Charles

Tags are a powerful feature in IPS Community Suite 4 and we have seen clients using them in many ways to enhance content discovery on their site. Adding tags to an item is quite easy but modifying them after the fact requires you to edit the root content item. Not only is this tedious but it also then shows an edited-by line for that item even if all you did was change a tag. To make this process more user friendly we now have the ability to quickly edit tags when viewing any content item. When you view an item that has tags enabled and you have permission to edit then you will see a link to edit tags. Tag Quick Edit That brings up an input box where you can manage your item tags without leaving the page to a full edit screen. Tag Quick Edit Input We have been testing the feature for a few weeks internally and it has already saved us time as we tag our discussions. But beyond that, and I think more important, is the fact that we find we are using tags more often. More use means more organization and filter possibilities of your content which is a great thing for busy, data-drive communities. So we hope that not only will controlling your tags be faster an easier but you too find you use the tagging feature more often with this small but useful change. This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

We are improving our integration options with analytics tracking services to better track and credit all page views. Our focus here was to add the ability for IPS Community Suite to communicate with your analytics tracking provider of choice when it does page change events that do not otherwise get tracked. Some tracking providers do not understand that an inline AJAX page load (one that loads new content without a full page refresh) should still count as a new page. Even though your browser did not do a full reload, all your content is different so it should count in your metrics. To solve this issue, IPS Community Suite can now automatically put in custom code to execute on pagination. We include Google Analytics and Piwik code by default and there is also an option to include your own custom pagination event code for other services. Analytics in AdminCP If you already have your Google Analytics code in our existing (basic) analytics system then the Suite will detect this on upgrade and automatically enable the new pagination tracking. The screenshot above shows the "Other" option if you do not use Google Analytics or Piwik. If you have other providers you want us to consider just post a feedback topic. Note: be sure that you embed Google Analytics into your Suite using the built-in analytics system. If you simply pasted the code into your theme templates then we cannot automatically enable the new tracking. We hope this new feature allows for easier integration with analytics tracking providers and also gives you much better insight into your traffic by properly counting all the page views you may currently be missing out on! This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

This release resolves intermittent issues submitting a reply or seeing CSRF errors.

Version 4.1.16 is now available to all clients. This release contains fixes, performance updates, and many new features. Check out what's new: You can also read the Release Notes for the technical details. Enjoy 4.1.16!

Our own site on invisionpower.com is now running version 4.1.16 with all the new features. Have a look around and see what you think! My personal favorite is being able to press cmd/ctrl+enter to submit a reply. It is a small change but sometimes small changes make all the difference. We have also released a beta for any clients who are interested in using the latest release before it is officially available. The alpha and beta forum has more information (clients only) if you want to learn more about using beta releases.

In addition to many small bug fixes, this release includes: Accounts flagged as spammers are now more visibly different on the member list in AdminCP Added quite a few new embed providers 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 (requires free Google API key) Default location for an AdminCP tab honors the admin's ordering Staff notification emails for tickets in Commerce now include the ticket ID Auto-saved content in the editor will now expire after 48 hours If you load an editor that has previous auto-saved content you will now be prompted to keep or remove it You can now set pre-filled reasons for Warning actions that will automatically populate the member notes editor when a moderator warns a user Escape key will now cancel quick-edit on titles Adds a setting to restrict member birthday view to admins only or to completely disable prompting for birthday to member There are now more "save and reload" options in various places to keep your place when editing content or settings New check all box when viewing activity on a member profile for easier moderation You can now hide posts that are unapproved rather than just approve or delete When a moderator changes the status of a report in the ModCP the system now puts a reply in moderator comments noting the change When you see a "could not write file" error the file it was trying to write now shows in the error logs You can now quickly edit tags when viewing an item without having to edit it if you have permission If you are using multiple devices to login to a site you will be less likely to be logged out Tags can now be quickly edited when viewing an item Administrators can now create custom RSS feeds for various content Enhancements to IP discovery tools for moderators Actions for reports in ModCP now show when status is changed as a comment Redesigned support tool More REST API methods Password strength rating and requirement option Guest terms of service alert Minimum age requirement Ban Filters are now Word Filters and can set words to automatically moderate Display name history is now available on profile view Better analytics integration Leaderboard More release information...

IPS Community Suite 4.1.16 is nearing the end of development so I wanted to go over some of the new features in this upcoming release. Some are big and some are small but we always enjoy making any sort of enhancements to the Suite. We expect 4.1.16 to go to public beta next week. If you are interested in using a public beta please check out our beta forum (clients only) with more info. We welcome as much testing as possible and our betas are considered safe to use on a live site. We do offer support for betas so, if you are technically minded, consider giving them a try. Commerce: New Ticket Listing We have redesigned the ticket listing view in Commerce to be much more user friendly and better use screen space. You can also now group by department which is great for organization. Much like Activity Streams on the front end you can create custom views for tickets based on how you work. The new My History view allows staff to quickly see their latest replies and actions along with some basic stats. There are many other smaller improvement in Commerce in 4.1.16 as well. We think you will enjoy all the updates. Security Questions To enhance the security of your member accounts we now have a new security questions feature where you can allow your members to put in their own, personal security questions. The member will then be prompted to answer those questions for account actions you define. Account Change Emails Members will now receive confirmation emails when they change their email address... and their password... Topics per Page You can now define the number of topics per page in forum view. Remove all Followers Moderators can now remove all followers from any item that allows follows. This is useful if you are archiving an old item or otherwise do not want people getting notified of new activity on an item. Automatic Following Your members can already choose to automatically follow content they start or reply to but now you can define this as the default behavior for all members. Your members can of course override this to their own preference. Embed Failure Message To answer the constant question "why didn't my media embed?" we now show you why. Regular members will just see a message indicating the Suite tried to embed but was not able to. Admins will get more information on what failed. Suspended Member Page When you banned/suspended a member previously they simply saw a generic permission denied message. We now show a more friendly page saying they were suspended and why. The member can click to get the full information from the Warning System as well. Contact Us The contact us page now has configuration options to control where messages are sent. You can do email and even Commerce support departments now. Announcements Global announcements can now be restricted by member group. And some technical stuff... In addition to the new feature additions we have also fixed dozens of issues reported by clients. There was a particular focus on Commerce, Pages, and IPS Connect. Some other items of note: Performance improvements in: profile view, sitemap generator, posting replies, and Activity Streams We now try to more reliably detect the AWS S3 endpoint for those using S3 file storage Tasks view will now show the last time a task ran More efficient license key checking to keep the keys from being checked too often which can slow your site down If group promotion based on date is enable the system will now auto-promote even if a member does not login If you move your site to a new URL you no longer have to update a constant if using the image proxy You can now press ctrl/cmd+enter in any editor window to submit the reply (yay!) In Commerce ticket view there are keyboard shortcuts to perform common actions (such as press 'r' to open reply box or 'n' for note) There is now logic to prevent double-posting when the initial post encounters an error on submit If your datastore (cache system) is not working properly the AdminCP will now show you a warning telling you that it needs attention.

In addition to many small bug fixes, this release includes: Large number of bugs fixed in focus areas: Commerce, Pages databases, and IPS Connect Performance improvements in: profile view, sitemap generator, posting replies, and Activity Streams We now try to more reliably detect the AWS S3 endpoint for those using S3 file storage More efficient license key checking to keep the keys from being checked too often which can slow your site down There is now a column in tasks view to show the last time it ran to help diagnostics When a member changes their email or password they now get an email confirmation If group promotion based on date is enable the system will now auto-promote even if a member does not login There is now a setting to change the number of topics per page in the forum view If you move your site to a new URL you no longer have to update a constant if using the image proxy You can now press ctrl/cmd+enter in any editor window to submit the reply In Commerce ticket view there are keyboard shortcuts to perform common actions (such as press 'r' to open reply box or 'n' for note) There is now logic to prevent double-posting when the initial post encounters an error on submit Moderators can now remove all followers from an item Contact Us is now configurable with various options Announcements can now be restricted by member group Admins now have a setting to have members automatically follow content they start or reply to. Members can optionally override this. The editor will now show a message if a link that can be embedded (image, video, etc.) failed to embed for some reason. Admins get more detailed error reasons. If your datastore (cache system) is not working properly the AdminCP will now show you a warning telling you that it needs attention. When a member is banned/suspended the system now shows a more friendly page with information on their ban. Previously it showed a permission denied page. Redesigned ticket listing in Commerce New My History view in Commerce Security Questions for account security Please view the 4.1.16 announcement for full details and screenshots.

This is a maintenance release to fix known bugs and also includes many performance improvements to search and activity streams. Commerce Customer Standing Data now loads via AJAX for faster loading Lots of Commerce related bug fixes Passwords on new hosting accounts are now more secure REST API now supports adding Staff Notes to support requests REST API now supports editing purchases Remember me cookie is now 90 days rather than 7 days A race condition is fixed where the site may call to check the license way more often than needed Performance improvements on activity streams Performance improvement to online list widgets

This release contains a security update to address a possible issue where uploaded files may execute as scripts. For this to happen, a server must be configured to allow for very loose rules for what is an executable script. Most servers will not be vulnerable to this issue but we have no way of detecting which may be so we are releasing this security update as a precaution. It is recommended this release is installed as soon as possible. This new version improves the security of the .htaccess protection for the /uploads folder on your site. If you have already enabled the security feature "Protect Writeable Folders From Dangerous Files", then you will need to manually update the .htaccess file which you can do simply by opening "uploads/.htaccess" in a text editor and replacing its contents with: #<ipb-protection> <Files ~ "^.*\.(php|cgi|pl|php3|php4|php5|php6|phtml|shtml|([a-z0-9]{32}))$"> Order allow,deny Deny from all </Files> #</ipb-protection>

This is a maintenance release that only contains the following changes: Database checker can sometimes cause database issues with incorrect index length Performance update for Activity Streams Performance update for sidebar widgets/blocks This release also contains a security update specifically for those using IPS Connect that is regarding password hash comparison. If you use the IPS Connect system please update without delay.

This is a maintenance update and includes only the following changes: Uninstalling an application can create errors Commerce custom fields may not work Calendar repeating events can loop indefinitely Query performance improvement on fetching topics

Our Pages CMS is one of our most popular applications as we are continuing to improve it based on feedback. New in 4.1.13 includes: Designer’s Mode HTML Editing This update allows you to edit your HTML mode pages inside the designer's mode file system. Any edits you make, once saved in your text editor are instantly available which makes it much faster to build HTML pages with Pages. Database Template Improvements We listened to a lot of feedback about templating within the AdminCP for Pages and one common request was for a way to delete a group of database templates and to rename those groups. When you import databases, the template group names are created unique but you may want to change this to something more memorable. You will see here that the dialog also shows you which databases this template is used. Page titles when using databases Currently, when you add a database to a page, the page title is replaced with the database name. This may not always be desirable, and you may want the page title to remain in all database URLs (such as record view). There is now an option for this per database. Relational Field Improvements Now when you create a relational link between databases, you can opt to show which records link to the relational record. To give you an example, say you had a database for actors, and a database for movies, and you created a link on the actors record to show which movies they star in; now when viewing the movie, it will show you a list of the actors. More Filterable Fields We added both "Date" and "YesNo" field types to be filterable when viewing a list of records. When you use the Date type, you can select a date range for listing articles. We also added the ability to use any custom field set as filterable to be used when creating a database feed widget. Unique Fields Another popular request was to allow a way to force unique entries for custom fields. This means that when enabled, only one record per database can have the same value. This is enabled when creating or editing a field. Other improvements You can now quickly delete an entire media folder via the AdminCP. You can now quickly see which databases are used on which pages via the AdminCP page list. And we added a way to programatically fetch a custom field value via the $record object. Currently, you need to use something like $record->field_12 which works well until you import that database to another installation. The fields are renumbered so this syntax no longer works. We made it possible to use the field key like so $record->field_{my_key_name_here}. Not only does this solve the issue when importing databases, it is also much more readable and easier to remember!

Often when you are reading a topic, comments, or other posts, you will see team members replying. Although IPS Community Suite already allows groups to set up custom images and member titles, these replies can get lost in the noise. Version 4.1.13 now allows you to switch on post highlighting per member group. This makes sure the reply stands out from the rest of the replies. Of course, this feature works everywhere; from calendar comments to article replies. The feature is switched on via the Group form in the ACP. You can edit the look of the highlighting via the theme’s settings which allows for different color schemed per-theme. We have also ensured that theme designers can get the most out of the system by embedding a data attribute noting the group of the author. This means that you can add custom CSS to use different colours per member group. We think post highlighting will be a simple way to bring attention to member posts in groups that you define.

This is a small maintenance release to fix a few issues reported in 4.1.10. In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements, it includes following new/changed features: Integration with SparkPost replaces Mandrill for optional email service as Mandrill is stopping their current service toward the end of April. Questions in Question and Answer forums can now be sorted by most votes. The "All Activity" activity stream now has an RSS feed. The filter bar at the top of the activity stream no longer sticks to the stop of the screen when scrolling. If you receive a browser notification your notification menu will now reload to get the latest notification. More consistent visual feedback when a post submit or edit is processing to reduce duplicates. Sidebar widgets now how rounded corners to match rest of Suite. Recaptcha style is now a per-theme setting. You can now set which theme should be the default for the AdminCP separate to which should be the default for the front-end. Important Note This is the last release that will support PHP 5.4 as it is end of life and no longer supported by PHP. Please also note that PHP 5.5 goes full end of life in July 2016 so you should look into upgrading if your web host is using outdated versions. We will not immediately stop supporting PHP 5.5 in July but it may follow soon after.

This is a maintenance and security release to fix reported issues and add refinement to existing features. In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements, it includes following new/changed features: Instant notifications are now dismissible. The sidebar has been added back to the stream pages. You can now sort by most downloaded in Downloads app. The ModeratorCP and AdminCP IP Address Tools now allow you to track the IP addresses used to vote in polls. A new setting has been added to disable the RSS feed for activity streams. A new setting has been added to specify the minimum display name length. Adds a new "can unban" moderator permission separate to the "can edit profiles" permission being used previously. IP addresses now show in reports. There is now a constant-level setting to disable the ACP IP address check in case of being locked out of the ACP. Several improvements to Commerce to make some features clearer: the Shipping Rates configuration pages now indicate to the admin if a potential mistake has been made, the front-end indicates to admins if no support departments have been set up, and the renewal settings wording has been clarified. Check our Release Notes for full information and to keep up with releases in development. To be notified of updates as soon as they are available you can add an email address in your AdminCP under General Configuration.

We are wrapping up testing in preparation of version 4.1.10 release. This is a follow up to 4.1.9 which introduced a lot of great enhancements. Changes in 4.1.10 include: Instant notifications are now dismissible. The sidebar has been added back to the Activity Stream pages. You can now sort by most downloaded in Downloads app. The ModeratorCP and AdminCP IP Address Tools now allow you to track the IP addresses used to vote in polls. A new setting has been added to disable the RSS feed for activity streams. A new setting has been added to specify the minimum display name length. Adds a new "can unban" moderator permission separate to the "can edit profiles" permission being used previously. IP addresses now show in reports. There is now a constant-level setting to disable the ACP IP address check in case of being locked out of the ACP. Several improvements to Commerce to make some features clearer: the Shipping Rates configuration pages now indicate to the admin if a potential mistake has been made, the front-end indicates to admins if no support departments have been set up, and the renewal settings wording has been clarified. And of course countless bugs fixed and performance enhancements. View our full release notes for more details. If you are an existing IPS client and enjoy testing pre-release software, a beta release of 4.1.10 is available. We always appreciate help testing upcoming releases. We are already well into development on 4.1.11 which include some larger feature changes and additions.

This is a maintenance release to fix reported issues and add refinement to existing features. In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements, it includes following enhancements: New Features: When you mouseover the badge showing who liked a post, you will now see a larger list of who liked that post. You can still click to get the full list. Ratings now show half-stars for the average (for example, if one user votes 3 stars and another 4, it will show 3 and a half stars) and there is now an indication if you have rated something. A "Preview" button has been added to the post editor which shows how the post will appear after BBCode processing. Tabs show how the post will appear on desktop, tablet and mobile. Users can now choose to ignore notifications for being mentioned in posts by particular users. You can now filter searches by specific forums/categories. You can now control whether open and click tracking should be used for emails sent by SparkPost. Activity Stream enhancements: The filter dropdowns now have an "Apply" button for better usability (previously you had to click outside the dropdown). The "Expanded/Collapsed" toggles are now clearer. Hitting back from a clicked item in any activity stream now remembers your position and loaded results. Other enhancements and improvements: The way dates are formatted can now be customised by language strings. For example, if you want to change the date format to "DD-MM-YYYY" that is now possible. With this change, the new default is US-style ("March 4, 1992") rather than the previous European-style ("4 March 1992"). Advertisements no longer have padding which makes them easier to position in other areas such as headers. When comparing revisions of articles in Pages databases, a new browser-based diff tool is used which is more user-friendly and moves the computation from the server to the user's browser for greater performance. Better indication of files pending approval in Downloads. The version number for themes now displays in the AdminCP list. Technical features: If you are using the utf8 rather than utf8mb4 character set (which will mean you can't post Emoji) there is a new tool in the AdminCP to upgrade to utf8mb4. System logs have been rewritten to use the database for logging where possible with a more user-friendly interface in the AdminCP. Downloading files from Amazon S3 has been changed to redirect the user to a temporary download URL rather than serve the file through your server for significantly improved performance and reliability, especially with large files. If it is available on the server, ImageMagick will now be used rather than GD by default. ImageMagick also has a new setting to control JPG quality. APC User Cache is now supported in addition to APC. Warning This release does not support PHP 5.4 as it is end of life and no longer supported by PHP. If you are running PHP 5.4 do not upgrade and ask your web host to update to a supported version of PHP.

We have released version 4.1.9 with many bug fixes, performance improvements, and feature enhancements. Our thanks to the QA team and all our clients who participated in the beta release. This is also a security release so please upgrade as soon as possible. All Suites will see the red alert banner show. To be notified of updates as soon as they are available you can add an email address in your AdminCP under General Configuration. New or Changed Features When your link auto-embeds in a post such as with an image, YouTube video, Twitter link, etc. an option will now display to revert the embed back to a plain text link if you do not want the embed. New setting to disable embedding. Facebook/Twitter integration improvements If you are an administrator and encounter a system error, additional debug output will now display. Regular members will see the normal error message. Custom Fields for Support Requests in Commerce now show on the front-end. If an advertisement is set up with a main image, but not smaller images for tablets/mobiles, the ad would not show at all on tablets/mobiles. This has changed so the main image will display on all devices unless smaller images are provided. Topics scheduled to automatically lock or unlock will now reflect this in the topic listing and when viewing the topic. Placing a link to a Facebook status will embed when possible. When viewing a report, the container (for example, the forum) the content is from is displayed. Three character searches are now allowed in the Admin CP Live Search. The Account Settings page now uses vertical rather than horizontal tabs to prevent overflow. If Gravatar is enabled, and a user has not defined an profile photo, then their email address will be used to fetch from Gravatar unless explicitly set not to. Gfycat embeds now use their oEmbed endpoint rather than their JS API. Using Amazon CloudFront as https provider will now be recognized as valid secure connection. The member REST API endpoint will now return custom fields. The Developer Center for Plugins now shows the filename in the list of hooks, and when editing a hook, a breadcrumb includes a link back to the list. Inline notifications can now be dismissed Efficiency improvements to the search index You can now close a poll independently of the topic You may want to read a bit more on our embed improvements: And Activity Stream improvements: We are well into development on version 4.1.10 which will follow along soon. Keep an eye on our Release Notes for updates on what will be coming in that release. If you have any issues please open a support ticket. You can also submit reports to our bug tracker. Thank you!

This is a maintenance release to fix reported issues and add refinement to existing features. In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements, it includes following new/changed features: Instant notifications are now dismissible. The sidebar has been added back to the stream pages. You can now sort by most downloaded in Downloads app. The ModeratorCP and AdminCP IP Address Tools now allow you to track the IP addresses used to vote in polls. A new setting has been added to disable the RSS feed for activity streams. A new setting has been added to specify the minimum display name length. Adds a new "can unban" moderator permission separate to the "can edit profiles" permission being used previously. IP addresses now show in reports. There is now a constant-level setting to disable the ACP IP address check in case of being locked out of the ACP. Several improvements to Commerce to make some features clearer: the Shipping Rates configuration pages now indicate to the admin if a potential mistake has been made, the front-end indicates to admins if no support departments have been set up, and the renewal settings wording has been clarified. Important: If you are running PHP 5.4 you will need to download this patch and apply it after you upgrade to 4.1.10. Version 4.1.11 will include the patch. Note that PHP 5.4 is very out of date and you should ask your web host to upgrade to a supported version of PHP.

Activity Streams were first introduced in version 4.1 and have been very well received by people who enjoy all the flexibility they create in filtering and sorting content in a community for easy discovery of what is being posted. As with any new feature, we received a lot of feedback and have had time to take that in and make improvements to mature the Activity Streams with key changes in 4.1.9 being interface, performance, and bug fixes in the system. One recurring theme we heard were people saying "the new Activity Streams cannot do..." when actually they could do it but the options were not obvious. We used to have the options in a large drop down box that users could edit and then save to update their Stream. This meant that options were not clearly visible and therefore people did not even know all the powerful settings available to them. So in 4.1.9 we have moved those options into a new dynamic filter bar. With the new filter bar you see all your options available right there. We also changed the interface so Streams instantly update when you make a change. You no longer have to click save and update, wait for interface to collapse, and so on. Now your changes instantly update your Stream. When you do change your Stream settings a save button appears prompting you to save your new selection. You can choose to save if you like the new options or not if it is just a temporary change you made. If you edit filters on a stream you do not own then it will prompt you to save your options as a new stream. We hope you enjoy this more dynamic approach to Activity Streams.

Several clients have asked how we placed the Twitter feed block on the sidebar of our News page. It's really quite easy and a great demo of how you can place custom HTML in our system. Here is how it was done: Get the embed code from Twitter Create a custom HTML block in our Pages app Drag and drop that block into the sidebar That really is it! Here is a video walkthrough: This is a basic example of a custom HTML block that you can use in so many different ways. You could create a "call to action" the only shows to Guests to get them to register. You might also create text that only displays to your staff with quick links to areas they need. Here we demo dragging the block into the sidebar. You can also put blocks right in theme templates and use them in many more ways. That will be covered in future theme tips.

We have updated a few of our embed options in version 4.1.9. Our goal was to make the embeds more user friendly and give admins more control over embed in general. When you paste in a link from common services like YouTube, Twitter, and so on the system tries to embed a nice box instead of just a link. For example, if I pasted in this link: https://twitter.com/invisionps/status/708019275521363968 It would create this box: New in version 4.1.9 you can now optionally choose to revert the automatic embed back to a simple text link. So in the above example, when I pasted in my Twitter link, I saw a bar come up giving me the option to revert back to a link. This is useful when you do not want a formatted embed box but instead simply want to reference something and get the visitor to click the link. It is also useful when you want to reference something as part of a single sentence and not have a break in the flow that an embedded content box creates. There is also a new AdminCP setting to completely disable embeds across your entire Suite. Some clients have communities where they like to keep things down to just simple, plain text. You could always disable formatting option button in the editor and now you can also disable automated embeds. As a reminder, the following formats are supported with our embed system. Simply paste a link to any of these services and you will get a nice, rich embed experience that really encourages engagement on your community. College Humor Facebook Flickr Gfycat Google+ Hulu Instagram SoundCloud Spotify Ted Twitter Vimeo Vine YouTube You can also embed links to anything inside of the IPS Community Suite. So you could paste a link to another forum topic in the comment on a Gallery image and it will show a preview of that topic rather than a simple link. We are always open to suggestions so feel free to post in our feedback forum. Thank you!