FanClub Mike

Point of advice, keep the login and feature rich portions as 2 separate installable applications. Keeps maintaining the code base faster and easier for both. 

You won't be able to place ads anywhere on the Live Topics UI. The advertisement system has had an update for v5, but I don't think we've spoken about it much.

I think I spent more time making up fake adverts than writing about it.

Live Topics in Invision Community 5
Introduced last year, Live Topics are an innovative way to host live chat and question-and-answer sessions, complete with the option for live video integration. Live Topics effortlessly transform these events into permanent forum topics once the event concludes, allowing your members to not only interact in real-time with the rest of your community, but also continue the conversation far beyond the events conclusion.
As part of Invision Community 5, Live Topics will ship with a brand new design, rich-text editors and dynamic reactions. Let’s take a look at all three improvements, starting with the new design.
 

Full-screen, 3 column layout
When viewing a live topic, you’ll be taken to a new, minimal, full-screen, 3 column layout which provides plenty of space to simultaneously view your video, question-and-answer list, and live chat columns all at once. The width of the video can easily be adjusted using a simple drag and drop handle, allowing your members to shift their focus between the video or the question-and-answer list depending on the moment.
Resize.mp4
 
The second column holds a list of dynamic question-and-answer discussions, while the third column boasts a redesigned chat area that more closely resemble an app-like experience.
  Questions-and-chat.mp4  
For smaller devices such as tablets and mobiles, the video is always visible at the top of the page. The question-and-answer list and live chat collapse into their own tabbed area to conserve space.
Mobile.mp4
 
 

Rich-text editors
Text fields in Live Topics have been upgraded to CKEditor, allowing for greater flexibility when it comes to formatting text or posting emoji’s.
 
Richtext.mp4
 
 
Reactions
Reactions have been added to live topics for both the question feed and the live chat. Reactions update dynamically in real-time, offering valuable insights into the content your community deems significant in the moment.
Reactions.mp4
 
A lot of thought has gone into transforming Live Topics into a much more user friendly experience. The refreshed, modern design combined with new real-time features make Live Topics a fantastic solution for hosting real-time community events, and we're looking forward to shipping these updates alongside Invision Community 5 later this year.
 
 

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There was a minor enhancement in the Profile Markup to include all required data.

Good idea @FanClub Mike and nice plugin, @Adriano Faria.  In light of Invision 5 eventually dropping I'm going to bandaid this with the custom fields and some pre-filtered widgets on a 2 column page builder.  Thank you both!

IPS has said that Pages will be getting some love in the 5.x line. So it will be interesting to see what is cooking!

Hey @LFIWebMaster.
Clubs are the bread and butter of one of my communities, so I'll go ahead and share some things that work well for me.
If you want to see how the filters work (option 1 below) or see how I'm managing an insane amount of Clubs, my site is fanclubs.org. The site is still a work in progress, but the fundamentals and structure are mostly finalized.
Option 1 - Create Extra Fields for Clubs
This option is native to Invision Community and will allow members filter clubs by the fields specified.
For simple categorization, I would recommend using the Radio Field Type. New clubs would be required to select a category when they create the club. Existing clubs can be updated using the club settings.
A few alternative fields that would work
Checkbox Set - Club owners can select multiple checkbox options Select Box - I find this to be better for an expansive list of options If you use this feature, make sure you enable filtering when you set up Extra Fields. Not only can members filter by these options, but Club widgets as well.
A look at my Extra Field for Categories

Option 2 - Clubs Category Application (Adriano)
I was using the Clubs Category application shared above until I figured out how to structure Extra Fields for my community. For a plug-and-play solution, the Clubs Category App is a great option.
With the Clubs Category application, navigation links are added to the sidebar on the Clubs page for easy navigation, you can add font-awesome icons, and it's easy to link to since the categories have SEO-friendly URLs. 

Hey @LFIWebMaster.
Clubs are the bread and butter of one of my communities, so I'll go ahead and share some things that work well for me.
If you want to see how the filters work (option 1 below) or see how I'm managing an insane amount of Clubs, my site is fanclubs.org. The site is still a work in progress, but the fundamentals and structure are mostly finalized.
Option 1 - Create Extra Fields for Clubs
This option is native to Invision Community and will allow members filter clubs by the fields specified.
For simple categorization, I would recommend using the Radio Field Type. New clubs would be required to select a category when they create the club. Existing clubs can be updated using the club settings.
A few alternative fields that would work
Checkbox Set - Club owners can select multiple checkbox options Select Box - I find this to be better for an expansive list of options If you use this feature, make sure you enable filtering when you set up Extra Fields. Not only can members filter by these options, but Club widgets as well.
A look at my Extra Field for Categories

Option 2 - Clubs Category Application (Adriano)
I was using the Clubs Category application shared above until I figured out how to structure Extra Fields for my community. For a plug-and-play solution, the Clubs Category App is a great option.
With the Clubs Category application, navigation links are added to the sidebar on the Clubs page for easy navigation, you can add font-awesome icons, and it's easy to link to since the categories have SEO-friendly URLs. 

I don't believe in this instance that's the case. I believe it has more to do with all the garbage SEO content taking over search and it's getting even worse due to AI. As it continues to get tougher to distinguish between AI content and human content, first-hand experience and demonstration of real knowledge are becoming more of a focus in Google.
A Google Engineer has been advising on how to improve and better position forum content in search since March. Recently Google's been actively showing more 'Perspectives' content on mobile as well as highlighting Discussions and Forums. Until now, most of those results have been from Reddit and Quora. These changes should help showcase more variety.
Engineer's Quote:
"And most importantly, thanks for making changes. It heartens me to see forum platforms moving to expose their content better. I really would like to see this content more in search results rather than low quality, over-optimized rehash articles."
I work for a publisher that is investing heavily in AI. I see it across many other publishers as well and it's only going to continue to ramp up. I hate the direction publishers are heading in and if Google doesn't get ahead of it, searchers aren't going to be able to trust any of the results Google delivers. There's a reason so many people add 'Reddit' to the end of their searches now.
User-generated content and real-life experience are becoming more and more important.

We do not currently share roadmaps. Its something we are aware of
 

Invision Community 5 is still several months away from a release. We will keep posting blog entries about its development over the coming weeks. Those entries will keep you informed.

If they waited till they had everything fully ready, you would not have anything until super close to completion. They’re sharing info as they can… but like anything you don’t want to promise something you can’t deliver. If they THOUGHT they could do a super cool new thing and shared it but it turned out it could not made to be worked fully well, people would blame IPS for the next 20 years about it. (Yes, it really has happened.)
They talk about features once they are comfortable that they’re going to actually happen and that they can deliver on them as promised instead of promising vaporware. 

Bring your community to life with the latest live community features coming to Invision Community 5.
Last year we introduced new features that immediately showed who was currently reading a topic and who was replying. This feature leveraged new technologies to connect members with each other instantly.
In this blog post, we'll delve into the latest live community features for Invision Community 5 and explore how they enhance our sense of togetherness within our communities. We'll examine how these features instantly notify us about new events, updates, or interactions and how they contribute to a shared sense of presence.
These features go beyond the static posts and comments we've grown accustomed to and introduce a real-time element. Whether you're part of a support community, a gaming forum, or a professional network, these features will have you feeling like you're interacting with other community members simultaneously, fostering a strong sense of shared experiences. 
 
 
Posting
We've all been involved in a busy topic where you're keen to see what replies your latest post has. Select packages on Invision Community 4 can see who is active on a topic and who is typing, but you have to hit refresh to see the new posts added to the topic. If you're anything like me, then you hammer refresh until something new appears.
With Invision Community 5, this is no longer a problem. As you interact with a topic, new replies are automatically added to the topic without needing to refresh. This one feature brings the conversation to life, and you get a real sense of other members interacting with the topic at the same time as you.
 

 
Reactions
Did you drop a razor-sharp GIF or post something applause-worthy? Watch as others react to your content in real time with Invision Community 5. There's no need to refresh or return to the topic later to see who enjoyed what you wrote.
Getting rewarded for your content is gratifying and encourages you to post more and show your appreciation for other's content via reactions.
Notifications
Notifications have long been a valuable way to be notified when anything important happens in your community. It may be that someone has quoted your content, tagged you in a post or started a new topic in a forum you're following.
With Invision Community 5, you can watch the notification count rack up in real time, alerting you to new events that you may otherwise miss as they happen.
 

 
We hope that you've enjoyed reading about these new features and look forward to them coming to select packages for Invision Community 5. They provide a sense of togetherness and immediacy, making it feel like we're interacting with fellow community members simultaneously. 
We're keen to hear what you think, please leave a comment below.
The features discussed in this announcement will not be available for Invision Community Classic. Click here to learn more about switching to our platform to get this and other benefits.
 

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It'll be included in our January update.

Im not sure what news you would be hoping for here, as we are still on 4.7.14. As mentioned above, it will take some time for new items like this to be included. Its not likely something you are going to see over the course of a few weeks unfortunately.

I don't believe in this instance that's the case. I believe it has more to do with all the garbage SEO content taking over search and it's getting even worse due to AI. As it continues to get tougher to distinguish between AI content and human content, first-hand experience and demonstration of real knowledge are becoming more of a focus in Google.
A Google Engineer has been advising on how to improve and better position forum content in search since March. Recently Google's been actively showing more 'Perspectives' content on mobile as well as highlighting Discussions and Forums. Until now, most of those results have been from Reddit and Quora. These changes should help showcase more variety.
Engineer's Quote:
"And most importantly, thanks for making changes. It heartens me to see forum platforms moving to expose their content better. I really would like to see this content more in search results rather than low quality, over-optimized rehash articles."
I work for a publisher that is investing heavily in AI. I see it across many other publishers as well and it's only going to continue to ramp up. I hate the direction publishers are heading in and if Google doesn't get ahead of it, searchers aren't going to be able to trust any of the results Google delivers. There's a reason so many people add 'Reddit' to the end of their searches now.
User-generated content and real-life experience are becoming more and more important.

You would just restore from the backup 🙂. You would restore your database and files, including our core files. The software would run at that point if it is compatible with your hosting and configured to your database correctly. 
If at that time you wish to upgrade to the latest release, if your license is expired, you would renew it and do an upgrade. 

Just for clarification, Pages is getting a substantial update for v5 and is a core part of our community platform strategy.

I think thats the version where the admin CP manages you.

OK... so finally we can smell those fresh Pages 😀
For what next, personally like to see how PROFILES looks like in v5 😁

UI update has Ehren written all over it. Using your themes for past 10 years 🙂 Well done. 

Actually it's not a pity seeing as we have that already and are making it better.

And I am looking forward to getting my hands on it 🙂

I truly appreciate all the effort that was made to simplify the code to keep it lightweight, while in the meantime modernizing the UI. It looks very sleek.

As showcased in our past blogs, Invision Community 5 introduces a brand new, modern interface which brings improvements to performance, aesthetics and mobile usability.
An optional side navigation panel, new view modes, light/dark modes, customizable header layouts, a search modal and a mobile navigation bar are some of the things we've showcased previously. Today, lets take a closer look at some other miscellaneous changes that we've been working on while developing Version 5, including some of the code reductions and performance improvements that we've been able to achieve in the process.
For those of you who are developers, we'll also give some simple explanations of how (and why) we've implemented these changes.
 
Widgets
Sidebar widgets are perfect for displaying content feeds, featured members, announcements, advertisements and more on your page. In version 4 however, the widget column would often become an empty space once the widgets had been scrolled past:
  widgets-v4.mp4  
In version 5, widgets now stick to the screen once the last widget has been reached, ensuring your readers have more convenient  access to your widgets rather than a void space:
  sticky-widgets-v5.mp4  
 
Messenger
The Messenger is a great way to reach out to members when a private chat is more appropriate than a topic. Inspired by modern email clients, the messenger in Version 5 has been revamped with a full-height, sticky inbox, a longer message snippet, mini profiles and a more polished UI - all with a 25% reduction in CSS and a 100% reduction in Javascript.
messenger-v5.mp4
 
Sticky elements
We've mentioned sticky elements a couple of times now, so lets take a look behind the scenes at how they're created, and some of the performance improvements with Version 5. Traditionally, sticky elements were created using Javascript which would calculate the position of the element on the page and adjust it's stickiness every time the page was scrolled. Scroll events can be quite taxing for browsers, and when it comes to Javascript, the less, the better (especially when aiming for great page speed scores)!
With that in mind, all sticky elements are now handled using sticky positioning via CSS, which is a native and much more performant way of controlling these elements. We've been able to replace an entire 400 line Javascript component with just 3 lines of CSS.
 
Grids and Masonry
Grids have previously been handled in a similar fashion. Javascript would scan all elements within a grid to determine how many could fit on a single line, and would then shuffle these elements into position after the page was loaded or resized. CSS has since introduced its own grid properties, which has allowed us to replace more than 350 lines of Javascript with just a few lines of CSS, resulting in more performant page rendering and nicer looking grids (especially on small-medium displays such as mobiles and tablets).
 

 
Fun fact: We first introduced a similar performance improvement to "masonry grids" in our Gallery update from January this year, by replacing more than 400 lines of Javascript with, you guessed it, just a few lines of CSS.
 

 
 
 
Click targets
We wanted to make Version 5 as simple as possible to navigate, and one way of doing that has been by implementing larger click targets. Clicking anywhere inside an entry in a table or grid will now take you to that entry (you can still click on other links like normal within the click target, such as subforums or profile links). Click targets are optional and can be disabled via your theme settings if necessary.
 
click-targets.mp4
 
Data Lists (tables)
Speaking of tables, they too have been revamped. Tables automatically adapt to the space they've been assigned to (for those curious, this is done using CSS container-queries), so they're always neat regardless of the screen size, with no overflow or squashed layouts. Behind the scenes, the two columns below are created with identical code, yet they're quite different visually due to the size which they've been allocated. Even with these improvements, tables have received a 25% reduction in CSS.
 

 
Profiles
Profiles have been polished for Version 5 and include some nice improvements such as sticky widgets and tabs. 
profile-desktop.mp4
 
On mobiles, the side column collapses into a carousel, and the sticky tabs allow you to easily flick between content types without scrolling to the top of the page.
profile-mobile.mp4
 

Tabs
You may have noticed in the above clip that tabs on mobiles are now scrollable, compared to a dropdown menu from version 4. We made this change to ensure that tabs are given more equal exposure on small devices, and have managed to reduce the CSS by a whopping 80%.
 
Carousels
Last and certainly not least, are carousels. Carousels are great for displaying large amounts of data in a confined space and they've been rewritten from scratch for version 5. Previously, a Javascript library was used to create the "scroll effect", however this has never been the smoothest experience on laptop trackpads and touch devices.
In version 5, carousels are powered by native smooth-scrolling and scroll-snapping, which results in a much nicer user experience, especially on touchscreens. We've been able to remove a staggering 95% of the Javascript, substituting it with just a few lines of CSS.
 
carousel.mp4
 
To be honest, we've only just scratched the surface here! In addition to these changes, we've modernized (and reduced code) in almost every component throughout the suite including avatars, cover photos, dropdown menus, forms, inputs, buttons, lists, off-canvas menus, side menus, columns and more!
Combined, these changes result in not only a significant reduction in code, but also a polished UI that performs smoothly on desktop and touch devices. We're excited to continue modernizing Invision Community well into the future as new technologies and techniques become available to us, and are looking forward to getting it in your hands in 2024.

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