Clover13

Very nice work @Ehren! Lot of thought put into the changes and seeing those good ideas come to fruition! The only stickler I saw for my sites is we use a sticky footer ad which could become a conflict with the layout with the mobile menu at the bottom. Would be great to have an option to put it up top maybe. Otherwise, I'd imagine it can float above the footer ad if needed with a little CSS. Smart UX with the sign in and sign up buttons bubbled to the primary view when in guest mode! System preference dark/light mode is excellent as well to tie into a user's natural device preferences! On the tech side, that massive JS reduction should help tremendously! I've been finding a lot of ways to do things I want with CSS and avoiding JS libs as well. Great stuff!

Yes on #1, the summary result count should match the actual count of the results. Regarding #2, I think defaults serve a purpose both in the report presentation layer and in facilitating form/data entry that feeds those reports, but those are two different use cases with potentially two different sets of requirements/goals. I have done this type of work extensively in a corporate setting, and filter management is an essential aspect that has clear coupling to the presentation and the filters should align for the sake of clarity throughout. The far more complex scenario is getting into multi-component/context and sharing filters across contexts to keep that holistic multi-component presentation unified (even across pages). With that said, in the IPS world, the Pages reports are single page/report oriented so it's a 1:1 coordination and in that it should always match. You can have defaults for a default landing page, but those defaults should not override user selection otherwise you fall out of sync between filter and report, thus leading to confusion for the user. That customized filter (user selection) is a completely different view and should be treated as such. With proper analytics, you can observe user trends and frequently filtered target screens to prioritize your own product's (site's) menu links and bubble up those higher demand views. Also yes on #3, it is a side effect of #2, was just adding that in there to highlight exactly that. Once you create this disjoint between filter and report it leads to unintended and unclear views. I'll add notes to the Client area if you want to review my sites that show this. But if you set up a simple database with a select box with multiple values and set a default value, you'll see where the default will initially be selected on page load even though the resulting result report isn't filtered on it.

It seems when using a Pages Database filter for a corresponding database on a page, there are some issues in what is presented/selected in the filtering vs what is presented in the records list. The record count displayed does not reflect the filtered record count but rather the total unfiltered record count in the database. If you set field defaults, they are highlighted in the filter but not actually filtered on If you clear a field default, the records will be filtered correctly, however the filter state will show the default is selected Ultimately there are just several disjoints between the state of the filter and the actual results.

So just an oddity that I found related to a permissions issue when importing a database with fields. Permissions aren't set at first and naturally members can't fill in required fields they aren't permitted to see/create/edit them, however they can still create a record without completing these required fields (as defined in the Pages database fields in AdminCP). If the page requires it (i.e. Title and Content) but it is submitted with a null/empty value, the record entry should probably throw a permissions error or something to that effect versus allowing the record to be entered without them. Without a title, the record gets created but trying to access it will result in an infinite redirect.

Please see the following a few posts up

I think you have to give the ability to members to craft their own journey honestly. Some things will be globally site purposeful, and others will be individually member interest driven. The optimal solution offers both. Ultimately you don't want members to have to work too hard to get to anything, and if they must then you want to facilitate it moving forward. The other aspect is you are responsible for driving members to areas of interest but the broader your site gets, that harder it is to drive that elegantly (at least for me). Facebook implicitly optimizes this because they are tracking and targeting your interests for you. Users there don't need much of a menu because the content is curated and customized for them based on their activity (on and off Facebook). It's not just site global recent activity, but recent activity they know you are interested in viewing (without having to directly tell them or configure menus or an activity stream to achieve it).

I'd prefer not to share my site links openly, but I'll give you an idea here. I use Activity Stream as my landing page and customize it to show what I want from a site content perspective. Members can still create custom streams if they'd like but that seems like a high bar for most. My members want maximum convenience and quick browsing experiences to get to what they are interested in (don't we all). However that means they rarely use menus unless they must and whatever they're looking for is important enough to force them to open and use menus (i.e. you aren't really driving them to any content via the current v4 menus especially with a mobile hamburger icon). This is another reason the v5 sidebar menu is good for desktop, as it will open the visibility up for members to see what's available vs hidden under submenus. However for mobile, this still could be a problem as I assume that sidebar is a desktop only view otherwise you'd be stacking menu items in your most valued ATF content. Regarding the actual "feature menu" I use, I put something simple together with font awesome icons that resemble the purpose of the link and created a simple Pages block to display these in a flex container. As mentioned earlier, because it's inserted as a block at the top of the page content, it allows me to have these targeted links at the top whether on desktop or mobile. Maybe there's other or better ways to do this but it's helped me focus and drive members to places of interest in a given moment of time while also allowing me to have "popular" links there when there aren't specific content links commanding that space. For example a similar niche Facebook group owner was complaining about Facebook taking down members ads to sell certain items, so I reached out to him to ask to post my site's Classified link. He agreed, so I quickly added a Classified "feature menu" item to that site as I anticipated members from that group checking out the site to look for that right after I posted about it on the Facebook group. Another example is I had a merchandise release for members, which they were chomping at the bit for, so I added that as a "feature menu" item to give it proper exposure and drive the sales. Here's a sample screenshot of what it looks like at the top of an Activity Stream. I just mix things in and out as needed based on whatever is going on at the moment or where I anticipate interest or want to drive traffic. 👍

I was thinking about the menu system some more and some of the challenges I have with my own sites. I really like the sidebar menu being proposed for v5 because its vertical view shows far more detail of the menu with quick visual recognition. The horizontal header menu in v4 is limited in visibility due to that horizontal nature and even further due to hidden submenus, so members (especially new ones) don't really know what's under there without exploring. And others find it inconvenient to have to drill through menus to find something they really wish was at their fingertips. To address this and in an effort to focus on funneling traffic to what I deem the most sought after areas of the site as a whole, I created my own "featured menu" of items that is effectively a content block at the top of the page such that it displays ATF on both desktop and mobile views (unlike a sidebar whereas the right sidebar displays at the end in mobile). This is akin to the Popular menu being introduced in v5 at the top of the vertical sidebar menu. Going into this deeper, the real challenge is members simply want different things and have different perspectives on what is popular to them. Within a broader niche with subniches of interest for the member base, some may favor links and menu items others don't. As such the most optimal solution is to really allow members to have their own customizable menu of Favorites that can be at the top (even above the site's Popular menu being worked on for v5). So great idea to have a Popular section of site determined links, even better idea to allow members to Favorite links to establish their own.

It seemed like it would be to me, but I'm not an SEO expert by any stretch so figured was worth asking. I can also see someone thinking it's simply a good idea to keep the traffic on their site by any means necessary and redirect anything they intend on deprecating to some other area of their site to achieve that (which could harm them, likely more than just deleting the old page).

I don't know the answer, but I'm assuming not only doing a redirect but to new and similar helpful content, not just some other helpful content that might be of different subject matter? I can see Google considering it misleading if you say for example had a site related to pets with an outdated article on cats and you redirected it to a helpful one on dogs just to funnel the traffic to other areas of your site?

Take a look at @onlyME's apps: https://ipsappzone.com/file/6-featured-content-pro/ https://ipsappzone.com/file/17-slider-maker/

You mean the activity stream feed template? In this case that's the streamItems template, which just shows the following within a loop to output each stream item: {$result->html( $view, $sort != 'date', TRUE )|raw}

I have a Pages DB and the results when entered display the Record Image in the Activity Stream view, but when someone comments on it, that images is no longer displayed. Is there a way to make it always show the Record Image?

The CSS did the trick, just added some top and bottom margin to give little better spacing between the image and additional text or images. Thanks @teraßyte 👍

I see this constantly on my sites and wind up going in and manually editing posts whenever I do see it. Members just randomly insert images between text or at the end of a line of text and the formatting gets all wonky and disrupted. Is there any way to set something in the software where I can force a return line before and after every image? Example like this Then they continue on here or down here

Ah, that's great, I can't recall if that was in place when I got my first site so many years ago. I found the link for it in the menus: https://invisioncommunity.com/clientarea/free-trial/

Really incredible work @Ehren and whomever else was involved! Lots of really great features, and the ability to have more and more configuration based layout control is excellent! Really liked the inline layout editing such as the header config with components for logo, navigation, breadcrumbs, etc! Looking forward to seeing it in a hands on demo in the future! Any plans on offering on demand demo sites for existing and potential clients to give a try for a brief period of time? A lot of sites/products do this with their offerings, and could really help IPS elevate their sales. Being on the cloud should make this a whole lot easier now too! 👍

OK I will copy it all over there 👍

OK I see how it works now. It's a great add-on to be able to do the bulk of the work of promotions of a Post to a Database. Seeing a few things 1. Can this be configured in some way to pick a database for a specific post? I may want to promote one post to Database ABC and another post to Database DEF. Is that possible or is it strictly a global single database? 2. Seeing an issue where a post gets promoted and the attached images do not appear after the initial save to create. The appear in the template being filled but not in the initial saved record. I had create/submit it to create the database record, then reopen the record via the UI, edit it (which shows everything still there), and re-save it. Steps: Click Promote to Article on a Topic post that contains attached images Complete Pages Database record form and save it Review result page of newly created record which shows no images in the record view Edit the record, which will show the images are still there Save the record again (no need to make any changes) and see the images now appear in the record view. 3. Validation errors with the record form will not maintain the values entered. The title defaults to the title of the original Topic, but will often be changed. Have to go and recreate it again and fill out other fields if there is a validation error. 4. Record Image Required plugin you have doesn't honor the Post conversions. It won't require the image when you are converting/creating the record, but it will show required when editing it after it's been created.

OK I'll give it a try and see how it works out

The screenshots specifically say "Articles". What is an "Article" in this context? Are you calling an "Article" any random custom IPS database with any custom structure a user creates for their site OR are you calling an "Article" the specific IPS Article database and structure that is provided by the software that may simply be named something different?

Still confused about this part and the screenshots. Does the database need to be an Articles database or can it be any custom database with any custom structure? Again I'm assuming it must be structured like Articles (as in the stock IPS Article Pages database) and can't be any random custom Pages database I create. To be clear, does this allow for creating any custom Pages database entry from a Topic post (original post or replies) OR does it only allow for creating one from the IPS included Articles database (and provides a dropdown to select what your particular database name may be for that Articles database and structure)?

Sweet! I should have known you'd have something! 👍 @Adriano Faria Can it promote any post (ie reply)? Is it limited to only using the stock Articles DB or can we select a custom DB? I'm assuming it's coupled to Articles and probably requires custom converters for any custom Pages databases?

Is it possible to copy (and convert) a Topic Reply to a Pages Database? I have a history of topics I'd like to leave as is but Cherry pick replies from them to create entries in a new Pages Database.

Anyone ever find a way to accomplish this?