Chris Anderson

Plugins and Apps can be found here:
Downloads - Invision Community
Help Guides can be found here:
In addition to reading through the forums you can learn more about the platform by reading the company blogs:
Invision Community Blog - Invision Community
I would also recommend using the search function to see if any questions you may have in the future have already been answered by the IPS staff or other members. Sometimes you might find a thread that answers your question, and sometimes you won't, but it tends to be worth the effort overall.
This suite is highly configurable, but alas not every single option has a tutorial on how to set it up.  Many settings in one section of the ACP may impact other functionality so it's best not to make changes to the default settings without some thought as to the possible consequences.  I would recommend setting up a test server to try out things and when you are confident that a new feature works for your environment you implement it on your live server. 
Also note that some features like "Achievements" and reactions are setup for you on install. These features may or may not work for your community using the default settings so you may have to tweak them to work for you.
Often times admins think they know their community better than they actually do, as such, I would recommend working closely with your community to ensure the platform you develop works well for them.

IPS when designing and planning out new feature please consider making such new features more complete by allowing bulk changes in the ACP that users may wish to change to one or more areas.
All too often new features are stored in a bitwise and there is no interface to effectuate a change en mass.
At least for areas like Forums a new feature should include automatic inherence of a setting to all children making the change to a category that will set/reset to all sub forums is by far more ideal making a change to half dozen categories then making one one at a time in over a hundred forums.
Or even if I am deep in to the settings of a forum a set of buttons  > save and go to next forum where it will save the setting and keep me on the same setting page but for the next forum in sequence.
Id also hope for some kind of discovery tool to see at a glance how a setting is set across the site. 
 

Happy Hump Day, team! 
There's a new feature available to all included in 4.7 Beta 1: we added solved & unsolved filters to activity streams. 🎉 
 
What does this mean?
You can now sort through and stay up-to-date on any solved/unsolved content items by setting up a custom activity stream.

Why is this important?
This is particularly useful for community support forums where clients and members are searching for solutions to questions that have already been answered. Or, perhaps a developer is in search of questions or problems that are unsolved. 

Here is a view of an activity stream showing all solved content.
You can create a more granular search by inputting more information, like ownership, time period and more.  
 

 
Go ahead and give it a try by navigating to the activity streams located in our navigation. 
We have a few more updates available to you. Read our 4.7 Beta 1 release notes here.
PS - we have a new blog about hCaptcha headed your way soon. Stay tuned 😉 
 
While I've got you, check out a list of updates and fixes for 4.7. Nicely done, gents!
- Added hCaptcha support. - Added a setting to exclude groups from search logs. - Increased minimum PHP version to 7.4 and recommended version to 8.0. - Added a solved/unsolved filter for activity streams. - Changed Marketplace search to 'AND' mode for more accurate results. - Fixed an issue that may prevent attaching audio files to content. - Fixed a minor typo in the forms.css template. - Fixed upload area not showing on minimized editors for guest users. - Fixed an issue where post counts were incremented even when a new item was held for approval via the profanity filters. - Fixed an issue where filters and sort options do not persist between deleting members in the Admin CP. - Fixed an issue where sitemap may show entries from offline applications. - Fixed an issue where support account may show as the latest registered member. - Fixed an issue where the upgrade process would fail to finish because of duplicate DB queries. - Fixed an issue where the default streams had a broken time period. - Fixed an issue where widgets may not be available even with enabled apps. - Fixed an issue where status updates where appearing as search results even if the user had no permissions to view profiles. - Fixed some issues with the online status indicator in account settings. - The Editor Preview Button was removed from ACP Editors. - Removed the deprecated FX Country code from the Geolocation class. - Removed the ability to rebuild existing attachment thumbnails due to an incompatibility with content attributes required for lazy-loading. Forums - Improved the fluid-mode per forum filters to remove a page reload, and to reverse the filter checkbox status to make it clear which are being viewed. Gallery - Fixed an issue with the followed Gallery Images page. - Fixed an issue with rebuilding thumbnails on legacy communities where the original image may no longer exist. Pages - Added the missing `__indefart_cms_page` language string. - Improved search indexing speed of comments when Elastic Search is used. - Fixed an issue where sorting by a numerical field could duplicate the option with an incorrect label. - Fixed issue with 'image upload' block carousels not working in the sidebar - Fixed an issue where custom Yes/No fields when used as a database filter were ignored when further sorting. - Fixed an issue where categories could have broken breadcrumbs. - Fixed an issue where entering a blank value for a required decimal field would save the value as 0. Converters - Fixed an issue rebuilding some profile photo images. Commerce - Improved performance when updating a large number of existing purchases. - Removed deprecated Amex Express checkout options. - Fixed an issue where a card would not be auto-billed if the customer did not have an address. - Fixed a niche issue where a renewal invoice (for manual payment) would not be generated if a PayPal Subscription was cancelled on an active purchase. Calendar - Fixed an issue where the day view wouldn't show todays events when it's being used as the default calendar view. REST, Webhooks and Zapier - Fixed an issue where the 'hidden' content item filter would be ignored for any content type except topics. - Fixed an issue where the date parameter for the 'Edit a topic' endpoint was not updating topic/post post date.
Thoughts on the new solved/unsolved filters added to activity streams? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think!

@beats23There has already been extensive conversations around this issue between various customers and IPS staff.

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/467153-new-members-cannot-access-community-pages/?do=findComment&comment=2891274
https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/466939-images-in-forum-posts-skewed/?do=findComment&comment=2890395
https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/465824-achievements-adjusting-points-has-no-effect/?do=findComment&comment=2883296
Maybe change the placeholder from "Display Name" to "Display Name or email address", with a description under the field to explain which of either, or both, would be the item required there? As it stands now, people are just doing what they are told, then being advised some time afterwards that the information is incorrect.
 

@Andy Millne It would be nice to be able to exclude certain members from appearing in the Connections app or if that isn't possible at least allow us to exclude members from certain selected groups from being listed in the app. 

If a member adds a location, then they should be able to see how far the other members area in relation to themselves like below:

 

Zapier should be available to you on your self-hosted install. Check out this guide to setup Zapier:
 

There are portions of the codebase that doesn't get utilized by the average site owner. There could be certain settings that get enabled that utilize a section of code that might not play well with new PHP releases. It's in the realm of possibility that one site might not encounter any compatibility issues. 
One site claiming that all is well in the world doesn't necessarily mean that everyone's world will be peachy.  It's quite possible that there might be problems yet to be discovered.
Although some folks step us to beta test each build its pretty much a free for all. People will randomly test things likely leaving portions of the suite untested.  
With "some" structure thrown around client beta testing a larger amount of the code could be tested minimizing the amount of follow up releases needed to be fully compatible with each new PHP release. 
Helping marketplace developers better address future PHP releases would be a worthy conversation to have between IPS and the community.
 
 
 
 
 

https://www.tinkov.info
Author lists sites they work with on their website.

As most everyone is posting support requests via forums it would be nice if there was a visual indicator that a posting is related to a self-hosted install or an online hosting install or both.
This could minimize the amount of follow up posts required to narrow down exactly what the problem is and on which platform it is occurring, especially if a fellow member is offering up some help.
A problem and solution on the self-hosted platform might not necessarily be appropriate for the IPS hosted version and vice versa.  

https://www.tinkov.info
Author lists sites they work with on their website.

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

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

Wording and formatting are for illustrative purposes only.  

I'll have a think - could be a good addition for this:
 
 
 

@Marc Stridgen
Governmental agencies throughout the world are battling with how to protect their citizenry from bad actors near and far.  Some of the protections implemented will be well thought out and some will be unmitigated disasters.  Sites with minimal technical expertise and or sufficient funds to hire that expertise out will unfortunately find they won't be able to be compliant with various legal requirements.  These sites will be forced to close which will begin to impact your bottom line.
As much as your customer base would like IPS to dedicate your entire programming staff to adding ever cooler features there may be value in dedicating more of your staff's time figuring out what legal requirements we will likely find ourselves having to address and see if they can be programmatically dealt with.
There may be a time in the not-too-distant future where this platform won't be able to be used in certain locales as it simply won't be economically viable to alter it by IPS or a third-party developer to be in continuous legal compliance.  Can we as a community come together in partnership with IPS to minimize such occurrences. 
Every site that closes will diminish the overall value proposition of the internet so it's in our collective best interest to minimize these occurrences.

For other who may come across this, the guide for this has now been fully updated, and can be found in the following location
 

Thank you for your feedback, we've implemented some performance improvements (will be in a future update) for this process when large numbers of purchases need to be updated.

@InvisionHQ I came up with a partial solution to creating nested menus using custom blocks, see below:

The problem is every new club feature that gets added it gets added to this:

This can become quite confusing to look at once you've added a few.
Could you add a hide feature as shown below?

The feature would still exist if hidden but wouldn't appear in the menu section if enabled.
This would allow for the "appearance" of nested features with minimal additional coding.

I see lulz on my post but no retribution. Women deserve to be represented too. Just saying.

I'm not advocating that you keep us apprised of features like:  "A friendly reminder before posting" that you announced yesterday ahead of time.  This feature is entirely opt-in.  Those sites that want to take advantage of the new feature are free to do so on their schedule.
If an upcoming feature will require a fair amount of social engineering and configuration to use it to its fullest, more of a heads up would be helpful.  A feature that would fit this scenario well would be “Member Achievements”.
The various languages and third-party integrations you utilize are constantly being updated to stay compliant with new standards or to markedly improve their utility.
At various points in time, you may have to rewrite portions of the suite to extend the product's lifespan. Some things might remain unchanged, and some things might require a complete reset such as subscription renewals.  (Just using this for illustrative purposes).
That could be “consequential” for sites with little to no cash reserves to tide them over until all the subscription renewals could be reenabled for all the effected members get around to restarting their subscription.
I am advocating that you keep your customer base apprised of such occurrences with as much head's up time as you can.
If for example you must fundamentally rearchitect themes, we will be forced to use your provided default theme until such time as the theme creators revamp their offerings.
If the changes are too radical and time consuming many if not all the existing providers might exit the marketplace. 
It could take time to recruit replacements and a variety of compliant themes get released due to a high learning curve.
Some sites could readily adapt to the default theme, and some might not as their members are extremely attached to the look and feel of the site and various community value adds that are integrated into the theme.
You may have a multitude of different projects on your radar. I’m in no way advocating you to keep us apprised of all of them just, the “consequential” ones we will have to address in the next rolling six to twelve months. 

The number of bad actors on the internet has exponentially increased after Russia invaded the Ukraine.  Attacks could be originating from all over the world and could impact internet routing between your members and your server. 
Sometimes data might flow as expected and sometimes the flow could be dramatically reduced for periods of time. Problems might exist within your very own server farm that they might not be detecting or willing to admit to. 
Something you might consider investigating is how large is your connection from your server to the internet. 
Your server might have a very high-capacity network card installed but the service provider may throttle the connection down to several hundred megabytes to support handling thousands of servers at a reasonable price point for one and all. 
Things you might want to look into:
What kind of connections does your service provider use to connect with the internet? Can they increase their overall bandwidth at a moment's notice and downgrade when the peak subsides? How intelligent are the routers they are using internally and to connect to their internet providers? Do they have employees well versed in network routing to garner every last bit of throughput and reduced latency the hardware can support at the network and server level? The internet providers contracted by your service provider might not have the infrastructure and support staff to consistently offer stellar performance for everyone globally connecting to them.  Internet traffic can travel down multiple paths to go from one country or countries to another and ultimately make it to your server.  A path taken this hour might not be the same path taken hours or days later.   You might consider seeing if there are any local network support forums with experience with your server provider. They may be able to help you better investigate the root causes of your problem (or at least eliminate possible causes) and guide you to a path to address it.
 

It would be nice if you added a page impression count in the ACP so that the self-hosted crowd could gauge which cloud package they would have to purchase if they switched.

The requirements checker has been updated to not prompt users of MariaDB to upgrade.

The issue: when someone let’s a subscription (product subscription or regular subscription) expire, they will later not be able to buy it again, because the invoice on file prevents a new subscription. But the existing subscription also cannot be renewed because the invoice has expired. This can only be solved by intervention from an admin (manually finding and deleting these invoices), but there might be hundreds of those and it would require a constant monitoring of expired invoices. 
The solution: The check that prevents a new subscription with an invoice on file should be removed or adjusted. Someone who doesn’t have a subscription anymore, because subscription and invoice have expired, must be treated like anyone who never had a subscription. Both groups should see exactly the same offers because their status in relation to these subscriptions is the same. 
Why it matters: People run into this problem all the time and it’s not just an inconvenience, it it costing them money, because people who would want to pay cannot pay and probably just give up. Here are just a few examples from the recent days (and I have observed this and commented on it for years): 
Subscription buttons don't show up. (yesterday)
Subscriptions Bug (yesterday)
invoice has expired but member cannot renew (7 days ago)
The development time to fix this is probably much cheaper than having IPS support deal with this issue for years, constantly identifying the issue and guiding people through the process of the possible work-arounds. So it would be a win-win situation to finally fix this. 😉 

You should check out the Members Shop app and the various add-ons and integrations it supports:
You might not be able to duplicate all of the functionality of Reddit, but you might be able to come up with an implementation that offers similar overall value to your community.

You can request a 14-day free trial of the complete suite here:
Try a Demo (invisioncommunity.com)