Charles

bbAuthority.com, a resource site for forum administrators has posted a review of IP.Board 3: http://www.bbauthority.com/forum-software/invision-power-board-3-an-insight Thanks bbAuthority.com for the review! Always great to see how others react to IP.Board 3's new capabilities!

We are working on making customer access here on our company forums work better. During our changes some clients may have been removed from Customers group and put in the Members group. If you are experiencing issues please first try this: The most common issue we have is with customers not logging in with the email they use in the client area. If you are still having trouble please submit a ticket. [*]Log out of the forums [*]Log back in with the same email address and password you use for our client area

The first beta release of the CleanCut skin is now available in the client area under the Development Releases section of IP.Board. There may be issues with the skin so please test it before using it live. Report bugs in the CleanCut section of our bug tracker. Enjoy!

Our new Spam Monitoring Service is being adopted by thousands of IP.Board owners all over the web and we are starting to see the system "learning" about spam accounts and blocking registrations from all the incoming reports. It's great to see the community of IP.Board owners working together to help combat spam. We are noticing that some clients are not properly using the service because of domain mismatches. To see if your service is working properly the easiest thing to do is check the logs in the AdminCP under Logs -> Spam Service Logs. If you see a bunch of "0" response codes then there is a problem accessing the service. Go in your client area and be sure the license URL is accurate and change it if needed. Also be sure you use the Request Spam Service key and input that as your key - not your license key. We have also seen some clients running their forums under forums.example.com but have entered example.com as their license key URL. Be sure to update that to forums.example.com for everything to work properly. Finally, be sure you are using the "mark as spam" feature in IPB. Not only does this automatically shut down the spammer's account and hide all posts they have made but it also automatically reports that back to IPS as a spam account. This not only helps you but every other IPB owner fight spam registrations. We hope everyone is enjoying the free Spam Monitoring Service for IPB service license holders and IPS Hosting clients. We have already blocked hundreds of spam account registrations and are very happy with the performance of the service. Enjoy!

Our demo system has been updated to include the latest build of our soon to be released Community Content System. There is a limit to the number of active accounts that can have a demo at once so if the system is full just try back later. It cycles old accounts every few minutes. http://www.invisionpower.com/products/demo.php

We have been posting blog entries and information about our soon to be released Community Content System for some time now. For those of you who have not already read about CCS, check out these posts: Introducing Community Content System Blocks Overview Pages Overview Media Manager Templates The CCS system is currently in internal testing and has reached Release Candidate phase. We are just finishing up incorporating feedback from our testers and will soon be able to make version 1.0.0 available. We are not going to set a specific release date as certain capabilities of CCS do require updates that are included in IP.Board 3.0.2 so that update must first be released. However, we do expect a 1.0.0 release of CCS to be available for purchase soon after IP.Board 3.0.2 is released. As CCS is a new product and will require time to mature into the fully-featured content system we know all of our customers expect, we are introducing the product at a greatly reduced price. We have many great ideas to enhance CCS as we continue to develop the system. We made a decision for this 1.0.0 release to not go overboard with features but focus on creating a stable "core" product to work with. Just wait for version 1.1.0 where we have all sorts of fun additions planned. No. No details yet on those features. Don't ask. Really. ;) The introductory price for those of you wanting to start using CCS as soon as it is available will be just $35 with a yearly renewal of $30 for support/services/upgrades. Not only does this reduced price give those of you who decide to buy early a great discount but it also allows us to phase in some of the product enhancements over time without having pricing pressures at the very start. As for the final price... we have not yet set it so take advantage of this low price if you are interested in CCS. Look for the announcement for the release of CCS soon after IP.Board 3.0.2's release!

Our CCS application allows administrators to create page templates to facilitate easy addition of similar pages throughout the site. Most pages throughout a site follow the same general structure with only the main page content changing from page to page. You can utilize the page templates functionality of CCS to make adding pages in this scenario much easier. Page templates utilize the full power of IP.Board's skin system which means you can use any template conditionals and template plugins in page templates to make them more dynamic. Page templates also support categorization so you can group common page templates together or organize page templates into functional groupings (for example: put all templates that are included into other templates into one grouping). CCS allows you to optionally output content within the IPB wrapper or to output content directly. If you opt to do the latter: you will want to be sure to output appropriate HTML structures to define the page (for instance, head and body HTML tags). Page templates can help you streamline this repetitive task. Using page templates Walking you through an example session, you might visit the page templates screen and first create a category "Includes" to put all template includes into. Then, you might create a "header" page template and a "footer" page template that all pages will share, and afterwards drag-n-drop these templates into your "Includes" category. Next, you could create templates for the main area of the page - you might, for example, create a single column page template and a multi-column page template. Within these page templates you would include your header and footer templates and optionally specify where page content should be placed. The benefit in separating the include templates from the main page templates is that you can later update the one header template and it will apply to all of the page templates including it (and subsequently, all pages using one of these page templates). To include a template within another template, you simply use the skin template tag like so (using a template key example of "header_template"): {parse template="header_template" group="ccs" params=""} You can even include skin templates within your page templates, just like you would within forum skin files. Using page templates with pages With your page templates created you would add a new page using the page manager. On the first page of the wizard, select to use one of your page templates (such as your single column page template). You then have the capability to edit the entire page, or only the page content - this option allows you to either "import" the page template and edit the entire page area (if you select no), or edit only the content that should be placed within your page template appropriately (if you select yes). If you edit only the page content (the preferred method in most cases) any future changes to the page template will automatically be inherited by the page; otherwise, you would need to update the pages individually. This allows you to decide if you want a system where changes to templates are inherited by pages automatically, or if you want to instead use page templates as a starting point but ensure each page is edited and updated independent of every other page. If you elect to edit the content of the page only, when your page is saved the page content is placed within the page template where you specified when editing the template, the page is compiled and pieced together, and the page is then ready to be displayed. Page templates are an extremely simple yet extremely useful feature designed to help facilitate quick production and deployment of pages on your site. You don't even have to make use of page templates if you want, but we believe once you start using them you will see just how much time it will save you in the long run.

Choosing a winner for our skin design contest was a challenging task as all submissions were excellent. Ultimately, we chose the winning skin based on ease of editing and overall usability for inclusion in the IPB3 distribution as an alternate skin. There were some great skins that we could not choose so we hope that all of you talented designers that submitted such amazing skins will continue your projects outside of the contest! Third Place Invision Smooth by Derek M. Second Place Thoreau by No1 1000 First Place CleanCut by ehren. CleanCut is on our company forums now for preview. Thank you again to all who participated!

Our new community hosting packages have been quite popular but some clients expressed a bit of confusion or provided helpful feedback so we have made some enhancements to the packages. All community hosting packages have seen their posts and file storage increased. Also, all packages (except Basic 10) have had their online user limits increased! Any current clients on these packages will get these upgrades applied today! We also clarified that limits on our community hosting are not firm limits and we would never shut you down or charge you extra for temporarily exceeding the limits. The Advanced package limits have also increased. Thank you all for your feedback!

I just wanted to update everyone on our convertor services. We recently updated the convertor information page on our web site to try to clarify some confusion. Note: There is a free conversion service sale going on right now so just keep in mind that the paid services I mention here do not apply until that sale ends. :) We have two types of conversion services: free and paid. Our free conversion service is a pack of convertor scripts you can download and upload into your IPB directory. You simply run the convertor and it walks you through the process. As IPB3 is very new only a few free convertors have been made but we are adding more over the next few weeks. The vBulletin convertor was recently updated so administrators converting from that software will not lose their links from all of their existing topics. This means that search engines or other sites linking to your existing topics will be automatically redirected to the new topic IDs in IPB once converted. We are also now supporting conversion from vBulletin blog and gallery data where applicable. Finally, the SMF free convertor is nearly done and will be made available on the site as soon as it's ready. We also have a paid conversion service. You can have us convert many database types to IPB for a fee of $60 (including free ones if you prefer to have us do it). The list is on our convertor information page. Again, the $60 fee is waived until sale expires! If you do not see your software on the list, or you have a custom database that you would like converted, just contact us for a quote. Thanks everyone! Update: The SMF free convertor is now available on the web site. Next on the free convertor list is Woltlab.

IP.Board 3.0.0 and Applications launch has been going great so far. We hope everyone who has already upgraded their installs to IPB3 is enjoying the new software. Welcome to all the recent new customers and converts to IPS software and hosting. Everyone here hopes you enjoy your experience! Join in the community, get help from other customers or jump in and offer help yourself. You never know what interesting tips or resources you might find. As I am sure most everyone has noticed, we also launched our new web site on invisionpower.com and the feedback there has been wonderful. We know there is some content missing and some broken links here and there but we are working on it. Also, the client area and order process is working but might not be very pretty in a few places :) so bear with us there. If you find anything wrong with the site please use the Tracker here to report. There is a category for the new web site. A quick reminder to check IP.Board 3.0.0's requirements before attempting to install or upgrade. We will be maintaining the 2.3.x branch for those on outdated hosting providers who have not upgraded their server software. We know that many customers are waiting on the Subscriptions Manager to be released so they can upgrade to IPB3. We sincerely apologize for this delay. The Subscriptions Manager update to be compatible with IPB3 is currently our number one priority. It is very close now. There will be an announcement as soon as it's ready. Finally, we are working on 3.0.1 to fix any issues being reported. So far (knock on plastic wood-like composite) we have had no critical issues that impact huge numbers of installs but there are always issues here and there that impact installs on specific scenarios. Since 3.0.0 is brand new and a huge upgrade from 2.3.6 we do expect a few point releases to iron out any issue that come up from 3.0.0's first wide-spread usage. But don't worry, upgraded from 3.0.0 to 3.0.1 will be very easy. Thanks again to everyone!

An important aspect to many webpages is the media embedded into the webpage. It's rare to come across a web page that has no images on it, after all. For this reason, we have included a media management tool in CCS to facilitate adding, organizing, and otherwise managing media for your pages. A word about security Security is a very important concern when working with files and folders on the filesystem. For this reason, CCS only allows image uploads to occur through the admin control panel and only allows file management operations within a directory defined by editing a file you must upload to your site through FTP. Through these restrictions, if an attacker were ever to gain access to your admin control panel they can only delete and upload within the directory you have previously defined (which can only be set through FTP). They would also only be able to upload image files, thereby limiting any damage that can be done. You can, however, upload whatever files you wish through FTP and (if you set permissions appropriately on the files) delete and move those files through the admin control panel. This is a compromise we have made to help ensure we protect your site (and server), however, as most administrators will be primarily managing images through the media manager we feel the compromise will not be much of an inconvenience. What the media manager can do The media manager allows administrators to manage files on the server (within a specified directory structure). The administrator can create, rename, move, and delete folders at will within this directory. The administrator can also upload image files to any of these folders, delete the files within these directories, and move the files around as needed. It is a really simple tool designed to help you accomplish a really simple task - uploading, previewing, moving and removing images you might need to embed within your web pages. The media manager manages real files on the file system, so it is presented in the admin control panel separately from the page manager (which handles virtual folders and pages that do not actually exist on the disk). Conclusion We realize many administrators are fine with uploading the images and other media they may need for their site through FTP: but for those occasional instances where you just need to quickly upload an image or two while building a web page - or you just need to grab the full URL to an image because you forgot it - you may find that using the media manager can save you a lot of time. It is a simple tool, with a simple and familiar approach, that can save you a lot of time in these very common instances. No video demo for this one... no one would be too excited seeing image files being moved around. :)

The demo system for our software has been updated to include IP.Board 3.0.0 along with Gallery, Downloads, and Blog. This is a great way to try out IP.Board 3 if you have not yet wanted to try an RC release or if you are not currently an IPS client and are considering a purchase. There is a limit to the number of active demo accounts that can be online at one time so if you are unable to sign up now please do try again later. Thanks!

The core of the CCS application centers around allowing you to create pages for your website. The way you create pages and the types of pages you create will be specific to your site, however the process is the same. One administrator may want to build the full front of their website using CCS, while another administrator may want to add some pages within the forums that are not there by default. Both scenarios can be covered by CCS. The page manager interface looks similar to a computer folder view: you are presented with folders and files in a directory-style listing. You can create folders and subfolders, rename them, delete them, empty them, and move them around as needed. You can edit, rename, delete and move files within these folders as well. There is no built in limit to the number of folders or the directory tree depth imposed by CCS. There are three page types that you can create: HTML, Javascript, and CSS. Javascript and CSS files are pretty straightforward - the main difference from HTML pages being that when you call to one of these files through a script, link, or import tag in an HTML document, CCS will output the correct HTTP header for the content type being served. Actual pages can be edited as raw HTML, bbcode, or PHP; allowing you to do practically anything with your pages. You could make your page entirely dynamic, making use of IP.Board's database abstraction layer to retrieve data from the database, using the PHP page type. Or you could make a quick Terms of Service page to display to users using only the bbcode WYSIWYG editor. You can enter the actual filename, and a friendly name to describe the page. The folder and filename are combined to create the URL to reach the page, described later in this blog entry. You can also define the meta keywords and description tags when editing the page. You can utilize page templates to make creating and editing pages simpler. We will be discussing page templates in a future blog entry, but in essence you would create a page template that defines the basic HTML structure, and then when adding a page you select the template you wish to use, select whether you want to import the template or just edit the page content itself, and the CCS will then be able to utilize pre-designed page templates to make page deployment much easier, faster, and more consistent. Pages can be cached, helping to reduce overhead for pages that should be relatively static for all viewers. If your pages are very dynamic (for instance, they use a lot of feed or plugin blocks where content will differ from user to user) you should be careful regarding page caching. You wouldn't want an administrator to trigger some piece of the page to be recached with elevated permissions, for instance, showing topics a guest user wouldn't normally be able to view. If your pages are mostly static, however, pages can be built once, cached, and then served from cache on subsequent views. Remember that blocks can also be independently cached, so you can have relatively static blocks cached while leaving the page itself uncached (it will still used the cached HTML for blocks that specify to do so, and use dynamic HTML for blocks that have disabled caching). When you enable page caching, the entire page output is cached. You can also define the permission masks needed to access a page, or allow all users to access the page. Using this, you can create moderator guidelines for your moderating team, or a contact information page for administrators, for example. Actually accessing the page is an important matter, and many users will want to utilize friendly urls for this. There are many options built into CCS to handle this for you, which we will likely go over in more detail in a future blog entry. If you are accessing CCS through IP.Board, then CCS uses the built in friendly url functionality in IP.Board to generate friendly URLs (if enabled). Most people, however, will likely take our included index.php file, edit the path to their forums within it, and place this index.php somewhere else on the server. Using this method, you could place the website pages in a root directory of your domain, and have the forums contained within a /forums folder. You would then be able to manage your entire website, create virtual directories and pages, and more right in your IP.Board admin control panel easily. If your server supports mod_rewrite, you can create a .htaccess file and place it in the same directory as the index.php file provided with CCS, eliminating the /index.php/ from the URL entirely. Ultimately, you can define the urls entirely through the admin control panel by creating folders, defining the page names, and placing the pages within folders as you see fit. As a traditional web server would do, if you visit a virtual folder but do not specify the file, an index.html will be looked for in that folder (you can change the file you wish to load by default in the settings). If the user requests a file that does not exist, a 404.html file will be looked for instead (again, the file is configurable in the settings). Nothing in the system requires you to use extensions, or requires extensions, when used, to be of a certain type. You could give your pages any extension you wish, or none at all (making pages appear to be "folders"). The system is extremely configurable to allow you to create pages for your site the way you want, and to appear in any way that you want. We've done our best to limit any restrictions in place so that you can define the website any way that you choose. Once you start creating pages, you'll be amazed at how simple and versatile the system really is to use.

This is the first blog entry going over specific features in the new Community Content System. See the full announcement for more information: Our Community Content System allows administrators to create blocks that can be used anywhere within the CCS framework and anywhere within the forums, blogs, galleries, or any other IPB applications. Blocks are small content includes that can contain practically anything. CCS allows you to create 3 main types of blocks. Custom Blocks You can create custom blocks which can contain anything you want. CCS allows you to edit custom blocks in raw HTML mode, bbcode mode (using the RTE from the forums), and raw PHP mode. The first two methods are pretty self explanatory - what you enter is what is displayed. The raw PHP block mode allows you to enter PHP code (you simply print or echo the output) and the result will be displayed where the block is set on the page. Using raw PHP mode, you can extend the system quite a bit to accomplish whatever you want. Plugin Blocks Plugin blocks allow the administrator to select an available plugin to include. Examples that are included with CCS by default include: Mini-calendar Poll Welcome block Online friends Online users Watched content We should note that these plugins are completely abstracted from the system, so adding new plugins does not require any file modifications. You simply upload a new folder to the appropriate location, import an XML file in the admin control panel, and the block is ready for use! We expect modification authors will create some interesting plugins once they get their hands on the framework. Feed Blocks Feed blocks allow administrators to create "feeds" of data from their forums (or from an external RSS feed) to display. Feed blocks, like plugin blocks, work through a plug-n-play setup whereby you upload a file that defines certain methods and CCS will automatically detect the new feed type and allow administrators to create feeds from other sources. Default feed source options include: RSS Forums Members Calendar Blogs Downloads Gallery Each feed type can have multiple sources - for instance, the forum feed type allows you to pull forums (e.g. to create a forum "tree"), topics (e.g. for a "most viewed topics" block), and replies (e.g. a latest replies block). Feed types can define filtering, sorting and limiting options. A few examples you can easily implement with no coding knowledge required: Featured blog entry block Latest topics block Top posters block Random gallery images block Upcoming calendar events block Latest news from CNN Most feed types allow ordering by a date field (e.g. "latest"-style blocks), ordering by "random", and ordering by other fields specific to the feed type and source. It would be difficult to detail each possible configuration in a single blog entry, so we encourage you to simply look for yourself when CCS is available. There are several other block-specific options you might be interested in. For instance, each block can be cached (or not) independently, and you can elect to hide blocks entirely if there is no content to show (rather than seeing an empty block). Each block creates a skin template unique to it, so you can edit each block's skin template independently of any other block for full customization. Blocks are created through a wizard interface, allowing us to step you through the process entirely. Once created, however, you can quickly edit the template without relaunching the entire wizard process, allowing for faster customization of your site. The wizard interface allows the block process to step you through creation and present you with options specific to the block you are defining. Additionally, blocks are not restricted to the CCS framework. Blocks are parsed through a template plugin tag, which means that you can add a block to any skin template in IPB. If you created an RSS feed block from your website, for example, you could easily display this block right on your forum index. Or you could create a block with advertisements in it, and use the IPB skin system to display this block anywhere within IPB. Blocks use the full power of the skin system, so you can embed blocks within blocks, use template conditionals, and do anything else that you can do within any other skin template. This means you can even add hook points in your blocks, and use the new IP.Board 3.0's hook features to extend blocks even further! With all of this in mind, we believe you will find there is no end to the amount of customization that can be acheived through the blocks functionality provided by CCS.

The second release candidate of IP.Board 3.0.0 is nearly ready for release. We are just going through the final stages of internal testing and then it will be made available. Just to remind everyone of the previous blog entry which contains various FAQs and information on release candidates. This release is a huge improvement from RC1 just a few short weeks ago. Since RC1 was the first release we declared "safe" to use many more people installed the software. As we expected, many bugs were reported which we were able to address. The larger install base for RC1 means a more stable RC2 and, of course, an even more stable final release. Thank you again to everyone who has been reporting bugs and issues! You will be able to upgrade from RC1 to RC2 if you need to. When reporting any issues in RC2 please be sure to indicate if it's a fresh install or upgrade (and what version upgraded from). Looking forward to RC2 and final release. Keep an eye on our blog and announcements forum for lots of activity over the next couple weeks. Thanks!

The first release candidate of IP.Board 3.0.0 is coming very soon. Everyone here at IPS wants to thank all of our customers who took their time to test the various beta releases of IP.Board to date. We also want to thank those who participated in the IPB3 preview forum and gave their pre-beta feedback. IPS believes that the public beta process was an important part of this process. Although the process took longer than we originally anticipated, it is our firm belief that taking feedback and testing results from our customer base has created a great product we can all be proud of. Not only did we fix various bugs and issues but we also took the time to make certain changes to IPB3 when people pointed out areas we thought were great but turned out not so great. Granted it took time to make those changes but the end results are very good for all. That is the beauty of collaborating with our customers and are happy with the outcome. Frequently Asked Questions We are receiving various questions about the upcoming releases. Here are a few below. Some are repeats but good to review. What is a Release Candidate? A release candidate is a version of the software between the beta phase and a final release. Once we post the first release candidate of IP.Board 3.0.0 you can safely assume that we consider the software stable enough to use on your live community. Everyone here at IPS is very excited to reach this milestone of development. Note that technical support and service is not available until we reach the final, supported version. Keep in mind that, although this is a release candidate, there will probably still be some bugs and issues so make your decision to use the software carefully. Is there a cost to upgrade? So long as you have a current and active support/upgrade license there is no cost to upgrade to IPB3. Also, if you are on IPS Hosting, there is no cost to upgrade. If your Standard license is expired you can renew it for $25. If you need help just contact customer service. Can you upgrade my board for me? We will be happy to upgrade your board when IP.Board 3.0.0's final version is released. However, we do not provide support services for the release candidate stage. Keep in mind that all active IP.Board licenses come with free upgrade services so you can upgrade your install yourself or our staff would be happy to do it for you at no cost to you. What about IP.Blog/Gallery/Downloads? The release candidates for the applications will be available just a few days after IP.Board's release candidate. We are staggering the releases so bug reports can be confirmed that they are only regarding IP.Board itself. On the final release day, all applications will be released right along with IP.Board. Please note that the updates to the applications did not contain any major changes at this time but instead were updated to work with IP.Board 3.0.0's code. One of the very first updates made after IP.Board 3.0.0's final release will be major upgrades to the applications. Will IP.Board 3.0.0 be encoded? The beta releases were encoded so we could control the releases and how long they were in use. Starting with RC1, IP.Board 3.0.0 will not be encoded. IP.Board 3.0.0 RC 1 will be out very soon. We hope you all enjoy!

We released IP.Board 3.0.0 Beta 5 last week and the release has gone very well so we are preparing to enter the Release Candidate phase of development. Thanks to everyone who has downloaded the various beta releases and posted bug reports. Please continue to do so! The more we can fix before final release the better for all. A release candidate is a version of the software between the beta phase and a final release. Once we post the first release candidate of IP.Board 3.0.0 you can safely assume that we consider the software stable enough to use on your live community. Everyone here at IPS is very excited to reach this milestone of development. Keep in mind this will not be the final, supported version. There will probably be bugs but hopefully nothing that will cause any major issues. So, although it's not a beta anymore, still consider this information before you upgrade your live community. If you cannot stomach a few bugs or areas not working perfectly you may want to wait before upgrading. :) The upcoming release candidate for IP.Board 3.0.0 will also be the first release that is not encoded. We hope that our community developers will jump right in and start writing hooks and alternate skins. We have quite a bit of developer documentation already written and we will get that out for everyone as soon as possible. For the sanity of our support department, keep in mind that release candidates do not come with technical support service. Once IP.Board 3.0.0 is released as a final version then support services will be offered. Expect the first release candidate of IP.Board 3.0.0 in the next two weeks or so. Thank you again!

As we get closer to the final release of IP.Board 3.0.0 we have seen a huge increase in the number of clients converting to our software and services from other community software platforms. Of course we are always very excited to help anyone move to IP.Board and this is the best time to do the conversion. You can start getting familiar with IP.Board on the current 2.3.6 version and our staff can easily upgrade you to version 3.0.0 when it is available at no extra charge. In addition to converting customers we have also seen an increase in IPB Standard License sales as new customers buy IPB now who are excited about the upcoming 3.0.0 release and want to get familiar with IPB now. IP.Board Standard License Sale Starting 9:00 am EST January 5, 2009 and ending 5:00 pm EST January 9, 2009 the price of an IP.Board Standard License will be reduced from $149.99 to $129.00 to allow everyone a chance to purchase IPB at this special, reduced price. The 6-month renewal price will remain the same. Free Conversion Service Our staff will convert your database to IPB at no cost to you. This is a savings off the normal $60.00 conversion fee! This applies to all software listed on the conversion information page. To take advantage of this offer, just email [email protected] by January 9th and our conversion team will take care of your database conversion for you. You will need to have an active IPB license to take advantage of this offer. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions. Thank you!

For complete information on the IP.Board 3.0.0 Beta 1 release please read the full announcement. We have refreshed the download of IP.Board 3.0.0 Beta 1 to address a few critical bugs that were reported yesterday. The refresh is as of the time of this blog entry. We focused on installation bugs and core usability bugs for this small refresh so more people could install IP.Board 3.0.0 Beta 1 before the end of the year. Note that not all bugs marked as fixed in the bug tracker will be fixed in this build of the beta. You can download the beta again from the client area and reinstall it as you did before. There is no need to download the beta again if you downloaded it after the time of this entry for the first time. Also, hosting customers can now download the beta in the "development tools" category in their download area. Ioncube Encoding IP.Board betas are Ioncube encoded so we can ensure that reported bugs are directly related to the code and not to modifications. While we do not mind people modifying, you can imagine how frustrating it can be trying to track down a bug that turns out is not even related to IP.Board's code. Some have reported problems with installing using Ioncube. There are a few topics in the IPB3 preview forum which may help those unfamiliar with using Ioncube. The final version of IP.Board 3.0.0 will not be Ioncube encoded. PHP Version Compatibility Beta 1 requires PHP 5.2.1 or greater to operate. We will be working on changes in the next betas to lower the version of PHP required closer to 5.1 or possibly 5.0. We will provide more information on those changes as they are available. Reporting Bugs Please search the bug tracker for a description on the bug you have found before submitting the report. We appreciate bug reports but it does slow things down when duplicate reports are submitted. This will become more important as bugs are fixed in preparation for Beta 2 but the fixes not yet released as it will slow down development if we have to sort through duplicate reports. Thanks for searching before posting - it makes a huge difference. Thanks for all your help and happy bug hunting!

The IP.Board 3.0 preview has been going quite well and we have received some good feedback and ideas for version 3.0 which we have already implemented. This blog entry will outline some of the changes that have been implemented in 3.0 since the preview was made available. Other than the changes listed here there have been lots of minor skin interface improvements and many bug fixes too numerous to go into. Search Index For a long time we have been looking at ways to solve a problem with global searching. Searching is very resource intensive and we are under pressure to deliver a comprehensive search that is both quick and light on the server. One solution we implemented on the preview board was a search index. This index contained the text from various sources such as posts, blogs and calendar events. The search index was successful in making global searching quick and efficient but it was limited by MySQL itself. While it worked well on smaller boards, there was an issue with scaling in that MySQL does not deal very well with large tables. While the posts table would often lock in normal searching, the search index table would lock in many more situations thereby eliminating any benefits it brought to IPB. Also, when upgrading to IPB 3 the search index needed to be built which could potentially take many hours. This is obviously undesirable. We also found that it limited what you could search for and how the results were displayed. For these reasons we have decided to remove the search index option in IPB 3.0. We will instead work on enhancing the normal search system (including some of the good ideas from the preview site) and large search solutions such as Sphinx. Removing the search index will not impact the overall ability to search and find content you are looking for and we will work on the normal search routines to make displaying the search results easier to work with. Gravatar Support Gravatar is as service that hosts your avatar so you can have the same avatar on the various communities you visit. It also allows you to centrally update your avatar and have it show up all over the web. You just sign up on their site and then enter your email address you registered with Gravatar in IPB 3.0's settings area. Warn Panel Updates The warn panel has been updated to allow for moderators to be able to better control troublesome members and posts without administrator intervention. Enhancements include: Option to "ban" a member permanently from the warn panelIncrease or decrease warn value by a custom value (rather than just +1 or -1) for super moderators onlyAbility to unapprove (hide) all member's posts and/or topics made with the last X days/hoursMember's current reputation and other general information now displayed on warn panel Mutual Friends Adding and removing friends is now a mutual option in that if you add someone as a friend you will also appear on their profile as a friend. The same goes for removing a friend: if you remove a friend you are also removed from their friend list. Reputation Logs Administrators can now edit a member's reputation points. They can also view the record of ratings that member has left for others and the ratings others have left for that member. Enhanced Watched Topics/Forums The listing of watched topics and forums in your user settings now displays the number of new topics or posts since your last visit. You can click this link to be taken to the forum listing showing only those new topics since your last visit. Filter Forum by New Topics You can now filter a forum using the filter options bar at the bottom of the page to show only new topics posted since your last visit. Public Polls The option to allow public polls is now in the admin area. Public polls are like normal polls but they show the name of the members who voted and what they voted for in the poll. Administrators can also optionally allow members to delete their vote and re-vote in polls. This new feature only functions with newly-created polls. Administrators can switch a poll from private to public only if the poll has had no votes. IP.Board 3.0.0 Release The preview testing and feedback has been going so well that we have decided to reevaluate our release schedule. We will still have a downloadable beta version of IP.Board 3.0.0 out by the end of this year but a final version will not be out by the end of this year. Because the preview site has become so useful, we are treating it as a "pseudo-beta" and using it to test various features and learn about how IPB 3.0 behaves in a production environment. Although this will delay our final release until early next year, it brings the benefit of a much shorter beta-release cycle since IPB is being so heavily tested now. This means that we will have fewer beta releases before moving on to the final release. It also means that the final release of IPB will be as good as it can be which is good for everyone. We believe that this short delay until the final release will be beneficial for all as the final version of IPB 3.0 will be as stable as it can be on day one. Thanks to everyone for your help and ideas. We will keep you updated on our progress in the coming weeks.

The IP.Board 3.0 preview has been going very well. Lots of bugs have been reported and, more importantly, fixed already. The feedback we have received has been very valuable and we have already implemented some of the good ideas our customers have presented us. Thanks again! We are now ready to open the preview up to the general public. You can visit the preview at http://ipb3preview.ipslink.com and login with the same email address and password you use in the IPS client area or company forums. A few things to keep in mind: This is a preview of alpha software. We are not quite to the beta stage so please keep in mind that there are some areas still being finished up. The preview has been open for a couple weeks now to our customer base so lots of feedback and bugs have been posted. Have a look around what is already there before posting new info. Thanks! As we have reviewed in previous blog entries, IP.Board 3.0.0 is very different from the version 1.x or 2.x series. So far the feedback from our private testing group has been great and everyone loves the new look and feel. We can never please everyone :) so please be civil if you do not like something that is purely a matter of opinion and offer a constructive suggestion we can consider if you feel something can be improved. IP.Board 3.0.0 is feature-frozen at this point. We will not be adding any new features but are happy to consider enhancements to those already included. We will always have version 3.1 for feature additions and one of the best parts of 3.0's architecture is adding new features along with upgrading is much easier than the 2.x series so upgrades can be developed and released much faster. We hope you enjoy!

We are preparing the first public preview of IP.Board 3.0.0 alpha and look forward to everyone's feedback and help in testing. It is our current plan to preview IP.Board 3.0.0 alpha the second half of next week (around Nov 10 2008 +/- a day or two). As promised, those in the customer group on the IPS forums will receive the preview a bit earlier. Keep an eye on our company blog for updates. The public preview will be on a special web site and will not be available for download. You can use the same login as the IPS company forums to login. A few important notes... This will be a preview of alpha software. We are not quite to the beta stage so please keep in mind that there are some areas still being finished up. We believe all functionality should be working properly but there are parts of the software that need some skin work. Some of the newest areas, like the new PM system, could use some extensive testing. We ask that you help us test the functionality, click around the preview copy and report those issues that you find in the special area of our Bug Tracker for the IP.Board 3.0.0 alpha preview (will be available on preview day). When reporting please be careful to look over all already reported bugs to be sure not to submit duplicates. Do your best to try to break it... so we can then fix it. As we have reviewed in previous blog entries, IP.Board 3.0.0 is very different from the version 1.x or 2.x series. So far the feedback from our private testing group has been great and everyone loves the new look and feel. We can never please everyone :) so please be civil if you do not like something that is purely a matter of opinion and offer a constructive suggestion we can consider if you feel something can be improved. IP.Board 3.0.0 is feature-frozen at this point. We will not be adding any new features but are happy to consider enhancements to those already included. We will always have version 3.1 for feature additions and one of the best parts of 3.0's architecture is adding new features along with upgrading is much easier than the 2.x series so upgrades can be developed and released much faster. Upcoming Beta Releases We will use the public preview for our first round of testing and performance evaluation. Depending on how the public preview goes we will begin releasing downloadable betas. Expect updates on the beta release schedule in the week following the public preview. Components like Blog, Gallery, and Downloads will have their own testing phase so please keep and eye out for those. Thank you for your interest and everyone at IPS is looking forward to the public preview. We hope you are too and that you enjoy it!

Our new resource site has been online for a few months now and the feedback has been great so we are going to enhance the offerings and further involve our community of resource authors. Some upcoming changes include: Forum Organization We will be reorganizing and adding new forums to the company forums resource section to make it easier to navigate and find information. You will also soon notice a feed from the resource site to the company forums featuring new activity, most popular resources, and more. Resource Spotlight Once a month, we will feature a resource and do a short interview with the author of that resource so you can get to know them and what they created. We hope that everyone enjoys these features and they help introduce our customer community to all the great resources that are available to them. Community Projects The IP.Tracker bug tracker community project has been very well received so we are looking at introducing more. If you are not aware, our community projects are projects that we sponsor but the community actually creates and are offered at no charge. IPS provides resources for programming, hosting, etc. and the customer community writes all the needed code for the project. We already have a new community project lined up and will be announcing that in the next week. More to come Also coming very soon is a ranking list of the most used resources, ability to list paid resources, better linking with our main site, and more. Keep an eye out for more updates. Please expect some downtime on the resources site over the next several days as we implement these new services. Thanks everyone!

We are moving rapidly on IP.Board 3.0 development along with its related IP.Blog, IP.Gallery, and IP.Downloads updates. As we approach being able to post these updates for a preview and an eventual release we think we are getting close enough that we can start talking about some of the new features we have planned. I will be purposely vague in this first blog entry about IP.Board 3.0's development and let our development staff get into detail in future blog entries. While not promising a set schedule, you can expect an update from a developer almost weekly going into detail about a specific change or new feature. Our full new feature list is very long but here is a sampling for everyone. Our development team will go into detail about each one in the coming weeks and also introduce all the other additions not mentioned in this introduction. Interface There will be a great focus on usability and streamlining functions. The introduction of a new template engine which allows for multiple default template sets, easier skin editing, and a brand new default skin is something we are very excited about. Search engine friendly URLs will not only make your community more interesting to search engine spiders but allow for more human-friendly linking. Control The overhauled BB Code manager along with moving all default BB Codes to the system so you can edit them will allow forum administrators greater control over how their users interact with the community. We are implementing greater configuration options including being able to turn off features you do not use and finer controls on current features. Finer tuning your user signatures, turning specific options off, or even removing entire sections such as the calendar will allow you to gain finer control of how you want your community to be presented. Features There will be quite a few new features but, for now, we will save those for our upcoming blog posts to reveal what's new. A quick sampling: user reputation system, more permission configuration options, moderator enhancements, and ... lots more. Integration We want you to integrate your community with the rest of your web site with minimal effort. To make this easier for you, we will be putting great focus on creating a new hooks system for developers, more advanced APIs, content syndication, login methods, and more. Our applications (IP.Blog, IP.Gallery, and IP.Downloads) more tightly integrated with each other and with IP.Board itself. Coding There will be a lot of low-level code improvements which will make working with our codebase much easier for our community of developers. Everything we do will be with an eye toward resource usage improvements to make our software lighter on servers. Server Requirements To take advantage of many new capabilities, we will be officially dropping support for PHP 4.x series and requiring a minimum of PHP 5.x for our software. The software will work on the MySQL 4.x database series but we will highly suggest using the MySQL 5.x version. Oracle Database Due to slowing demand over the past few years, we have decided to discontinue supporting Oracle database system. We will continue to support MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server. Subscriptions Manager Again, due to slowing demand, we have decided to stop updating the subscriptions manager in IP.Board. We will be fixing all current known bugs to make the system compatible with IP.Board 3.0 so those currently using the subscriptions manager will still be able to upgrade. Anyone currently using the subscriptions manager will still be able to upgrade and everything will work normally for you. From there, we will be looking for community developers to keep it up to date. We will be posting a blog entry when ready to ask for assistance in keeping the subscriptions manager up to date. Anyone wishing to use our new IP.Nexus commerce system when it's available will be able to migrate as well. Of course this is just the short version. Keep an eye on our blog for more detailed updates and new feature reveals in the coming weeks. And finally, when will it be released? Right now we are thinking the fourth quarter of 2008 (IP.Board, IP.Blog, IP.Gallery, and IP.Downloads will all receive a new version at the same time) but of course that's subject to change... it could very well be sooner...