Charles

We are happy to announce the new Invision Community 4.3 is available! Some highlights in Invision Community 4.3 include... Improved Search We now support Elasticsearch for scalable and accurate searching that MySQL alone cannot provided. There are also enhancements to the overall search interfaces based on your feedback. Emoji Express yourself with native emoji support in all editors. You can also keep your custom emoticons as you have now. Member Management The AdminCP interface to manage your members is all new allowing you easier control and management of your membership. Automatic Community Moderation You as the administrator set up rules to define how many unique member reports a piece of content needs to receive before it's automatically hidden from view and moderators notified. Clubs The new Clubs feature has been a huge hit with Invision Community users and we are expanding it to include invite-only options, notifications, exposure on the main community pages, paid memberships, and more. Custom Email Footers Your community generates a lot of email and you can now include dynamic content in the footer to help drive engagement and content discovery. New Gallery Interface We have reworked our Gallery system with a simplified upload process and more streamlined image viewing. The full list follows. Enjoy! Content Discovery We now support Elasticsearch which is a search utility that allows for much faster and more reliable searching. The REST API now supports search functions. Both MySQL and Elasticsearch have new settings for the admin to use to set search-defaults and default content weighting to better customize search logic to your community. Visitors can now search for Content Pages and Commerce Products. When entering a search term, members now see a more clear interface so they know what areas they are searching in and the method of search. Member Engagement Commerce can now send a customizable account welcome email after checkout. You can whitelist emails in the spam service to stop false-positives. REST API has many enhancements to mange members. Ability to join any OAuth service for login management. Invision Community can now be an OAuth endpoint. Wordpress OAuth login method built in. Support for Google's Invisible ReCaptcha. Groups can be excluded from Leaderboard (such as admins or bot groups). All emails generated by Invision Community can now contain admin-defined extra promotional text in the footer such as Our Picks, and Social Links. Admins can now define the order of Complete Your Profile to better control user experience. Clubs Option to make a Club visible but invite-only Admins can set an option so any Club a member is part of will also show in the parent application. So if you are in a Club that has a Gallery tab then those image will show both in the Club and in the main Gallery section of the community. Club members can now follow an entire Club rather than just each content section. There is a new option on the Club directory page for a list view which is useful for communities with many Clubs. If you have Commerce you can now enable paid memberships to Clubs. Admins can set limits on number of Clubs per group. If a group has delete permission in their Club, they can now delete empty containers as well. Members can ignore invitations. Moderation and Administration Unrestricted moderator or administrator permission sets in the AdminCP are visually flagged. This prevents administrator confusion when they cannot do something as they will be able to quickly see if their account has restrictions. You can choose to be notified with a new Club is created. Moderators can now reply to any content item with a hidden reply. Download screenshot/watermarks can now be rebuilt if you change settings. Support for Facebook Pixel to easily track visitors. Moderators can now delete Gallery albums. Automatic moderation tools with rules to define when content should auto-hide based on user reports. Totally new member management view in AdminCP. More areas are mass-selectable like comments and AdminCP functions for easier management. New Features Commerce now has full Stripe support including fraud tools, Apple Pay, and other Stripe features. Commerce packages can now have various custom email events configured (expiring soon, purchased, expired). Full Emojii support in the editor. Complete overhaul of the Gallery upload and image views. Announcements system overhaul. Now global on all pages (not via widget) and new modes including dismissible announcements and top-header floating bar option. Many new reports on traffic and engagement in the AdminCP. Blog has new view modes to offer options for a traditional site blog or a community multi-member blog platform. The content-starter can now leave one reply to Reviews on their item. Commerce now makes it much easier to do basic account-subscriptions when there is no product attached. Useful Improvements Forums has a new widget where you can filter by tags. If tags are not required, the tag input box now indicates this so the member knows they do not have to put in tags. Member cover photos can now be clicked to see the full image. Any item with a poll now has a symbol on the list view. Twitch.tv embed support. You can now update/overwrite media in the Pages Media Manager. Mapbox as an additional map provider to Google Maps. Technical Changes Direct support for Sparkpost has been removed. Anyone currently using Sparkpost will automatically have their settings converted to the Sparkpost SMTP mode so your email will still work. Your cache engines (like Redis) will be checked on upgrade and in the support tool to ensure they are reachable. Third-party applications will now be visually labeled to distinguish them from Invision Community official applications. The queued tasks list in the AdminCP is now collapsed by default as queued tasks are not something people need to pay much attention to during normal operations. When upgrading from version 3 series you must convert your database to UTF8 and the system saves your original data in tables prefixed with orig. The AdminCP now alerts you these are still present and allows you to remove them to reclaim storage space. On new installs there are now reasonable defaults for upload limits to keep people from eating up storage space. Categories in all apps (forums, gallery albums, databases, etc.) no longer allow HTML in their titles. This has been a concern both in terms of security and usability so we were forced to restrict it. Large improvements to the Redis cache engine including use for sessions. The login with HTTPS option has been removed and those who were using it will be given instructions to convert their entire community to HTTPS. Images loaded through the proxy system now honor image limits for normal uploads. We now consider BBCode deprecated. We are not removing support but will not fix any future issues that may come up. There's a lot to talk about here so we are going to lock this entry to comments so things do not get confusing. Feel free to comment on upcoming feature-specific entries or start a topic in our Feedback forum.

Our recent release of Invision Community 4.2 was the most well-received version ever! The feedback we received on new features like Clubs, Reactions, and Promotes was better than we could have hoped and we really enjoyed seeing all the creative uses as people implemented them on their own communities. We have been hard at work on version 4.3 with a goal of improving on all the great new features. It is well under way and we are happy to able to start announcing what's new over the next few weeks. Invision Community 4.3 will not only contain new features but also have a core focus on refinement from 4.2's new features. You will see many improvements to Clubs, new integration options, large application improvements, new promotional features, and more changes large and small. You can expect to see news posts about new features and changes very soon with a release date in early 2018. Follow our news section or subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates.

This is a maintenance release to fix reported bugs. Other changes include: RSS feeds now use guest page caching system Analytic tracking code has been moved to inside head tag Ad code placement has a new setting to clarify how sidebar display should be handled Various enhancements to Redis engine including data stored encrypted at rest Search result improvements

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ensures your community is as friendly as it can be for search engines to both index and rank properly when people search for things that match your Community focus. It is not an exact science. Opinions vary on best practices and the "rules" that search engines use change all the time. Invision Community does all the best supported and universally recognized approaches. We are always updating SEO with new releases to ensure things stay on track. Automatic Features There are quite a few things that happen behind the scenes in regard to SEO that you do not have to do anything about. Converter Redirects If you converted to Invision Community from another product, in most cases the system will automatically redirect links from your old software to the new locations. This uses an HTTP 301 redirect to ensure that the search engine knows to update to the new location. You can install our converters if you have not already converted, by using the instructions in the following guide JSON-LD Markup This markup is automatically generated and creates "micro data" that search engines and other systems use to get more information about what they are seeing. Things like dates, titles, images, snippets, etc. can be included so other systems know what they are seeing when they come across a link to your content. Proper HTTP Codes When you visit a page that is not found or not allowed you get a 404, those areas restricted get a 403, upgrade in progress returns a 503, and so on. These response codes properly inform search engine spiders what is going on with your site so they can act accordingly. Site Map Your site map is an XML-formatted document that search engines use to get a full index of pages on your Community. Normally you would not need to change these settings as the recommended settings work fine for nearly all sites. There are more advanced settings if you are interested in changing weighting, limiting results, and other options for the site map. Visit Search Engine Optimization to see advanced options. Friendly URLs Friendly URLs (FURLs) convert links on your site from something like this: http://example.com/?app=forums&module=forums&controller=topic&id=1 to something more like: http://example.com/topic/1-my-latest-hobbies/ This is important as search engines will index your community based on items such as the URL, and so the example above would be more likely to be ranked under key words such as "hobbies" and phrases such as "latest hobbies". FURLs are already setup automatically on our Cloud services. Applies to self-hosted customers only To setup FURLs on your own service, we assume you are running Apache web server. You can setup on other servers but these instructions assume Apache. You will need mod_rewrite an ability to upload .htaccess to rewrite URLs. Please contact your host to ensure you can do this. Go to Search Engine Optimization, enable FURLs, and download the generated .htaccess file. Upload to the root directory where Invision Community is installed and then click continue. Your Community will check to see if FURLs are working. Meta Tags Meta tags are an item of text which describes the content on a page. We provide you with the ability to add meta tags to any area of the site, either on an individual basis, a type basis, or site wide. Meta tags are used by all major search engines to index your site in a more correct manner. Keywords, descriptions etc will be used to ensure that your site is shown in the results that are relevant for your site. For example, here on the community we may want our downloads area to be indexed by search engines under the description 'Marketplace' with tags such as plugin, and application. Consider this more of an advanced, optional feature as the JSON-LD system does take care of quite a bit of meta data exposure to search engines. You can add meta tags by visiting Search Engine Optimization then clicking on the "Meta Tags" tab. You can add a new tag by selecting the "Add Meta Tags" option and filling in the details as appropriate. You can currently add the following meta tag types to any page, by adding the page address, page title, then adding as many meta tags as you need. Keywords = words which describe the topic of your page Description = A description of the page (you often see these shown in search engine results) Robots = Allows you to specify robot related tags for search engines such as NOINDEX and NOFOLLOW Other = There are many other types of tag you can add such as author, copyright, language and more You can use * as a wildcard to include multiple pages for your meta tags. You can see this in the example image below. Meta tag editor In addition to the manual tag editor, we also have available a live meta tag editor available where you can edit meta tags directly from the page. The use of this is shown below, and can be accessed via the "launch Live Media Editor" link. Live Editor Things to Check Be sure to check a few other areas to ensure your Community is setup how you want it: Browse your community as a Guest (not logged in) so you can see what a search engine spider would see. If you cannot view an area then it cannot be indexed. Similarly, if you can view an area you want private then check your permissions. Several apps allow you to customize error messages. Rather than seeing a generic "Permission Denied" message when visiting an area they cannot view, you can put in more friendly text prompting the user to join your Community. Enabling HTTPS can help with some search engine rankings and show fewer security warnings to visitors. Advanced FURL Configuration A feature that is both powerful and potentially harmful, advanced FURL configuration should only be used if you are comfortable changing the URL structure of your Community. For nearly all sites it is not necessary. Here we show an example use case of advanced FURL customization. Say you have a previous system that used the url /oldLogin for your login page. By adding a FURL configuration here this would automatically load the actual Invision Community login page when visiting that URL. Other uses cases might be renaming certain URLs if you use your Community in a unique way, adding aliases, or capturing older links that might need redirection.

4.2.2 is a maintenance release that fixes issues identified in 4.2.1 and: A new extraction process to make auto-upgrades more robust The upgrade system will do a check of all files to ensure they are up to date before proceeding Security Notice This release also contains security enhancements to prevent possible XSS and increase protections on account management functions. It is recommended you upgrade to ensure the security on your Community. Thanks to @newbie LAC and Raja uzair Abdullah for reporting security issues. Version 4.2 is the next large release for Invision Community! We are very excited to introduce all the new features and improvements. Full information on 4.2.0 ...

We are working hard to get Invision Community 4.2 ready to go! If you have not been following this upcoming version, check out the details: Over the last month we have released several beta versions and feedback from those that have chosen to jump in on the beta has been great. We really could not be happier. Feedback has included amazement over how stable the beta is to reactions from community members enjoying all the new features. Everyone here at IPS is very excited to get the full release out so everyone can enjoy it. Not everyone is comfortable using beta releases . Back in March when we first announced 4.2 was coming soon we said that it would be out in mid-2017 and we are still on track for that. Be sure to keep an eye on announcements for the full release expected in the next 3 - 4 weeks. We really hope everyone is as excited as we are about 4.2's full release. Based on the feedback from those already using 4.2 beta on their live sites we really think this will be a huge hit with your community.

We provide self-help, private ticket, and community-based support to ensure your Community runs as well as it can. If you ever have any issues that you cannot solve with the methods below, please ask. We are here to help! Health Dashboard The first step to obtaining support should always be from your AdminCP. If you log into your AdminCP and visit the Support location, this will take you to Health Dashboard Health Dashboard Within this area, there are many tools in which may assist you in resolving issues on your site. Applies to self-hosted customers only Some items on this page may apply to self hosted customers only. Cloud customers may not see server related information, as this is all taken care of for you. The system will automatically check for any issues on your site when this area is visited. If there are any issues that are found, it will report them to you. Critical issues - If there are critical issues that are showing in these area, you should address those immediately. These may be items such as incompatible items on the server, security patches, or upgrades which need to be run. Important issues - There are items which, while should be looked at, do not dall into the category of being critical. Things such as 3rd party item upgrades being available, or recommending of a higher server component (PHP version for example). In addition to issues being reported, errors are also reported on this page. YOu can see these at the bottom of the page by way of a graph. Any increases in these may be an indication of an issue on the site that needs to be addressed. The 3 types shown are Error logs - These are items which are expected, but still shown to the user. An example of this may be a permission error, or notice that an item is unavailable. You will find extra settings in this area also, to choose how robustly you would like to log these types of errors. System logs - These are those in which would not happen in normal use. So for example if you had a database connection issue, an unexpected coding issue, or anything else which is outside the normal parameters of the softwares intentions. Email logs - Any issues with sending of email. Other Support Tools Before submitting a ticket, and after checking the above, there are some tools you can use which may resolve issues. First of all you can clear any system caches. You can find this button at the top of the "Tools and Diagnostics" section Selecting "Something isn't working correctly." Disable Customizations An important part of the diagnostic process is disabling any 3rd party items you may have installed on your sysyem. The majority of issues you will see in Invision Community are caused by customizations (themes, plugins, apps) that are not part of our default set. You can disable these by selecting the "x third party customisations" link Disabling 3rd party You should disable all customizations using the button provided and check on a new tab in your browser to see if this issue is resolved. If it has, then you know it is a 3rd party issue, and you should enable items one at a time until you find the cause. Once the cause is found, this should be reported to the developer of that 3rd party item. Disable Customizations Submitting a ticket If you cannot find the issue using the built in tools, there is then an option to submit a ticket to our support team who will be happy to assist you in getting to the bottom of your problem. Provide a much information about the issue as possible. Including how to replicate the problem, and examples if possible. Applies to self-hosted customers only Often we will need access to your system to diagnose the cause of an issue. In this case, we will need some login details, and may at times require file system access. You can provide these securely from within your client area. To do this, log into your client area, select your license, then select "Review my details" (See further info below). Ensuring these are up to date, can often speed up the time taken to resolve your issue. Anything you have already attempted to resolve the issue yourself is worth noting within the ticket. Getting Support If you are not able to access your AdminCP or have a non-technical question, you can always submit a ticket directly in the client area as well. Providing Access (Self hosted) If access details are needed in order to diagnose and resolve an issue with your site, these would be added within your client area. First of all log into your client area in the following location https://invisioncommunity.com/clientarea/ Once you have logged in, select "Manage this purchase" next to the license you are reporting an issue for. Manage this purchase On the next page, select "Review/Update Access information" Update access You will then be presented with a form where you can securely add access information for your site. It is worth mentioning here that all IPS employees and contractors have executed elaborate non-disclosure agreements that protects the integrity of your data. Adding your information in this areas, ensures that it is stored in a secure location. Entering details FTP Access - If you are unsure on what FTP access is, you would need to obtain this from your hosting company. Admin CP URL - Your admin area by default would be at (for example) www.yoursite.com/admin/ . If you have not moved from this location, then you can leave this section blank. If however you have moved your admin location, then please populate the new URL here. Admin CP .htaccess - If you have an additional username and password you enter prior to getting to the admin CP login page, then these details would be added here. If you do not, then its likely you do not have these, and you can leave the section blank. Admin CP Access - This is your admin username and password (or one that you create for our use). This must have full admin access in most cases, in order for us to assist. Hosting provider - The name of the company in which provides the hosting for your site. Notes - If there is any further information we need in order to be able to access your site, please ensure you add this information here. Manually Checking Logs If you cannot get to the AdminCP at all, you can access the system logs from within uploads/logs on your file system. It is always worth checking these. It may be for example that your MySQL instance has crashed or some other item in which you know how to resolve. Recovery Mode (Self hosted only) If you get to the point in which you cannot get to the admin CP, nor the front end, you can try using our new recovery mode function. In order to use this, you would add the following line to a constants.php file within your installations main directory <?php define('RECOVERY_MODE',True); Once this is set, you can visit your ACP location and log in. On login you will see something similar to the below, which will be disabling 3rd party items, resetting default themes, and attempting to get you to a stock position so you can log in (it will not be deleting anything, don't worry) On login after enabling recovery After this is complete, you will be shown a list of all items which have been disabled, and you will be informed to remove the line from your constants file. It is important that you do this, as you will not be able to navigate to any area of the admin CP until you have done so. Recovery Complete You will then be able to enable items one at a time until the system breaks, in order to determine which of these items is causing your system not to function.

Version 4.2.0 is the next large release for Invision Community! We are very excited to introduce all the new features and improvements. Full information on 4.2.0 ...

Here is the roundup of what's new in Invision Community 4.2! Highlights There's a lot of new feature in 4.2 but here are a few of the highlights: Promoting Content - A new way to promote content in your Community internally, on Facebook, and on Twitter. 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. Reactions - 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. Complete Your Profile - Encourage or require members to fill out the details on their profile. Also now allows for quick registration to encourage joining. And a whole lot more.. It goes on... here is the full list! Leaderboard Enhancements Richer Embeds Group Promotion Improvement Fluid Forum View Member History Editor Uploading Improvements Authy Integration Commerce Improvements New REST API Endpoints Gallery Improvements Statistic Reporting Copy Topic to Database Downloads Index Page Blog Sidebar Promoting Content Clubs Reactions Calendar Venues Social Sign In Streamlining Calendar Add Similar Event Gallery Lightbox Navigation Letter Profile Photos SEO Improvements Device Management Delayed Deletes Calendar Event Reminders Content Messages Recommended Replies Complete Your Profile Be sure to visit each entry above for more information and screenshots. We hope you enjoy Invision Community 4.2!

We know security updates can be distracting but we take security very seriously and do not want to delay getting you the latest enhancements. As we continue to audit security hardening, we will do these focused update releases. This release addresses two possible XSS scenarios.

This entry is about our IPS Community Suite 4.2 release I made a quick video to demo things we have already announced for 4.2 so far. Enjoy

This entry is about our IPS Community Suite 4.2 release. Improving your SEO can be a complex undertaking with many different approaches but there are things that everyone knows are good practice and also more modern approaches to SEO that have changed since we first started developing IPS Community Suite. So it was time for a review and update. Unfortunately no pretty screenshots on this one as this is all behind the scenes stuff but still quite useful to know . Also, some of this may sound a bit technical and dry but feel free to search some of these technologies if you are curious. Move from HTML structured data to JSON-LD and enhance our existing markup with sensible additions. Calendar, blog, forum and pages (articles) data marked up for rich snippets. General review of our schema.org markup and enhance where appropriate. Use sitelinks search and other sensible markup such as the website and logo markup. Allow administrators to specify social profile links in the AdminCP which we then show links to in the footer and also make available in schema.org markup. Fix many duplicate page title issues. Review and ensure nofollow/noindex tags are used in appropriate areas. Add item tags as HTML meta tags Adding <link rel="next" value="next page url"> helps search engines know next/previous page. Nothing like a bulleted list of items to get you excited! But really these should be welcome improvements to all.

This entry is about our IPS Community Suite 4.2 release. I am sure we have all accidentally clicked delete on a post in your community and then realized you needed it. Luckily we now have Delayed Deletes to easily restore deleted content. Settings in AdminCP You can delete just as you normally do as you moderate and your posts will be removed just like now. The main difference is that you can now view recently deleted content and restore as needed in the Moderator Control Panel. Easily view what is pending delete All you have to do is click the deleted item and you will be taken to that item in context of where it used to be. This makes is much easier to understand why it was deleted and decide if you should restore. Restore and view deleted content in context Delayed Deletes is a feature that could be a life saver for your community and we cannot wait to get it out to you.

This entry is about our IPS Community Suite 4.2 release. Following on from our previous entry about the new Recommended Replies feature, we also have one more small feature change that will be very useful. Content Message is a small feature available in all IPS Community Suite content areas (forums, blogs, gallery, etc.) and allows a moderator to put a message at the top of any item. Topic with a moderator message This is useful if you have a special use for the area people are posting in, need to encourage conversation to stay on topic, or perhaps the conversation is becoming heated and you need to remind people to behave. Sometimes the smallest features can prove the most useful and already I have found myself reaching for this feature out of habit from using it on our test 4.2 installs and missing it on our production site. I cannot wait to have it available and I am sure you will enjoy the ability to add custom notes to any area of the Suite. Development Note For our power users: this feature and the Recommended Replies feature use a new content meta data capability. This allows you to store miscellaneous data that is attached to a content item which does not need to be otherwise searched or exposed unless you are viewing that item. We will provide technical details on this later but it is a really easy way to store data about content without having to create additional tables or methods.

This entry is about our IPS Community Suite 4.2 release. Sometimes you may find situations where you want to highlight one or more replies to a content item to bring attention to a really great response. This is especially true on busy communities where you might have dozens or even hundreds of replies in a single discussion. There is now an ability for a moderator to Recommend a reply (or multiple replies) and even leave an optional note explaining why they think you should view that post. Moderator Permission Optional note for recommended reply When a reply is Recommended you will see a snippet at the top of the content item along with the optional moderator note and a link to jump right to that reply. A topic with a recommended reply. You can Recommend more than one reply and this feature works through IPS Community Suite in forum topic, blog entries, gallery images, and so on. You can set this permission along with other moderator permissions in the AdminCP. We really think this will allow moderators to bring attention to some of the best replies and guide users to the best content your community has to offer.

We are well into development on IPS Community Suite 4.2 and are excited to start announcing all the new features and improvements. Our next big release is focused on engagement with your members. You will see enhancements to our Reputation system, new ways to encourage people to register on your community, and enhancements to existing features to make them more interactive. There are also entirely new capabilities we cannot wait to show you ranging from new ways to organize content to tools to help promote your community. Version 4.2 also features a refreshed AdminCP and default front-end design. Theme changes in 4.2 are mostly in the CSS framework so your existing themes will either work without issue or require minor changes to work in the new version. Over the next several weeks we will be posting news entries with previews of upcoming features fairly often. Be sure to follow our News section, our Facebook, or Twitter to stay up to date. We expect IPS Community Suite 4.2 to be out in mid-2017 with a public preview available sooner. Everyone at IPS has worked very hard on this update and we think you will love it!

Version 4.1.18 is now available in the client area! Two large changes include Two Factor Authentication: And changes to make Google less jumpy about password inputs: Some smaller changes include: Pinterest share link has been added Images embedded in the editor can now have an alternative title set for accessibility The Approval Queue page now has a "Hide" button to hide content (rather than only being able to approve / delete) Disabling Profile Photo uploads will now also disable importing from a URL The Admin CP will now indicate whether or not a member is connected to a social network The Admin CP will now display more information for a user who has been banned imgur embedded is now supported Check out the Release Notes for a full list of changes.

Google has recently been stressing that sites should use secure connections (served via HTTPS) whenever possible. They have recently also started warning sites that collect password on non-secure pages and will also be updating Google Chrome to warn users when a password is being entered on a non-secure page. You can read more information at Google and a good article on Ars Technica. There are two ways on IPS Community Suite to avoid these alerts. Keep in mind that doing nothing will not cause you any problems, your site will still work, but users will get warnings and this may impact how people perceive joining your community. Make your Community 100% Secure The easiest option is to make every page on your IPS Community Suite use a secure connection. To do this you would need to ensure your web host has HTTPS support enabled on your site and then simply edit conf_global.php and change the URL field to https:// and that's it. One thing to keep in mind is that your users, if you allow it, can still paste in links to externally hosted images which might not be secure. This does not impact the security of your site but it may generate a browser warning indicating your site has "mixed content" meaning some is secure and some is not. You can optionally enable the Image Proxy feature to make externally linked images route through a proxy on your local server to maintain 100% secure content. Image Proxy Options Only Login/Registration Forms and AdminCP Secure If you prefer not to use HTTPS for your entire site, we do have a setting to only use secure connections for login, registration, and AdminCP. Use HTTPS for Logins and AdminCP When the login-only secure option is enabled the quick login drop down is also disabled and instead users are sent to a full page to login. This is a small change required to avoid browser warnings. Although the quick login menu submits to a secure connection, the form field itself may show on a non-secure page which would generate a warning. Quick Login not Available when Login-Only HTTPS Setting Enabled IPS Community in the Cloud Those using IPS CiC can get secure connections for a $15 setup fee plus $5 month on our 40, 65 and 100 user Cloud plans. You can either bring your own certificate or we can provide one for you. On the 200, 450 and 750 plans, SSL is completely free - again, either your own or we can provide one.

In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements, this release also includes: Pinterest share link has been added Converters are now included as a Suite-level application you can download with your package in the Client Area Running a conversion will now skip steps that do not have anything to convert Two Factor Authentication Images embedded in the editor can now have an alternative title set for accessibility Users signing in through social services, such as Facebook, will no longer be required to validate their email address When a location is specified for a Calendar Event, the address will be shown underneath the map. The map itself should also be more accurate now. The Approval Queue page now has a "Hide" button to hide content (rather than only being able to approve / delete) Disabling Profile Photo uploads will now also disable importing from a URL An issue has been fixed where adding tags using other languages may not work properly Cropping Animated GIF's for photos is now supported when ImageMagick is in use Files purchased in Downloads will now have a link back to the file from their purchase page in the Manage Purchases section The Admin CP will now display more information for a user who has been banned imgur embedded is now supported Errors caused by third party applications / plugins will now be clearer Option to report fatal errors automatically to IPS so we can fix common issues

We have had a question and answer feature in IPS Community Suite for some time and we are now happy to add Google Authenticator as another option. We have also combined the various options it a new Two Factor Authentication (2FA) section in the AdminCP with many more options. Two Factor Authentication Settings There are also new settings to control when a user is required (or not) to setup 2FA: 2FA Setup You can control what areas will prompt for 2FA authentication: 2FA Area Control And how the system should recover if a user cannot login via 2FA on their account: 2FA Recovery Settings An administrator can configure these settings to tailor the security needs of their community. For example, you might want to require 2FA your admins and moderators but keep it optional for your members. On the front end your members will see a new Account Security section under their settings area. Account Security Settings Once authenticated, a user will then be able to enable various security options. For example, the Google Authenticator setup shows an easy to follow setup. Google Authenticator Setup We hope you enjoy this new level of system security. IPS has plans to add additional 2FA providers beyond Question and Answers and Google Authenticator. We will keep you updated! This change will be in version 4.1.18 which is scheduled to be released in late January 2017.

Version 4.1.17 is now available! You can upgrade by downloading in the client area or just click upgrade in your AdminCP.

Next week, IPS will be implementing the pricing changes to our product lineup that we published in 2015. In the spirit of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we are extending an opportunity to purchase a new license or add new applications to your existing suite at 15% off our current pricing. To take advantage of this offer, please use coupon code IPSPROMO16 at checkout. This promotion is active starting now and valid until 1 December 2016 (EST) and applies to new purchases only. We are unable to retroactively apply the discount. This promotion also applies to Community in the Cloud for your first month of service! If you’ve been waiting to purchase a new license or add products to your suite, this is the last opportunity to obtain this level of pricing! Happy shopping!

Version 4.1.17 is in the final stages of development and will be released soon! Check out the release notes for the full list of what's new and our preview articles for details on some of the most interesting changes: Better Analytics Integration Tag Quick Edit Default Warning Notes Custom RSS Feeds Word and Link Filters Leaderboard Moderation Improvements Security and Privacy Embeds and Integration We hope you enjoy all these new additions coming in 4.1.17 and be sure to read the release notes for many smaller changes. The big feature in 4.1.17 is the new Leaderboard which we really think will enhance your community. If you like using pre-release beta versions, the public beta of 4.1.17 will be available in the client area on 28 November. We support betas on live installs with some exceptions so give it a try if you like to be first to try the new features!

IPS Community Suite allows for integrations with quite a few third party systems and also can embed content from external sites. We have added a whole new list of embed providers where you can just paste in a link to that site and a nice box will show up. For example, if I paste this link in normally: https://twitter.com/invisionps/status/799269691579449344 I get: You can do that will many popular sites already and we are adding a lot more: codepen.io coub.com deviantart.com docs.com funnyordie.com gettyimages.com iFixit.com kickstarter.com meetup.com mixcloud.com mix.office.com on.aol.com reddit.com reverbnation.com screencast.com screenr.com slideshare.net smugmug.com ustream.tv Google Maps Once you enable Google Maps under Community Enhancements by entering your Google API key you can them just paste in a link to a Google Map location. So when you paste a link to a Google Map in an editor it shows like this: Google Maps in Editor The maps are also interactive on the screen. REST API We have also added quite a few more endpoints, particularly in member management, to our REST API. If you are not already familiar with the REST API it is a great way to integrate external systems with IPS Community Suite. You can both fetch and modify data in the Suite via the API. REST API documentation... Third Party Diagnostics This is a bit more of a technical feature so feel free to skip if it does not interest you. If you use third party plugins or applications from our Marketplace or from other sites you may occasionally encounter issues in the Suite caused by those items but it is often hard to know the root issue. There are now tools in the AdminCP to show all places in the code that third party items are modifying to help with diagnosing issues. The Suite will now also try to detect if an error it encounters is referencing a third party plugin and suggest you disable it to see if the issue is resolved. New Support Tool Simplified Support Tool Though not specifically about embeds or integrations, the new Support Tool does better help diagnose issues so I thought I would give it a nice shout out. It really does help to find server problems, database issues, or outdated files that might interfere with your site. It also makes support so much easier if you submit your ticket to us via the Support Tool as it sends along a temporary login (if you allow it) for us to use. The new design simplifies the tool down to just one step and it gives you a report and suggested actions. This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

IPS is always auditing our software to improve security at the code-level but these improvements are not really visible to you even though they protect your site all the time. We are implementing some new features that you can use to enhance the security and privacy of your site. Many of these features depend on your personal preferences, local laws, or the policies of your own organization. Here is a list of what's new: Birthday Control You may wish to make birthday viewing only show to admins or you can completely disable prompting for a birthday if you consider that information sensitive. Member Delete Name Retention When deleting a member in the AdminCP, if you choose to keep their posts the system currently names the posts with a display name of "Guest user" where user is the previous display name of the member you deleted. You can how choose to retain their name in posts or not so you can either have it as it is now or simple "Guest" on member delete. Password Strength Password Strength You now have two new options for password: show a strength meter and require strong passwords. You can choose to either just show the meter as a suggestion or you can also choose to enforce a password strength. You can choose between three levels of password enforcement parameters depending on how strict you choose to be. Guest Terms Banner Guest Terms Banner There is a new option to show a guest terms of service banner when a new visitor first visits your site. You can set the text shown in the display and you can also put in two special tags to automatically link to your Terms of Service or Privacy Policy page. Age Restrictions Age Prompt We have always had COPPA support in the Suite but we have extended this to be a more generic age restriction feature. You can now set your site to reject registrations from anyone under a certain age you specify. For privacy, the birthday entered on registration is only used to calculate permission and is never stored. This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.