Charles

Before we start worrying about managing members we must first decide how members actually register on your community. In the AdminCP go to System -> Login & Registration, under the registration tab you will see a page with various options. Registration Options Key Options Allow new registrations = You might want your community to be completely private where you manually create new members. If that is the case then just completely disable registrations. When do you this, the Sign Up link on the front end automatically hides. Validation method for new accounts = By default this is set to Email Validation which requires new members to validate their email account before completing their setup. You can also allow for administrator approval if you want tighter control over your membership. Tip You might not want to enable administrator validation of new members unless you really need that level of control as often people will lose interest if they have to wait around for approval to join your community. We also provide COPPA support for clients who need to comply.

Everyone here at Invision Power Services, Inc., (IPS), the company that makes Invision Community, is happy you have chosen our system to power your Community! We are very proud of what we do and enjoy helping our clients grow their Community. Let's first go over general terms and concepts in Invision Community. General Terms No one wants to read a glossary of terms so we will keep this short but it's important to know what we are talking about when we use a term or abbreviation. AdminCP/ACP = Administration Control Panel which is the backend control area of your Suite Member = Any user account in the system Member Group = Control permissions and settings for members assigned to that group. All members are part of one or more member groups. Guest = Someone who is browsing your community but is not logged in Admin = A member who is in a group or otherwise has permission to access the AdminCP Moderator = A member who has permission to perform any sort of control over other member's posts on the front end Permissions = Throughout the Suite you will see permission options and be presented with a huge selection of checkboxes: Permission Matrix These permission checkboxes define what each member group can see or do within the area of the Suite you are working with at the time. The columns define the various options. Applications You will often hear us refer to the applications or apps in Invision Community. This may be referring to our primary applications (Forums, Blogs, Gallery, Pages, Commerce, or Downloads) or the ability for you to add third-party applications. Cloud vs. Self-Hosted We offer both a hosted, cloud-based service for Invision Community or a downloadable, self-hosted license you can run on your own server. There are some more advanced functionality and server-level requirements that may not apply if you are using our cloud services. When something does not apply to cloud it will show like this in our documentation: Applies to self-hosted customers only Example text that only applies to self-hosted licenses. So when you see that text you can safely ignore all the technical requirements there when you are on our cloud services.

The first thing you will want to do is login with the account created on install or was sent to you from our cloud services. Your initial account is in the administrator member group and therefore has full access to all areas of the Community. AdminCP The AdminCP (ACP) is the administration control panel area for your community. It is the place that administrators go to change settings, customize, and implement policies for how members interact on the community. First Time Login When you log into the ACP for the first time, you will see the page shown in the image below. If you are happy with how the ACP works, or wish to explore this yourself, you can of course skip. Quick Setup If you choose to select this option, it will allow you to quickly add in the main details about your site, such as logos, the name of your site etc. Quick Setup List Quick Search Menu Quick Search Learn to love the quick search menu as it will save you so much time! From here the system will search the entire AdminCP, member list, Commerce support requests, and more. If you are looking for a member's account to edit you can either go to the Members tab or just enter their name here. Let's say you need to edit a setting but cannot remember where it is: just enter the name and the system will take you there. Perhaps a client has give you their support request number for support: again, just enter the number and there you are. It's a real time saver. Menu Reordering Reorder Menu The ability to reorder the menu is also quite useful. You can move menu items around and, if you change the root item, when you login that will become your AdminCP landing page. So let's say you are primarily involved in sales on your site: in that case make Commerce your top menu item. Perhaps you are a designer? Make Customization the top item. Then when you login you are taken directly to the most commonly used area for you. AdminCP Dashboard The Dashboard of the AdminCP is normally the default view when you login unless you have chosen to reorder your areas or are restricted. Dashboard It serves as a customizable overview of what is going on in your community. There are several widgets you can add/remove from this page and move them around to give you an overview that suits your needs. As you install additional apps new, app-specific widgets may also appear. There is one widget in particular that is important to note: Background Processes There are various actions throughout the Community that cause tasks to be queued for background processing. Sending a bulk email, notifying people of new activity, deleting/moving large amounts of content, rebuilding post content, building the search index, and many more intensive actions. These actions are queued for work so you can continue to use your Suite while these intensive tasks occur without any further interaction from you. The Background Processes widget allows you to monitor the status of these queue tasks and see their progress. Background Processes AdminCP Notifications Within the AdminCP you will see a notifiation 'bell' icon in the top right. This will bring your attention to any notifications that you wish to see, by preference, and also to any items which need your attention such as something going wrong on your server setup. Notification Alert Icon When clicked, this will show you the current notifications awaiting your attention. From here you can click to see the full list using the link provided, and can also set up your own preferences for notifications. These preferences are set up per administrator. Notification List You can set up to see notifications for various items such as when a user registers, if there is a user who requires validation, when an error is logged, and many more items. It is important to note that some items you will see are greyed out, which are notified by default. You can choose to see these either in the admin notification area, by email, or both. Notification Preferences General Configuration One of the first basic things you will want to set up in your AdminCP will be your general configuration. From here you can enter your Community name, address, copyright, and email addresses that will be notified when there are any updates to the software. General Configuration Next Steps Now that you have logged in, become familiar with the AdminCP, and set your most basic settings you should start exploring the system. A few good places to start are: Learn about member groups Setup your permissions Create your category structure The best way to learn is to explore the system and see all it has to offer. Invision Community is very powerful and configurable and you are sure to discover many features that will make your Community all it can be!

We have made a huge upgrade to our editor in IPS Community Suite 4.1 with a focus on speed an usability. I made a video overview of the new editor to point out some of the key changes. Before viewing, here are the release notes about the editor for your reference: Uses div-mode which is much faster and more reliable. Clicking into the editor is now pretty much instant. Auto-linking and member mentions to use new APIs for better reliability Quotes, code boxes, and spoilers can be dragged and moved and there is no more "red line" When cmd/ctrl right-clicking: options to remove or break-out of quotes, edit links and edit image properties Pasting asks if you want to convert to plain text Totally new code plugin with syntax highlighting as you type Option to make enter behave as a new line rather than with spacing Editor is responsive, and ability to have small editor show in areas with less space Member @mentions in posts can now be selected by tab key The major things to note are that the editor is much faster loading, particularly on mobile devices. It makes the mobile experience much more pleasant. Check out the video for some more information or register on our site here and post a topic in our test area. We are really happy with the editor upgrades and early feedback has been great. We hope you enjoy it! We are still on track to release 4.1 in early October. Expect beta release soon.

The two largest changes in IPS Community Suite 4.1 are the new Menu Manager and Activity Streams. I will do a quick overview of what we were thinking with designing each one and show a nice video to summarize. I made a video to quickly go over the new Activity Streams and also a bit on the new Menu Manager. I hope you will see just how powerful and flexible they are. You can do everything you could do in previous versions of our software plus a whole lot more. We are really excited to see all the inventive uses our clients come up with for the new Activity Streams. If you are not interested in hearing me ramble in the video, and who can blame you really, here are some screenshots and info on the Activity Streams in general. AdminCP Interface: The streams you see there are some examples of the default ones that come with 4.1 and a few others we made. The one labled View New Content we renamed from Unread Content to demo that it is the same thing just in a different name Admin creating a stream: All these admin-defined streams show up here: And if you want them to show somewhere else you just use the menu manager: If you do not like the "All Activity" stream (or anything else really) just remove the link to it: Then, once you actually view a stream, the use can choose how they want to see it. In the full format or in condensed: Once the user selects their preferred view format the system will remember it. There is no way for the admin to set the default view format because we did not really think that made sense. While many of us that run a site are power users and might want the condensed format because we "understand" what is going on, new users would not have that knowledge. Therefore, it makes more sense to show them all the content at first until they understand what it is they are seeing then they can choose, if they want, to condense it down. In early previews of 4.1, some people were confused about the All Activity stream versus the custom streams that can be told what to do (like creating a View New Content stream). Also, some did not realize you could create admin-defined streams that could be tailor-made to what you want them to do. It is a bit different than old versions but in a good way in that you have a lot of flexibility. We hope you enjoy! We are still on track to release 4.1 in early October. Expect beta release soon.

The next major release for IPS Community Suite 4 is now in the final stages of development. We have added dozens of new features, enhancements to existing features, fixed the majority of 4.0 bugs, and made large performance gains. See our blog entry for full information. Changes and New Features Include: New menu structure and drag-and-drop menu manager Ability to have two menu levels Option to create both custom-link menu items and embed preconfigured menus Preview before publishing All menu items support group permissions Discovery system that allows for both admin and user created Activity Streams Admin-defined streams always visible to users. Users can edit and save admin streams to create their own, custom copy. The main show-all stream automatically tells you when there is new activity Users can create custom streams User streams can be shared but viewer will only see content based on their permissions Filter options include: All content or specific apps. Some apps support further refinement into categories or content-type. Unread content Ownership Content I posted in Content I started Content by specific members (user can create a list) Content I follow Areas I follow Specific content I follow Posted by members I follow Time Period Any time Since my last visit Specified number of days Specific date range Activity Streams that reference features not available to Guests such as unread tracking and follow system will auto-hide Option to serve images via a local proxy script (useful for SSL sites) Option to globally disallow remote images in posts Ability to preview email template wrapper Version number in AdminCP header Selective quoting to highlight a bit of a post and quote just that Pages application enhancements Now installs with better default content to help new users Pages menu manager removed in favor of Suite-wide menu manager. Upgrade system will attempt to preserve menu items. Blocks New blocks Members block, Blog comments, Blog List, Download comments, Download reviews, Poll block commentFeed/itemFeed based widgets have date limit (today, 7 days, etc) RecordFeed has a customisable title Calendar widget has a calendar selector to restrict events to specific calendar(s) Better selectors for open/pinned/featured selection External Widgets: Ability to add blocks to other websites via generated iFrame code Pages Larger editor box when editing/creating pages More tags in sidebar when editing/creating pages Custom error page configurable Fields Simple relational field added Ability to place fields above or below record content Simple Name: Value display format added Media Manager Ability to upload media for use within Pages pages, CSS, templates and blocks Compatible with designers mode Templates New templates for when viewing the record homepage as 'articles' Ability to export and import templates to share with other IPS4 communities Gallery application enhancements New upload image process Images and movies are submitted to the same upload field Image reviews Editor updates Uses div-mode which is much faster and more reliable. Clicking into the editor is now pretty much instant. Auto-linking and member mentions to use new APIs for better reliability Quotes, code boxes, and spoilers can be dragged and moved and there is no more "red line" When cmd/ctrl right-clicking: options to remove or break-out of quotes, edit links and edit image properties Pasting asks if you want to convert to plain text Totally new code plugin with syntax highlighting as you type Option to make enter behave as a new line rather than with spacing Editor is responsive, and ability to have small editor show in areas with less space Member @mentions in posts can now be selected by tab key Upgrade process New upgrade process where new files are downloaded and installed automatically when possible. Option to set email address for notifications when an upgrade is available Banner shown to admins on the front end when an upgrade is available. It can be dismissed except for security updates. Design and interface enhancements Improve typography for titles Better contrast for user-entered text (posts/comments/etc) Brighten background colors Pre-select text in when share popup is opened Make positive/negative colors consistent across all uses Better hover highlighting of 'blended' links Better styling of mentions in posts (both the username, and the menu to select a user) Better contrast for ipsAreaBackground Flatten the default photo image Checkbox/radio buttons now use custom styling, giving themers more control of their style Improve popular/selected post styles Change popular post icon to heart for consistency with likes Make date a permalink for sharing Improve sidebar contrast and block styles Remove tab bar 'stretch' option and use CSS approach Improve attachments dialog Add more IDs to the user bar template for hook use Add X to close mobile nav menu Upgrade FontAwesome to 4.4 Select messages for multiple deleting in messenger Make leaving a conversation clearer Improve warning panel in user profiles Move content status icons (pinned, hidden etc.) to start of row Improve cover photo so it automatically puts it into position mode after uploading Android title bar inherits theme header color Added date uploaded to Downloads version dropdown Browser notifications for completed actions (such as large file uploads) Option to prompt users to re-consent to Terms and Conditions and/or Privacy Policy when you change them in AdminCP Search The main search box defaults to the app you are currently browsing unless you are on home page where it searches all New default interface Results now highlight and skip to search term in preview Retina emoticons Ability to uncheck all when adding Moderators in AdminCP Instant Notifications Receive notifications via your Browser Notifications of new Personal Messages and anything in the notifications menu Intelligent auto-polling that only polls when needed to reduce server traffic Browser local storage used, to allow for cross-communication if you have multiple tabs open to further reduce resource use We now require a minimum PHP version of 5.4 though we do suggest at least 5.6. Version 5.4 will be supported for a short period of time as it is also EOL. No Longer Included Areas such as View New Content, My Content, My Followed Content, Status page and so on are replaced by the new Activity Streams Sphinx is no longer supported as an alternative search engine. We are evaluating alternative search technology for a future release. Changes to the eAccelerator made it incompatible with IPS Community Suite so support has been removed.

The next major release for IPS Community Suite 4 is now in the final stages of development. We have added dozens of new features, enhancements to existing features, fixed the majority of 4.0 bugs (bug tracker will be updated soon), and made large performance gains. You can see the full list of items changed in our Release Notes section. Here we will review some of the larger changes and why we did them. New Menu Structure Our new menu structure is designed to highlight the two ways people go about interacting with a community: general browsing of specific discovery. The Browse tab looks just like the current, default menu does in IPS Community Suite with your list of apps. The new Activity menu is designed for discovery features like our new Activity Streams and the search functions. This is just the default menu and gives new communities an idea of the different concepts. When upgrading from 4.0 to 4.1 your existing menu items will be placed in this format with any menu items created under the Pages app moved to a location in the new menu. You will want to adjust things to best fit your community. Menu Manager The Pages menu manger has been removed and replaced with a Suite-wide menu manger that is much more powerful. As shown above, you can now have both a top and second level menu bar. If you choose not to have a second bar it will hide itself automatically and will then look much more like the older menu style. In addition to simply placing menu items, drop down menus, and special links: all menu items have permission controls so you can easily show or hide menu items based on a member's permission settings. Activty Streams The new Activity Streams are a discovery feature that takes the concept of the old View New Content, Activity, Followed Items, etc. and merges them into a unified system to allow for both admin and member-defined streams of content based on their preferences. The system is very powerful and allows for countless different ways for your members to discover content or for you to more easily expose content you want to highlight. Front end interface member created streams Streams that admins create are always visible to all members. Members can simply view those admin streams, create their own, or copy an admin stream as a base. Guests also have access to view all admin streams excluding those that reference unread or followed content as Guests do not have access to those features. Always available to all members is the All activity stream that shows a list of activity in order by date. The admin can define what shows in the All activity stream. Admin options for All Activity stream Members can share the link to the streams they create to other members. There is no need for privacy here as all they are sharing are their various filter settings - the actual stream data returned changes based on what member is actually viewing the stream. Use cases for Activity Streams are endless. Some examples might be: The current View New Content type of result. A Stream of all content from members you follow. Show a list of unread items from a specific list of members (perhaps members of staff). Maybe you are a prolific Gallery contributor and you want to see a feed of all unread comments on images that you posted. Rather than following every item you reply to, you can choose to create a feed of all content you have ever participated in. Get really fine-tuned and create a Stream showing unread comments in Blog only from members you follow. The Activity Streams feature is very flexibly and you can get really imaginative with its uses. It is a really big addition to IPS Community Suite 4 and we think you will enjoy it. We already do! Updated Editor We have updated our WYSIWYG editor in 4.1 to the latest version of CKEditor and we have also switched from iframe to div mode in the editor. That is basically technical speak to say that the new editor will be much, much faster and specifically behave much better on mobile devices. Many of the custom systems we wrote for 4.0 have been replaced with native editor functionality in 4.1 to allow for both speed and greater reliability. This does mean some things work a bit differently but you will quickly see the very small learning changes are worth the editor being so responsive. You can now move quote boxes with your mouse to embed them or move them above/below existing text. Another great feature is the new cmd/ctrl right-click menu that allow for contextual options. For example, cmd/ctrl right-click on an embedded image attachment yields: When pasting in rich text from an external source the editor will now prompt you asking if you want to keep that formatting: And admins can define paste and enter/return behavior in the new editor settings page: A small, but useful improvements is allowing @member mentions to be selectable by keyboard. Just do @member and use the arrows and tab key on your keyboard to select the member. The editor also now recognizes its area size not only based on your browser window (to distinguish mobile, tablet, or desktop) but also where it is embedded. An example of this is the new status update widget: A really useful feature is the ability to select and text in any post and get an option to quote just that text. The new editor is a total rework and we hope you enjoy the new speed, stability, and options. Using the editor is the core function of any community so getting it right is very important. Pages Enhancements Our Pages CMS app not only lets you create basic web pages within your Suite with either drag-and-drop ease of use or, for power users, direct HTML/PHP access but it also allows for Databases and Blocks to greatly enhance what you can do. We have made several enhancements to Pages to make it easier to use and more options. On install, Pages now includes some default content to point out key features to new users to get them started quickly. When creating an actual page, the editor box is larger, there are more tag sections in the sidebar to access advanced features, and you can now configure a custom error page. There are tons of new Blocks in Pages now and create quite an impressive list: Many Blocks have been enhanced. For example: comment/item feed blocks can now have a dat limit, customizable titles, Calendar widget can be restricted to one calendar, and so on. External Block embedding is now available. You can now embed any Block anywhere on the web - not just inside your IPS-powered site. Within the Database system we have an enhanced article-view template, you can now export and share templates with others, and database fields can now either show as "labels" as they do now or as simple text either above or below the body of the entry. We have also added a simple relational database field to cross reference other databases when viewing an entry. The other big addition to Pages is the new Media Manager. The problem we are solving here is access to the file system. There are many situations where you do not have access to FTP or other methods to directly access your server either because of security restrictions or because you are on a cloud/load balanced environment where it is simply not possible. So we now have a Media Manager that allows for direct uploading of things like images, CSS, and JavaScript. All the items get a key tag to be used in any template or page throughout the Suite. The Media Manager is also compatible with designers mode. Terms and Privacy Policy Confirmation A small but important change is the ability to force your members to re-accept your Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy when you edit them. Currently they are only prompted when joining your community but now you can ask them to accept again if you make a change. On their next visit they will see: Gallery Enhancements There are two changes to Gallery that may seem small at a glance but actually make using Gallery much easier and more flexible. There is now a new upload process which makes adding images or videos much easier to understand. You can more easily see the category, album, or album creation options on the screen. Once you actually upload your image you can more easily add descriptions and other data to your images either individually or all at once. This direct change to how your members add images should result in a much more pleasant experience when adding images to Gallery. We also now support reviews on Gallery images in addition to comments. New Upgrade Process Since IPS Community Suite 4.0, you have been able to download "delta updates" (a zip containing just the files you need to upgrade from the version you are running to the latest version) from the Admin CP when a new version is released. On IPS Community Suite 4.1, you no longer need to download the zip and upload the files manually. The system will automatically guide you through a wizard which will apply the update automatically and take you straight to the upgrader. The system will also send you an email as soon as an update is available (you can configure any number of email addresses to receive the notification), and display a dismissible banner to administrators who have permission to run the upgrader so you also no longer need to check the Admin CP or the IPS website for updates. When an update is available, just click "Upgrade Now" in the email or on your community and follow the steps. Special prominence is given in both the email and the banner if the update contains fixes for any security-related issues. Also, the banner cannot be dismissed if an update contains a security fix. Updated Search Interface We have given our search interface a revamp to more effectively use space and be easier to use (especially on mobile): As well as simplifying the way filters appear, we have separated member searching from content searching. This made sense given that the filters available for finding members are entirely different to those you see when finding content, so this visual separation should make that more apparent to users. This new approach to filters also becomes the new Advanced Search view, with results loading dynamically below when submitted. Another change we have made is to adjust the text snippet to show you the context of the result hit. For example, if you search ‘lorem', the results will now show you the text surrounding the first match. This small improvement can greatly improve the perceived quality of results: Finally, another small change has been made to the contextual search box shown in the header on every page. We now default the context to the app you’re currently using, unless you’re on the homepage in which case it’ll search all content. In our testing, we have found this aligns much better with user expectations. Notifications We have introduced two new notification features: instant notifications and HTML5 browser notifications. Both work together to provide a great boost to engagement in IPS 4.1. HTML5 Browser Notifications We have built in support for browser notifications where they are supported (right now, this includes desktop versions of Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera, but not IE, and mobile browser support is patchy). This allows IPS 4.1 to let you know when important things have happened even if you aren’t active in that window at the time. We have enabled browser notifications in three areas. When you upload files using any attachment area, you will be notified when your files have finished uploading; when there are new replies to a topic you have currently viewing; and for instant notifications (more about that below). Instant Notifications Instant notifications has been a long-requested feature, and we are pleased to say they are included in IPS 4.1. We have worked hard to build an approach that is as light on resources as possible. If you are active in the window, instant notifications will show as a standard flash message at the bottom of your screen; if you are not active, and your browser supports them, you will get a desktop notification instead, and a chime will sound to alert you. Clicking the notification box will take you to the new item (or open the notification menu if alert is telling you about multiple items). Ability to limit the number of emails received In IPS 4.1, you can optionally choose to receive just one email notification per content item until you revisit the community, rather than a separate email for each new reply. This is an option that was previously available in IPB 3.x that we have reintroduced based on feedback. Retina Emoticons Our well-loved emoticons have had a facelift (pun intended) and now look great on high-resolution retina screens and dark backgrounds: The emoticon manager in the ACP intelligently handles retina versions of your own emoticons for you - simply upload emoticons with “@2x” appended to the filename, and IPS 4.1 will know it’s a high-res version of an existing emoticon and seamlessly serve it for you. Not Included in 4.1 Areas such as View New Content, My Content, My Followed Content, Status page, and such are replaced by the new Activity Streams. You can easily create the same functionality with admin-created Activity Streams and we ship with several default examples that will serve most communities well. Sphinx is no longer supported as an alternative search engine. We are evaluating alternative search technology for a future release. Obviously we included a lot in version 4.1 so many things were not included. If your specific feature request or feedback was not included it may still come in a future release. Launch Date We invite everyone to check our our public preview and give it a try! Please report bugs in our bug tracker and keep all discussion about 4.1 on the preview site so we can easily review it and make changes. Depending on testing, we do anticipate a release in early October. We hope you enjoy all these changes in 4.1 and that they help your community grow!

Much like last month, August has been all about performance and stability. We are happy to report that most clients are telling us things are running well and we are getting caught up on our support volume. It's nice to be back to much better response times to your questions! So nothing too exciting to report for August but really necessary work being done. That's August... but then there's September... We have a whole lot in store for you in September. Behind the boring scenes of bug fixing and stability improvements we have been preparing a whole lot of changes. You might want to follow our Blog here as we will be announcing, over the next few days, some exciting news like improvements to our CiC (Community in the Cloud) service, special renewal promotion for existing clients, and a feature-release (rather than just stability focus) nearing completion. Thanks for sticking around through the quiet summer months of 2015. We were not resting or on vacation and cannot wait to show you all the new things we have in store for IPS Community Suite 4! Keep an eye on our blog here or our Release Notes section.

Everyone at IPS has been working hard to continue development on our new IPS Community Suite 4 platform. We have been getting great feedback from clients and are looking forward to implementing your ideas as we keep moving forward. Most of July was spent with a focus on stability of version 4.0. As with any new platform there is a lot to learn and address once it gets out into real world use. Stability realeases are not very exciting and do not make for a fun blog entry but we have fixed hundreds of bugs with each maintenance release and continue to keep that as our focus. Clients are reporting that things are greatly improving and we are happy to hear that! Of course there are always some issues but the majority are running great. So that's really it for July. I know, it's seems like not much but it's actually tons of work from our team to keep getting things better each day. But don't worry! We have some exciting new features in the works that will be introduce in August so do keep watching and keep letting us know you feedback.

This release primarily focuses on stability with many bug fixes from both tickets and the bug tracker. Among dozens of other fixes, important fixes include: Multiredirect is changed to use base64-encoded data as upgrader was failing on certain hostsCustomizable topic/post feed widgets not storing preferencesSome reports of issues with insert/embed images into postsEmail notifications do not work for commerce, which also results in purchases not getting marked paid/approved automatically (this only happened when you had extra cc/copy email addresses specified for emails)We are working on big improvements to our Search system but, until those are ready, we have made two small changes to make search a bit more pleasant: date will be default sort order and words will be searched using AND logic rather than OR logic. Update Version 4.0.12.1 released to address issues with form input validation and security updates.

This release primarily focuses on stability with many bug fixes from both tickets and the bug tracker.

This is the first in a series of monthly blogs IPS will be posting to keep you up to date on what is happening. Just in case you missed it! New Web Site We launched our new web site featuring IPS Community Suite 4! Featuring our newest technology has been great for new and old clients alike. Our demo system is now using IPS Community Suite 4 as well so feel free to sign up and give it a try. Release Announcements In the past we would post an announcement for every release we did. With IPS Community Suite 4 that is not really necessary as the new upgrade system notifies you in your AdminCP when an update is available. Not only that but you can easily download a list of only changed files to quickly upgrade your Suite. It is really nice for us to be able to push updates out to you much more quickly and for you to not have to uploads a lot of unnecessary files for a quicker upgrade. Release Notes Be sure to check out our new Release Notes section. Theses notes are also fed into your AdminCP on release time but you can also check here for previews on the next release in production. Even more interesting is our Coming Soon section that shows things coming up in the next month or so. It's a great way to keep track of what is in the immediate future so you can plan your community development. Development Progress Since we released version 4.0.0 we have made 13 releases to add features requested by our clients, fix bugs, and improve performance. It has been a busy and exciting time. We are so happy that the vast majority of our clients are really happy with IPS Community Suite 4.0. It's also great to see clients provide so much feedback so we can continue to improve. One of our key goals is to communicate what is coming up next and our Release Notes section has been a really great way to do this and clients are enjoying the constant updates. For those of you interested in such things: we finally switched from SVN to Git. We started using SVN many years ago when it was the cool thing and have been wanting to switch to Git for our repository for some time. Obviously this is not something that impacts our clients but it's really exciting to the group of nerds that is IPS development staff so they felt I should highlight this! In addition to lots of bug fixes and performance improvements, here are some new additions to IPS Community Suite 4 in the last month: Guest caching feature can now be used with MySQL (previously required a caching engine like memcached) New mobile pagination Max width option for video embeds Legacy PayPal gateway to allow for older PayPal Subscriptions to still be recognised. Attachment Type Restrictions: You can now choose from three options for file attachments in any post content: No files, Images only (this will actually check to make sure an uploaded file is a valid image) or All files (this is default) - If you choose "All files" you have the option to provide a list of allowed file extensions. Merge Concurrent Posts: If a user makes a post or comment and then makes another post or comment on the same item before any other user, the posts will be merged. There is a setting to disable or set the time limit for this to happen. There is a clear, visual indication when a merge happens to avoid confusion to the end user. Moderators can click and hold on topic and other item titles to quickly edit. New setting to optionally set products in Commerce to have a grace period to remain active for a period of time after expiration. New setting to specify domains to exclude from having rel='nofollow' added to links. The "+ Create" menu at the top of the page now has an option to create an announcement. New button to post a status within the status updates widget You can now embed Pages database entries by pasting their link. New widgets for blog entry, gallery images and downloads files feeds. Widgets displaying content feeds can now be given a custom title. The subject lines for emails sent about new content have been changed slightly so email clients can group them better. Announcements now show on every page by default (but can still be removed). New ability to disable but not uninstall an app. In case you missed it: version 4.0.8.1 contained a security update. You would have been alerted both in your AdminCP and on our Release Notes page. Be sure to always stay up to date. What's Next Version 4.0.10 is already in development and our Coming Soon list is well under way: We will be announcing those exciting changes in the next few weeks! Past Updates As this is our first update entry we didn't provide previous updates so here is the list of things added since 4.0.0 original release that were prior to the last month: Pages can now be run under your install directory Support Tools enhancements: You can optionally create an admin account and send that as a hidden field to our support staff. A reminder is set in the AdminCP dashboard for you to remove this account once your support request is done. You can optionally send the last PHP and MySQL error logs (if any are recent) as part of your support request. When a new version of IPS Community Suite 4 is available you will now see release notes. This feature is added in 4.0.2 but will not show until 4.0.3 is available. You can now set a maximum image dimension size. If a user uploads an image larger than that setting it will be resized down and the smaller size saved. Setting to limit the length of content item titles Suite-wide Added new notification setting for Members you Follow. On install and upgrade, this setting is off by default to prevent your users from getting bombarded with notifications for members they follow until they are able to decide their preference. If you enable the "use SSL for logins" setting then this will apply to the entire AdminCP: not just the login form. Setting was renamed to reflect this. You can now specify the default view option for the Commerce store front: grid or list. When you upload files for a new version, the AdminCP login box will now prompt you to run the upgrade system before showing login form. Queue tasks should run faster You can now select multiple locations for an advertisement rather than just one in Advertisement settings. We now support multiple version management. This means that we will no longer release "patch files" for major bugs or security issues but will instead simply release a new version even if that new version may only contain one changed file. No more losing track if you have or have not patched as you will simply make sure you're on latest version. Emoticon sets can now be reordered. You can also now delete entire sets. Bulk email system can now filter based on Commerce packages and information. The support tool in the AdminCP will now do MD5 checksum on all PHP files on the system. This allows the system to detect any modified PHP files which is useful both for support and for security. The master checksum values are fetched remotely from IPS to ensure the list is not tampered with locally. Interface improvements to Gallery Theme comparison tools

This release primarily focuses on stability. Many bug fixes from both tickets and the bug trackerSome large performance improvements with focus on fetching posts, activity stream, and view new content.Flag as Spammer no longer redirects you to the user's profile. It now just refreshes the page you were on.Update: 4.0.10.1 released to fix problems some clients were reporting with polls and missing templates. 4.0.10.2 released to fix some common problems reported from clients.

Security and privacy enhancement for those using file system data storage optionSecurity and privacy enhancement for system-generated log filesCritical bug fixes for common problems reported from clients

Many bug fixesAWS S3 integration improvementsSome performance improvementsChat is now using secure connections for chat messages.

Bug fixes from both bug tracker and support ticketsPerformance improvementsPages can now be run under your install directorySupport Tools enhancements: You can optionally create an admin account and send that as a hidden field to our support staff. A reminder is set in the AdminCP dashboard for you to remove this account once your support request is done. You can optionally send the last PHP and MySQL error logs (if any are recent) as part of your support request.When a new version of IPS Community Suite 4 is available you will now see release notes. This feature is added in 4.0.2 but will not show until 4.0.3 is available.You can now set a maximum image dimension size. If a user uploads an image larger than that setting it will be resized down and the smaller size saved.Setting to limit the length of content item titles Suite-wideAdded new notification setting for Members you Follow. On install and upgrade, this setting is off by default to prevent your users from getting bombarded with notifications for members they follow until they are able to decide their preference.If you enable the "use SSL for logins" setting then this will apply to the entire AdminCP: not just the login form. Setting was renamed to reflect this.You can now specify the default view option for the Commerce store front: grid or list.When you upload files for a new version, the AdminCP login box will now prompt you to run the upgrade system before showing login form.Queue tasks should run fasterYou can now select multiple locations for an advertisement rather than just one in Advertisement settings.We now support multiple version management. This means that we will no longer release "patch files" for major bugs or security issues but will instead simply release a new version even if that new version may only contain one changed file. No more losing track if you have or have not patched as you will simply make sure you're on latest version.Emoticon sets can now be reordered. You can also now delete entire sets.Bulk email system can now filter based on Commerce packages and information.

Many bugs fixed both from tickets and bug tracker. A focus on ticket-related issues.Many performance improvements. More will come in next release but you should see a difference.The support tool in the AdminCP will now do MD5 checksum on all PHP files on the system. This allows the system to detect any modified PHP files which is useful both for support and for security. The master checksum values are fetched remotely from IPS to ensure the list is not tampered with locally.

This is an intermediate release to fix various bugs impacting many clients. Among the highlights are: LegacyParser does not convert hyperlinked YouTube URLs that were parsed into videos in 3.xFixing iOS crashing on topic view (and potentially any other comment feed)Pages WYSIWYG editor uploading attachments doesn’t workIssue causing certain pages to take a very long time to loadIncoming emails in Commerce can’t handle emails from OutlookAnd a selection of other bug reports that were less critical but still causing trouble

Enhancements to the efficiency of file storage and management. This will require many background tasks to run that may take time to finish. Your Suite will work fine while they are completing.Many bug fixes from client reportsUpdate 4.0.5.1 was release to fix some common problems reported by clients.

Addresses many issues reported by clients. Focus on file system including broken images, widget performance, and other recurring problems. We now require MySQL 5.1 or greater. Includes some interface improvements to Gallery, theme comparison tools, and other small enhancements to make things easier to use or understand. Update 4.0.6.1 was released to fix: Improved Spam Monitoring Service handling and extended to apply to registrations from 3rd party login systemsWidget caches may not update correctlyCaptcha errors may not be displayed properlyPopular Contributors widget all results to show as position 1Top Downloads incorrect data shownThumbnails for movies in Gallery may not showGallery images may not show if set to be stored in a non-web accessible directoryRenewal invoices Commerce would not generate if set to be generated on the day of expiryCharts for reporting Commerce sales and market data would not show alternative chart formats or may display an error if multiple products have the same nameThird-party applications with Commerce integration may cause errors if not upgradedMaximum execution time error when submitting content in some situationsImages for advertisements may not be correctly relocated when upgrading from 4.0.4Custom templates in Pages displaying values for upload fields may not receive the correct URLError when searching members with certain configurations for custom profile fields

In addition to many bug fixes and performance improvements, some specifics include: Fix for update checker not workingSearch index efficiency improvementsGuest caching feature can now be used with MySQL (previously required a caching engine like memcached)Fix for common problems with queue task lockingTopic-view loading efficient improvements that should also improve loading on iOS devices

In addition to many bug fixes and performance improvements, some specifics include: New mobile paginationLarge cache sizes fixMax width option for video embedsEmojis disabled if database is not utf8mb4Out of memory errors on larger sites fixed

In addition to many bug fixes and performance improvements, some specifics include: New Features & Settings Legacy PayPal gateway to allow for older PayPal Subscriptions to still be recognised.Attachment Type Restrictions: You can now choose from three options for file attachments in any post content: No files, Images only (this will actually check to make sure an uploaded file is a valid image) or All files (this is default) - If you choose "All files" you have the option to provide a list of allowed file extensions.Merge Concurrent Posts: If a user makes a post or comment and then makes another post or comment on the same item before any other user, the posts will be merged. There is a setting to disable or set the time limit for this to happen. There is a clear, visual indication when a merge happens to avoid confusion to the end user.Moderators can click and hold on topic and other item titles to quickly edit.New setting to optionally set products in Commerce to have a grace period to remain active for a period of time after expiration.New setting to specify domains to exclude from having rel='nofollow' added to links.The "+ Create" menu at the top of the page now has an option to create an announcement.New button to post a status within the status updates widgetYou can now embed Pages database entries by pasting their link.New widgets for blog entry, gallery images and downloads files feeds.Widgets displaying content feeds can now be given a custom title.Other Improvements The subject lines for emails sent about new content have been changed slightly so email clients can group them better.Some widgets providing duplicate functionality have been merged. For example, "Latest Topics" has been merged into "Topic Feed".Announcements now show on every page by default (but can still be removed).When upgrading, if you have a large database you are presented with an option to run queries manually. You can now opt to run them anyway.Disabling Applications New ability to disable but not uninstall an app.IPS apps that are not up to date will be disabled on upgrade to prevent things breaking.The Support system in the AdminCP will now disable non-IPS apps in addition to all plugins as part of its diagnostics. It will also show you a list if what it is disabling to help you find problems.Notes for translators The public-facing navigation tabs now have language strings separate from the application title (this means translators will need to re-translate the application tabs upon upgrade). Update 4.0.9.1 was released to fix: Making a post might not work on older versions of PHPEditing permissions for a module may not workIssues with widgets after upgradingSome clients seeing apps turning offline on upgrade4.0.9.2 was released to fix: Fixes an issue where comments on Blog entries may not workFixes an issue where custom drop down fields in Pages databases may not work

This is the first fully supported release of IPS Community Suite 4!