 5; how many new things or changes can you spot?
The small print
Please remember that the features, functionality and UI shown in this little teaser are pre-beta, so they are subject to change. The features and functionality shown here aren't all that has been completed; many new features are 'code-complete' but waiting for some UI polish before we're ready to share more. Essentially, what you're seeing is a work in progress.
We don't have a release timeframe in mind yet, but we'll let you know when we do!

Nevermind, I'm not gonna cry for 20 bucks but this must be change sometime and from the dev side and from the IPS. A solution to not ask everytime I want to buy something....

What's New in Version 1.5.3
NEW -> The Friendly URLs Added

I would like to report that while i am still using the version  2.0.0 20000
its still i working with 4.7 ...  
I cant update to the current version, though, from marketplace, 
because its saying that 4.7  its not compatible with the latest version of the plugin. 
but, i see, it is working just fine. 

Could you please make it compatible for the latest IPS version?

Most likely, this issue happened because the default position of the search section of the theme you are using has been changed.

@Adriano Faria, just to be fair, I asked from @onlyME the same request and he informed me that .avi file it's not HTML5 video format and most browsers can't play it. To take you out of this extra work, I will prefer to do the conversions to avoid future problems. Thank you very much for your interest and sorry for any inconvenience. I wish you happy holidays and a very happy new year 🙂

Ok. I'll add .avi as an option.

Could you please make it compatible for the latest IPS version?

you should update to version 1.5.2. 
 

@Ioannis D 
 
i've fixed this bug and the new version has been uploaded. Awaiting for approval
Thanks for reporting

i'll work on FURL and let you know

I will check them out and let you know asap.

Could you please add a setting to define which usergroup can upload attachment as an image or video story?
For example, I want members to can't upload attachments as stories and have the option for external URLs, but moderators can upload attachments and set external URLs.

good idea.
i'll wrk on it.

FROM NOVEMBER 1ST TO NOVEMBER 30TH.

Ok. I’ll upload new version. They’re ready since Beta 1 but I couldn’t update marketplace as it accepts only one version per file.

Updated to IPS 4.7.3 and get this in Admin CP...

Looks like it's not PHP 8 compatible, as when I have this app enabled with PHP 8, I get a white page on site. When I switch to PHP 7.4 and enable this app, it works with no issues.

As you may have noticed, we've been doing a lot of work to prepare Invision Community to use PHP8 as the minimum version.
If you are an Invision Community Cloud client, then you do not need to worry about any of this, and can happily click out of this topic.
For those who host Invision Community on their own servers, then please read on.
PHP7 is now end of life and from November, PHP will no longer offer security updates. PHP8 is a major update which brings many changes including how errors are either logged and means that what was a harmless notice or log entry is now a fatal error which Invision Community cannot capture.
We have introduced the application and plugin scanner to ensure that your site is not "bricked" (unrecoverable from a fatal error) when you upgrade to PHP8 although you currently have the option to re-enable any disabled applications or plugins.
From the November 2022 release, we will require PHP8.0 as the minimum version. If you are currently using PHP7 then you must contact your host and plan your PHP8 upgrade to ensure compatibility with Invision Community from November onwards.

We are rolling out dismissible AdminCP banners to those who are currently on PHP7.
If you are unsure what version of PHP your server is running, simply log into your Admin CP then navigate to System > Get Support and check out the PHP version block.


The November release of Invision Community will also mean that you are no longer able to re-enable plugins the application scanner disables. We continue to work on this tool to refine its error checking and logging verbosity.
If you have any questions, please let me know below.
 

New version uploaded. Awaiting IPS review.

4.2.7.1 will allow you to enable add-ons still. They will no longer be locked.

New version was released yesterday to make it compatible with 4.7.2. Update again.
Ooops, 4.2.7.1? Oh God, here we go again! Let me test it.

We have released 4.7.2.1 with an update to the PHP8 compatibility scanner to make it less sensitive to issues that PHP8 is not concerned at this time, such as the following:
Parameter variable names being different in the extended class, eg:
Base: function foo( $node )
Extended: function foo( $forum )
Protected methods becoming public methods in the extended class, eg:

Base: protected function foo()
Extended: public function foo()

Extended methods returning a type when the base class does not have any type, eg:

Base: function foo():
Extended: function foo(): \IPS\Member

This will reduce the number of third party code flagged and thus fewer plugins and applications being disabled.
Posted edited to reflect that 4.7.2.1 has been released.

Yes, because you can upgrade to PHP 8 after the upgrade and then have a bricked install. Given that PHP 7 is EOL and security support ends in November this year, I'd suspect most hosts will start planning their upgrades to PHP 8 very soon.


As mentioned above, PHP 8 have made things that used to send a hidden notice now throw a fatal error we cannot capture or adjust.

Invision Community 4.7.2 now features a third party application and plug-ins PHP 8 compatibility scanner.
Please read this post as you may find applications of plugins disabled after upgrading.
Why do we need this?
The underlying programming language that Invision Community uses is PHP. The latest version, PHP 8 was released in November 2020 and features many breaking changes and incompatibilities that are not backwards compatible. Some of these changes mean that what was a harmless silent notice, is now a fatal error which would mean that if you upgrade with incompatible code, your community would throw a fatal error which results in either a white screen, or a server level error message in your browser.
These fatal errors cannot be captured by Invision Community and managed. The fatal errors are deeper in the execution chain.
PHP 8 has been out for close to two years, and PHP 7.4 is 'end of life' and security updates will cease from November which means that it becomes insecure, so everyone will have to move to PHP 8 very shortly.
What is it
The compatibility checker examines all third party applications and plugins that you have added from the Marketplace.
We encourage our Marketplace authors to test with PHP 8 but not all do, and as such applications and plugins that work fine with PHP 7.4 will fail with PHP 8.
The compatibility checker scans all third party code for issues that could cause fatal errors, and if it finds them it will disable the application or plugin on upgrade.
The only way to re-enable the application or upgrade is to update it to a 4.7.2 compatible version from the marketplace.
Can I re-enable disabled third party plugins and applications?
Yes, if you are confident the plugins and applications are fine to run with your current PHP version then you can re-enable them until our November release which will then enforce the disabling of applications.

It's worth reaching out to the authors of key plugins and applications to see if they have a PHP8 compatible version available, or plan to have one by November so you can prepare for the November upgrade.
Is this really needed?
Unfortunately yes. PHP are making bold changes that are not backwards compatible. Invision Community is fortunate to have so many third party developers releasing apps and plugins to further enhance the feature-set, but we do not have direct control over this code. Our priority is to ensure that your site upgrades smoothly and remains online.
Why now?
We finally ran out of road. We have been working towards PHP 8 compatibility for a while, and we have encouraged our third party authors to do so too, and to test with PHP 8. We also informed the developers in August about the scanner and what it may do to their applications. We also have been releasing Invision Community 4.7 betas since May of this year to give them as much time as possible to update their applications. Enforcing this change is painful in the short term but benefits everyone in the longer term.
What else can I do?
Your self-hosting license allows you a test install which you should use as a staging site and test any upgrades on that staging site before performing the upgrade on your production site. This will enable you to capture any issues that may arise before you run it on your production site.

As always, we recommend that a back-up snapshot is taken before any upgrade so that you can easily rollback if you encounter any issues.
I'm using PHP 7, does this affect me?
Yes, the compatibility scanner will still run on the upgrade and check for PHP 8 issues so that when you do upgrade to PHP 8 you won't find that your community is no longer working.

Thanks for reading!