Jim M

Ever since Invision Community 4.0, there has been a huge focus on making communities multi-lingual by providing translation features inside the AdminCP.
We have received a lot of feedback on our multi-lingual and translation tools over the past year, and we're happy to announce these new features coming to Invision Community 4.5.

Pages Phrase Tools
If you have the Pages application, you can also use these phrases in HTML pages and HTML Blocks without needing to visit the translation tools area. Simply use the tag editor in the sidebar when editing a page or block's contents.



The new phrases sidebar options
You can quickly create new multi-lingual phrases by clicking the + icon.

The new add phrase dialog
Additionally, WYSIWYG Blocks have now been made translatable, so you can now create WYSIWYG blocks that will display their content in specific languages.
Translation Tools
Language pack creators can now set a version update URL which is checked to notify admins within the AdminCP that an update available, just like the theme system. This is a great way to notify customers when fixes are available.

Finally, you can now quickly add a new phrase from the Translation Tools page without the need to use the developer tools.

The new "Add Phrase" option

These little changes should make a huge difference in your workflow, and make it easier than ever to create fully multi-lingual pages throughout your site.

If you've been around Invision Community for a while, you'll know our frontend default theme hasn't significantly evolved since the early days of 4.0. Indeed, the last significant refresh came with 4.2.
With the upcoming release of 4.5, we wanted to revisit the default theme and give it a facelift for 2020, as well as make incremental improvements to the underlying codebase as a stepping stone to a bigger re-engineering in a future version.
In this entry, I want to talk a little about some of the design decisions that went into building the new theme.
Goals
Redesigning for the sake of it is never a good idea, so we first laid out what we wanted to achieve:
A brighter UI with more saturation & contrast and simpler overall color scheme Improved typography Better, more consistent, spacing around and between elements, especially on mobile Better logical grouping of sections of each page Reducing underutilized links/buttons on the page and finding alternative ways of making them available Improving how post states are displayed Modernizing and enhancing the underlying code that powers the default theme Let's talk a little about each of these.
 
Brighter UI
The most obvious change will be that our default colors are brighter and more saturated than before. Before making any changes, we first created a color scale for both neutrals and the brand color (blue, of course). This gave us a flexible but consistent palette of colors to choose from, with appropriate contrast built in. Neutrals have a touch of blue too to avoid seeming washed out.
We've simplified the style, in particular reducing reliance on background colors to differentiate sections within cards (a card essentially being an ipsBox, for those who are familiar with our framework). Instead, we use spacing, borders and appropriate typography to achieve visual separation.

Brighter default colors
 

Simplifying the UI by removing block backgrounds
 
Improving typography
We've felt our typography has been somewhat muddled for some time - with a mixture of sizes, weights and colors used depending on the particular context.
The first step to improving it was to create a typography scale that we could refer to and implement, to ensure we remained consistent throughout the product.

Our typography scale
(The keen-eyed amongst you may also notice we've switched our default font to Inter. Inter is a fantastic open source font that is ideal for text on the web, and was recently added to the Google Web Fonts project making it super simple for us to incorporate it into our default theme.)
We've been much more deliberate about applying type styles, especially for titles, ensuring that they are always visually distinct from surrounding text. We've done this through both color and weight. As a result, pages should instinctively feel more organized and logical than before.

An example of improved typography, from the Downloads app
 
Improved spacing (especially on mobile)
We identified that spacing (padding and margins) needed some improvement. A lot of spacing values were arbitrary and inconsistent, leading to poor visual harmony across any given page.
Most troubling of all, on mobile sizes we simply halved desktop padding values. While this was a reasonable approach in the days of phones with small screens, it has felt decidedly dated for some time. Phone screens are now typically larger and able to accommodate roomier UIs without appearing comical.
In 4.5, we have done away with that approach, and the impact was immediate. Mobile sizes now get a much more pleasant interface, with elements having room to breathe. In addition, we've also made most cards full-width to provide additional breathing space for content.

Posts can finally breathe on mobile
 
There are numerous other tweaks across the product too: default spacing has been increased a little, data tables (e.g. topic listing) get extra vertical spacing, and spacing between elements has become more consistent.
 
Improved grouping of related elements
Prior to 4.5, most content areas existed inside cards. However, one notable exception to this was page headers and as a result, they could feel particularly disorganized, especially for users who had many controls in this part of the page (such as staff).
To solve this problem, we've developed a new, standardized design for content item page headers, giving them their own cards and consistent button placement.

Topic view header
 
Some areas don't necessarily fit into the same design pattern above. In those areas, we've tweaked styling to suit the context, while still adhering to our overall aesthetic.

Calendar header

Messenger conversation header
 
Reducing underutilized links/buttons
Finally, another area we identified as needing improvement is the abundance of tools, made up of links and buttons, across pages. Many of these are only used occasionally and so would be better moved out of the main view to simplify the page.
Two particular areas we focused on were share links and postbits (both forum posts and comments in other apps).
Research shows social share links are used by a vanishingly small percentage of users, so even though they were at the bottom of the page, it was unnecessary to make them so prominent (given their eye-catching colors). To solve this, we've added a share link to the page header, with the social network links themselves in a popup menu. The result is ideal: sharing functionality is unobtrusive but obvious.

Share links in content items
Comment areas have also suffered from 'button creep' over the years. A typical comment will contain a report link, a share link, a quote link and multiquote button, reactions, plus IP address, checkbox, edit and options links for certain users. That is a lot of visual noise around the important part: the content.
We've therefore simplified comment boxes as much as is reasonable. Reporting and sharing comments/posts is now available in the post options menu, as are any tools for the author/staff. Quoting and reacting are two primary interactions for users, so they of course retain their position in the control bar.

Simpler postbits, even for staff
 
Improving post states
Posts/comments in Invision Community can have many states - sometimes more than one. Posts can be hidden/unapproved, popular, recommended, solved (new in 4.5!) or highlighted because of the author's group. It's always been a challenge to indicate these statuses well.
In previous versions, we added a border but the most prominent indicator was a flag in the top-right corner of the post. This had three problems:
Due to the lack of space (thanks to report/share links), showing more than one flag was difficult. Showing any flags on mobile was messy because of the space constraints. The meaning of the flags was not obvious, especially to new users. Group-highlighted posts had no flag, just a border, which made them even more difficult to understand. With the top-right corner of posts now tidied up and free from fluff, we were able to much more effectively use this space to indicate post statuses.
In 4.5, posts and comments will show badges when they have a particular status, as well as a more attractive semi-transparent border. For group-highlighted posts, we show the group name instead (the colors of this highlight are still controllable via theme settings).

A post with two states: group highlighted and popular
This works much better on mobile too, where the status badges get the prominence they deserve:

Mobile post statuses
 
Modernizing the underlying code
I wrote about the technical improvements behind the theme in a previous entry. If you're a theme designer or edit the theme for your own community, go and check it out now!
 
Wrapping up
As well as these large-scale concepts, you'll notice many other smaller enhancements as you start using the new theme.
I've shown some snippets of pages in the screenshots above, but I've included some full-page views below so you can see the overall aesthetic and how these pieces fit together.
Modernizing and refreshing our default theme has been needed for some time, but we view this as just a stepping stone to future work that will be reserved for a major version bump, and we're excited to figure out where we go next.
 
Screenshots
  
Desktop forum views (click to expand)
 
    
Mobile forum views (click to expand)
 
 
Activity streams & messenger (click to expand)
 

We are currently living through one of the most turbulent times in history.
A once-in-a-century pandemic has a grip on all of us.
Whatever the outcome, come the end of the year, few of us are going to be the same again. We will have to sacrifice our personal freedoms, and some of us much more.
Like you, I'm worried about my family, my friends and neighbours. I'm watching the news, scrolling through social media and consuming articles from scientists, scholars and doctors.
The news coming out of Italy is truly heartbreaking. Doctors and nurses have to make life and death decisions daily as they wage war with the virus. Those of us in the UK and the USA are nervously watching the graphs climb in lockstep of Italy from just a few weeks ago.
It would be easy to succumb to fear and withdraw completely.
But as community leaders, we cannot.
Let us take some inspiration from the brave people of Italy who have suffered much with an overstretched health care system and enforced quarantine yet still sing from their apartments in a display of resolve.
In a time where we have to remain apart, we must come together.
We have to keep showing up and leading.
We must focus on what we still have and not what is being taken away.
Now more than ever, we are needed to keep the world connected. To bring comfort; to support and to love each other.
This year is going to test every one of us.
But whatever comes our way, I know that we are stronger together.
"Their faithful and zealous comradeship would almost between night and morning clear the path of progress and banish from all our lives the fear which already darkens the sunlight to hundreds of millions of men."
Winston Churchill

Invision Community has certainly changed a lot over the years as we've moved through major updates and large user interface changes. 
While large scale changes offer a dramatic difference, it is sometimes the smaller changes that bring the most satisfaction when using your community daily.
This blog entry rounds up some of the UI improvements Invision Community 4.5 brings.
Content View Behavior
What do you want to happen when you click a topic link? Are you taken to the first comment, the last comment or the first comment you've not read? If you speak to 100 people, I'm pretty sure you'll get a good spread of votes for each.
Invision Community has always offered subtle ways to get right to the first unread comment. Our infamous dot or star allows you to do this, but it is so subtle almost no one knows this.
Invision Community 4.5 now allows each member to choose (with the AdminCP offering a default).

Now everyone wins!
Who Reacted?
Invision Community has had reactions for a long while now. Although finding out who exactly reacted without clicking the counts has proved irksome.
We've fixed that in Invision Community so simply mousing over the reaction icon reveals who reacted.

Sign In Anonymously
For as long as I can remember, Invision Community has offered an option to sign in anonymously via a checkbox on the login form.
However, as we've added faster ways to log in via Facebook, Twitter, Google and more it's become less straight forward to ensure your anonymity.
Invision Community 4.5 removes this login preference and moves it to your members' settings.

Now your members can resume hiding as they move around your community across multiple logins.
Resize Before Uploading
One of the most popular requests we've had in recent times is to resize large images before uploading. It's quite likely that your giant full resolution image will be denied when attempting to upload, and it's a bit of a faff to resize it in a photo editor.
Invision Community leverages the uploader's ability to resize before uploading, which makes it a much happier experience.
Switch Off Automatic Language Detection
Invision Community attempts to map your browser's user-agent to a specific language pack.
When you visit a site, your browser lets the site know which language our browser is set to (often dictated by your operating system) and we use that to show you the correct language if the community you're visiting has multiple languages installed.
However, it might be that you don't want this to happen because although your computer's OS is set to a specific language, it doesn't always follow that is the one you wish to use on a website.
Invision Community 4.5 allows this automatic detection to be switched off.

Quote Collapse
We will finish with another popular feature request; the ability for long quotes to be collapsed, reducing the amount of scrolling one has to do.
Quite simply, Invision Community collapses long quotes with an option to expand them to read the entire quote.

Thank you to all our customers who have taken the time to leave feedback. As you can see, we do listen and action your feedback.
Which change are you looking forward to the most? Let us know below!

Every single day, your members are searching your community for answers or interesting conversations to join.
Wouldn't it be great if you could learn what is being searched for to identify hot issues, commonly asked questions and discover trends?
We thought so too, which is why Invision Community 4.5 comes with search statistics.
For the first time, Invision Community gathers anonymized information on what your members are searching for so you can use this to highlight more relevant content and shape strategic decisions with your community's structure.

Search statistics help you track searches performed on your community
When a member searches, their identity is converted into a unique key that cannot be reversed to identify the member. This allows us to track a single member's search usage over many search sessions without being able to link it to a specific member account.
The AdminCP now features a dashboard to review the most popular search terms as well as a raw log of recent searches along with the results they returned.
We have a lot of ideas in mind for additional changes down the road with the tracking of popular search terms, but for now, we hope you like the new statistics page and find the information presented useful for your future site plans.

We have come a long way since the late 90s when someone had the genius idea of using a small yellow smiling face image instead of the more common colon-bracket representation of a smiling face.
In Invision Community, there are various places that photography can be used to create visual interest. From uploads in topics, to cover photos for blogs and members.
The humble upload field has served these areas well, but sourcing images to use can be a pain; especially when you have to walk the minefield that is copyright and attribution.
Fortunately, there are a few "CC0" online stock photo libraries that offer quality photography that requires no attribution and are not hampered by copyrights.
One such library is the ever-popular Pixabay, which was established in 2012 and features a very powerful API. Pixabay has over a million images ready to use from llamas to sausages and everything in-between.
Invision Community 4.5 now includes support for Pixabay which brings those images to your fingertips (or mouse pointer if you're on a desktop.)

This video shows the feature in use.
As you can see, not only can you upload into posts from the stock photo library, but you can also use it to add a cover image to your profile and blog entries.
Finding quality photography has never been so easy!
For those that love technical details, the stock photo picker is a programmatic option on the upload form field type making it very easy to add to your own code and apps.
How will you use this new feature? Let me know!

Are you curious 🤔about ways to boost your engagement that don't require a lot of effort?  Want some shortcuts to set your engagement on fire 🔥?   
Check out these 4x4 tips of four growth hacks that you can implement in less than four minutes ⏳ to boost engagement.
1. Add a content block at the bottom of topics.  Sounds upside down 🙃, right?  Most admins add content blocks at the tops of pages to attract users.  But what do users do when they're finished reading or replying to a topic?  Nothing. They're finished ... unless you add a block such as similar content, popular posts, recent topics, or another content block at the bottom of topics that help them discover new content.
2.  Tag in your superusers 🌟 to stimulate a conversation.  Your community's superusers are probably just as active as you are, and thoroughly involved in the community.  They're comfortable in the community and would love to provide input.  Wouldn't you agree with me @AlexJ @GTServices @Sonya* @Maxxius @media  @Nebthtet@Ramsesx @tonyv??  
3.  Run a poll ☑️.  It makes the topic more interactive, and people love voting.  
4. Write a contrarian topic or blog "Why XYZ isn't for you?"  That's a surefire way to grab 😲 attention and begs the user to challenge back.  And if you can't write a contrarian topic, then maybe ... being a community manager isn't right for you.  Or is it?? 😜
Hope you enjoy these tips, and and share your growth hacks in the comments below! 

It was a poster of Slash holding his Gibson Les Paul slung low on his waist playing live that got me into guitars.
The crunching power chords of Appetite For Destruction were a long way from the three chords I could manage on a beaten up acoustic with a hole in the side, but I kept on trying until I could play those riffs.
I still hold a special love for the Les Paul (as well as the Explorer made famous by Hetfield palm muting his way through multiple albums with Metallica).
So, I'm especially thrilled to see the official Gibson forums relaunched with Invision Community 4.
Check it out: https://forum.gibson.com

It's great timing as I've recently freed my guitars from the loft and have started to play again.

Anyone else here play guitar, and should we start our own band?

We do love a parlour game at Invision Community HQ and we were playing "6 degrees of separation" recently.

You've probably heard of the "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon". This is where you try and connect any actor with Kevin Bacon in 6 steps or less.
So let's try "6 degrees of Invision Community". This is where we try and connect a person with an Invision Community.

David Goggins and Invision Community
Last week, I finished the excellent David Goggins book "Can't Hurt Me".
David Goggins, a retired Navy SEAL, spent a month with Jesse Itzler. This which was documented in Itzler's book "Living with a SEAL", which I've also read.
Jesse Itzler owns the Atlanta Hawks Basketball Team.
The Atlanta Hawks has a dedicated area inside the Atlanta Falcons Football team's official community.
The Atlanta Falcons official community is powered by Invision Community.
Here's another one.
Groot and Invision Community
Groot featured in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie series.
Chris Pratt starred alongside Groot in the same movie series.
Chris Pratt voices Emmet in the LEGO® movies.

LEGO® uses Invision Community.

Over to you.
Do you have any "6 degrees of Invision Community?". We'd love to read them!

I've had this similar conversation dozens of times in the recent past when someone has taken an interest in what I do.
Person: So what does Invision Community do?
Me: We develop and sell an independent community platform.
Person: Oh. Neat.

I used to say the F word. But this used to cause some confusion.

'We develop and sell a forum system'.
This used to elicit a response similar to this:
"Forums? They're still going?"
This line of thinking is quite prevalent among those who frequent Facebook, or use Facebook Groups to manage their micro communities. Even though they probably use forums regularly, or end up on forum topics when searching for things like "Why is my iPhone not charging", they don't realise this.
I recently guested on a podcast, where we spoke about "Facebook or Forums?", and I received this comment.

 
It appears, then, that the word "forums" has a lot of legacy connotations attached to it. It conjures up images of the past when Netscape Navigator was the world's favourite browser, and AOL was still mailing out CDs.

That is all ancient history now, and we've moved with the times. The product we have now has roots in the product from the early 2000s but it is wildly different and much more capable.
When you explain that you can segment discussions into separate areas (aka forums), and even set up independent micro-communities (clubs), you can see lightbulbs going off.

"That's amazing! I had no idea! So you mean I don't have to have my community in a single stream struggling for attention among adverts?"

Nope, there is another way.

Why not try an independent community platform?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you avoid the F word too?
 

We want to ensure that converting from your existing community platform to ours is as seamless as possible.
While we do have a migration service available where we take care of everything for you, we do also offer a DIY option.
We took some time to overhaul the conversion process for those opting to convert using our free tools.
Ready to convert?
So you've just purchased your first copy of Invision Community, and you're ready to convert your existing site over from another software package. Great! We're glad you've made the decision to take your community to the next level!
You've already checked out our Migrations page, confirmed the software you wish to convert from is supported, and you're confident in your ability to work through the process. You install the Converters package and you're ready to go. 
Lets get started!
We have overhauled the converters to simplify the process. Beginning with 4.4, you will take the following steps to convert from another software package:
Rather than choose the application you wish to convert first, you will now choose what software you are converting from, which is a much more logical start to a conversion. Next, you will supply the database details for your source database (the database you wish to convert into your new Invision Community). Then, you will see a list of all applications that can be converted for the software package you are converting from. If any applications cannot be converted (perhaps because you were not previously using the corresponding application in your source software), a message will be shown indicating there is nothing to convert. If any steps require additional configuration, you will be able to specify those details here. And finally, when you submit that form - that's it! You're done, and you can sit back and let the conversion process on its own. Each step for each application will be completed automatically, and the conversion will be finalized automatically at the end. A progress bar will be shown, along with a textual indicator that outlines exactly what is being converted. What does it look like?
conversion.mp4 Here's a quick video to illustrate the new conversion process.
The system even remembers where you were at and automatically picks back up where you left off. Closing your browser, losing internet connectivity, or some other unforeseen issue won't stop you dead in your tracks and force you to start all over again.
We hope that these updates make it even easier to switch from another community platform.
 

We're thrilled to announce that Invision Community 4.4 is available to download now.
After months of development, over 1650 separate code commits and quite a few mugs of questionable coffee you can now get your hands on the beta release from the client centre.

Not our office
Invision Community 4.4 brings numerous new features, over 450 bug fixes and a lot of refinement.
We've been talking about the highlights since September on our blog.
Here's a recap of all that we've added.
We'd love to know which is your favourite feature so far!

Drop a line below and let us know!
 

Release parties at Invision Community are a fairly tame affair. You'd think after months of planning, coding and testing we'd want to cut loose and dance the night away.
The reality is we send each other a few amusing GIFs in Slack and then wait for support tickets to start appearing while our developers crack their knuckles and prepare for bug reports to be filed.

It's a nightmare trying to get a photo of our team, so here's a stock image. Just pretend it's us. That's me looking at a report of how much code Mark Wade has refused during reviews
I did manage to find five minutes to ask the team what their favourite feature of 4.4 was.

Here's what they said.
Marc S
Support, Guides and Keen Cyclist @Marc Stridgen
I'm going to go with 'Post before registering', because it allows for more effective onboarding of new members on your site. People are much more likely to register after just having written a topic, then they are if they have to register before getting started. It also gives you the opportunity to see how many people are not actually registering, and maybe address that on the site.

Ryan
Developer, T3 support and reluctant AWS wrangler @Ryan Ashbrook
My favorite 4.4 feature is the progressive web app settings. I now have our site pinned to my phones home screen for quick access, and use our site on mobile even more now that I can just hit the icon to pull up our site.

Mark H
Support, Beta Tester and remembers this when it was fields @Mark H
While this isn’t “a” favorite feature, I most like the steady small improvements to Gallery in the 4.x series. Photography-centric sites should especially like the additions to extended EXIF data in 4.4 so that authors can provide the most detail about their submitted photos…. where it was taken, what camera, which lens, shutter speed and aperture, etc.

Daniel
Developer, T2 support and airport security fan @Daniel F
As IPS4 consumer, I'm going to say that Lazy Loading and mobile create menu are my favorite enhancement.
As community owner, I'm most excited about post before register and email advertisements.. That's going to bring the $$$

Brandon
Developer, Enterprise Support and proud of his thorough code reviews @bfarber
My favorite change in 4.4 (besides the overall performance improvements, as I'm a geek for that sort of thing) is the overhauled Conversion experience (which we haven't even blogged about). We took converters and flipped them on their head for 4.4, so you now choose what software you want to convert from, what applications from that software you want to convert, fill in any required details, and the conversion process just launches and runs from beginning to end right then and there. You no longer need to convert each application and each type of data within each application individually, making for an easier and overall smoother experience.

Stuart
Developer, Conversion Specialist and PC enthusiast @Stuart Silvester
This is actually hard to answer than it seems, there are so many great changes and features in 4.4. The combined performance improvements including HTTP/2 Push, More aggressive caching, SVG letter photos, lazy loading are definitely some of my favourites. After all, time is money. (A smaller favourite is the browser notification prompt change, especially with visiting as many customer sites as I do in Tier 2).

Jim
Support, Beta Tester and suspiciously quiet in staff chat @Jim M
The communities I run are about cars and very heavily image based. Whether it's "I have an issue" or simple sharing of car builds, topics get image heavy very quickly and doing anything to improve moving throughout that topic more quickly is going to go far. I feel a lot of communities can relate and why lazy load of images is my favorite 4.4 feature.

Jennifer
Designer, Enterprise Theme Specialist, owner of several super powers @Jennifer M
There are so many changes with 4.4 it's actually really hard to choose just one change that is my absolutely favorite. I would probably say a lot of the more micro features are my favorites. Colored usernames everywhere, lazy load for images, improved notifications experience, text or URLs for announcements, reordering of club tabs, ability to hide widgets/blocks from mobile etc. They are all quality of life improvements that I love and appreciate on so many levels.

We're Steve Ballmer levels of excited about 4.4.

It looks like Rikki's lazy loading is a clear winner. I'm not surprised, it's a real boost for page speed and reduces hosting costs. Personally I'm a fan of the progressive web app settings which, like Ryan, enables me to have our community on my phone's home page.

Let us know what your favourites are below! 

Braintree is a payment gateway provided by PayPal which provides some great additional features for PayPal transactions including a significantly improved recurring payments model. We are delighted to be bringing full support for Braintree for Commerce in Invision Community 4.4.
What is Braintree?
Braintree is a payment gateway provided by PayPal which supports taking payments by credit cards (including Apple Pay and Google Pay) and Venmo as well as PayPal, providing a good option for communities wanting to use a single payment gateway, and also brings improved functionality for recurring PayPal transactions.
For PayPal transactions, there are no additional fees and the checkout experience uses the normal PayPal experience your customers are used to.
Recurring PayPal Improvements
Recurring payments / Billing Agreements in PayPal have up until now been initiated by PayPal. Invision Community tells PayPal what the renewal terms of a purchase are, but then it's up to PayPal to take that payment and notify your community when it succeeds (or fails).
This comes with a number of limitations and problems. It makes it difficult for you as an admin to modify an existing purchase or for the customer to upgrade/downgrade. It also means the customer has to create separate Billing Agreements for each purchase. Most significantly though, it means if there is a delay in receiving the payment (such as an expired card) it is sometimes unclear what should happen on your community's end, and how it can be resolved if/when the payment is received.
Other payment gateways work the other way around. When a customer pays by card, for example, they have the option of storing their card details. Later, if they make another purchase or a renewal invoice is generated, Invision Community can tell the gateway to recharge the same card - and if it fails, allow the customer to provide an alternative payment method. This allow both you and your customers to have much greater control, and is much more reliable.
Braintree resolves this by allowing customers when paying with PayPal to save their PayPal account in the same way they would save a credit card on file. When paying with PayPal, users will see a simple checkbox which, if checked, will allow future payments to be taken with PayPal automatically.

Storing PayPal Accounts for Recurring Payments
Other Features
In addition to an improved checkout experience, our integration with Braintree supports:
Taking payments by Credit Card, including 3DSecure checking and the ability for customer to store card details on file. Braintree uses a fully PCI-compliant method of taking card details in a way that ensures the card information never reaches your server. Apple Pay and Google Pay Venmo, which also allows storing accounts in the same way as PayPal accounts. Offering PayPal Credit Handling chargebacks/disputes Support for Braintree's Advanced Fraud Tools
A Disputed PayPal Transaction
Existing Setups and Upgrading
The existing PayPal gateway will continue to be available for basic PayPal integration, and your existing set up will continue to work exactly as it does now after upgrading.
If you are using PayPal, especially if you are using Billing Agreements, we strongly recommend switching to Braintree after upgrading. While it isn't possible to convert existing Billing Agreements, you can allow existing ones to continue to work and use Braintree for new purchases.
Please note that while existing setups will work fine, from 4.4 it will no longer be possible to set up a new PayPal method with either Billing Agreements, or to take payments by card, as PayPal has deprecated the API this was using in favour of Braintree and it can no longer be enabled on new accounts.
As mentioned though, this does not affect any existing setups, which, if you do not switch to Braintree, will continue to work as they do now.
This blog is about our upcoming release Invision Community 4.4.

It's easy to think that email is a relic from the past; from simpler times long before social media and the rise of phone apps.
And it's reasonable to think that way. Your phone constantly pings at you, and your laptop OS constantly pings at you, so why bother with email?
Because it's still a hugely powerful medium to get and retain attention.
In 2017, over 269 billion emails were sent and received per day. Of those, 3,360,250,000 are opened, read, and a link clicked.
Email is still very much a critical tool in your quest for retention.
Invision Community knows this. We have options to notify members of replies by email, weekly or monthly digests by email and members can opt-in for bulk emails sent from your community team.
Given how important email is, it was only fair that we invested in some love for our email system for 4.4.
Email Statistics
Just above, I mention that 269 billion emails are sent, and 3.4 billion are opened, read and clicked.
How many emails are sent from your Invision Community daily?
(No cheating and checking with SendGrid)
You probably have no idea as we didn't record email statistics.
As of Invision Community 4.4 we do!

Chart showing the number of emails sent daily
We now track emails sent, and the number of link clicks inside those emails.
Email Advertisements
Email notifications are a powerful way to get your members to revisit your community. The member welcomes these emails as it means they have new replies to topics they are interested in reading.

While you have your member's attention, you have an opportunity to show them a banner-style advertisement.


The new email advertisement form
When creating a new email advert, you can choose to limit the advert to specific areas such as topics, blogs, etc. - and even which forums to limit by.


Subliminal messages
This is a new way to reach your audience with your promotions.
Unfollow without logging in
Despite spending most of this blog entry shouting the virtues of email, it's inevitable that one or two members may wish to stop receiving notification emails.
In previous versions, the unfollow link would have taken you to a login page if you were signed out. For members that haven't been back in a while, this may cause some annoyance if they do not recall their login details.
Invision Community 4.4 allows non-logged in members to unfollow the item they received an email about or all followed items without the need to log in.

You no longer need to log in to unfollow items
Respecting your member's inbox is vital to keep on good terms with them and to keep them engaged in your community.
We'd love to know which of these features you're most keen to try in 4.4. Please drop a comment below and let us know!

It's been said that the best place to hide a dead body is on page 2 of Google.
While we can't promise to get you to page 1 for a generic search term, we have taken some time for Invision Community 4.4 to do an SEO sweep.
Moz.com defines SEO as "a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. SEO encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines."
We have the technical skills and were fortunate enough to have Jono Alderson of Yoast lend his time, knowledge and vast experience to improve our SEO.
This blog article gets a little technical. It's completely fine to leave at this point with the comfort of knowing that Google will be a little happier on your site with Invision Community 4.4.
The majority of the changes are designed to send stronger signals to Google and friends over which content to slurp and which to look at a bit later.
Still here? Good. Let us roll up our sleeves and open the hood.

 
Pagination
The most visible change is that we've taken pagination out of query strings and placed it in the path.
For example, the current pagination system looks a little like:
yoursite.com/community/forums/123-forum/?page=3
Which is fine but it gets a little confusing when you add in a bunch of sort filters like so:
yoursite.com/community/forums/123-forum/?sort=asc&field=topic&page=3
A better approach would be to make a clear signal to both Google and humans that pagination is a separate thing.
Invision Community 4.4 does this:
yoursite.com/community/forums/123-forum/page/3/?sort=asc&field=topic
Not only is this good for search engines, but it's also good for the humans too as it is more readable and no longer confused with filter parameters.

Of course, we ensure that the old style pagination is redirected (via a 301 header) to the new pagination URL automatically so nothing breaks.
Canonical Tags
These tags are a way of telling search engines that a specific URL is the 'master copy' of a page. This helps prevent duplicate content from being indexed.
Without it, you are leaving it up to the search engine to choose which is the master copy of the page.
For example:
yoursite.com/community/forums/123-forum/ and yoursite.com/community/forums/123-forum/?sort=desc&field=time may show the same content but have different URLs.
By setting the canonical tag to point to yoursite.com/community/forums/123-forum/ regardless of filters sends a strong signal to the search engines that this is the page you want to be spidered.
Invision Community sets these tags in many places, but we audited these in 4.4 and found a few areas where they were missing.
For example, viewing a member's profile doesn't always set a canonical tag which may confuse search engines when you click on "View Activity" and get a list of content items.
Soft 404s
When an application or website wants to tell the visitor that the page they are looking for doesn't exist, it sends a 404 header code along with a page that says something "We could not find that item" or "No rows available".
If a search engine spiders a page that looks like a 404 page, but it doesn't have the 404 header code, it logs it as a "soft 404".
Given the short amount of time Google has on your site to discover new content, you don't want it to hit many soft 404s.
Invision Community 4.4 omits containers (such as forums, blogs, etc.) that have no content (such as a new forum without any topics yet) from the sitemap, and also adds a 'noindex, follow' meta tag into the HTML source.
Google will periodically check to see if the status of the page has changed and happily slurp away when content has been added.
Other changes
Although the changes listed here don't deserve their own section in this article, they are no less important.
We have audited the new JSON-LD markup added to Invision Community 4.3 to help search engines better understand the relationship between pages.
The "truncate" method that is used to display a snippet of text in areas such as the activity stream now only sends the first 500 characters to the javascript method to reduce page loads and page 'noise'.
The profile view in Invision Community contains a mix of information pertinent to the member and content they've authored.
We've ensured that the content areas are using a specific URL, with appropriate canonical tags. This will help reduce confusion for search engines.
If you made it this far, then well done. It's time to slam the hood closed and mop our collective brows.
These changes will certainly help Google and friends spider your site a little more efficiently and have a clearer idea about what pages and data you want to be indexed which can only improve your ranking.

It's very easy to focus on a single metric to gauge the success of your community.
It's very common for community owners to look at page hits and determine if their SEO and marketing efforts have paid off.
Getting traffic to your site is only half the equation though. The most valuable metric is how many casual visitors you're converting to engaged members.
Invision Community already makes it easy for guests to sign up using external services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.
However, there has to be a conscious decision to click that sign-up button. For some, this may be a barrier too many.
Invision Community 4.4 reduces this barrier by allowing guests to create a post to a topic they want to engage with.
Once they have posted, they are asked to simply complete their registration. They are more likely to do this now they have invested in your community.
This will be incredibly valuable when you consider how much traffic a forum receives from inbound Google searches. With Post Before Registering, you'll increase your chances of turning that inbound lead into a registered member contributing to your site.
Let me take you through the feature and show you how it works.
When browsing the community guests will see the ability to submit a post, with an explanation that they can post now and complete registration later. The only thing they have to provide in addition to their post is an email address.

Posting as a guest
This works in any application for new content (topics, Gallery images, etc.) as well as comments and reviews. It will only show when a newly registered member would be able to post in that area - for example, it will not show in a forum that only administrators can post in. 
After submitting the post, the post will not be visible to any user, but the user will immediately be redirected to the registration form with an explanation to complete the registration. The email address they provided will already be filled in.

Registration form after posting as a guest
At this point, the user can either fill in the registration form, or use a social sign in method like Facebook or Twitter to create an account. After the account has been created, and validation has been completed if necessary, their post will automatically be made visible just as if they had registered and then posted.
If the user abandons the registration after they've submitted their post, an email will be sent to them to remind them to complete the registration.

Email reminding user to finish registering
 
Some Notes
Invision Community already has a feature that allows guests to post as guests without registration if granted permission. That feature has not been removed and so if you already allow guests to post, the behaviour will not change. This new feature is only available when a guest can't post in a given area, but a member would be able to. The entire feature can also be turned off if undesired. If the area the guest is posting in requires moderator approval, or newly registered members require approval of new posts, the post will enter the moderation queue as normal once their account has been created. Third party applications will require minor updates to support this feature. Once your casual visitor has invested time in your community by crafting a post, they are much more likely to finish the registration to get it posted. If you have set up external log in methods, then registration only takes a few more clicks.
This blog is part of our series introducing new features for Invision Community 4.4.

Yet again, Joel hijacks our company blog for another generous slice of knowledge from the front-lines of administrating a successful community.
Inspired by Invision Community client @Joey_M who discovered the emoji of serendipity and chief architect @Matt who literally knows everything about Invision Community in ACP Tips and Tricks, they both made me realize there’s always something to learn no matter your level of experience. 
You know how to post.  You know how to react.  You sometimes spice it up and make a poll.  And for the most part, you and your users go about your forum lives with a secure sense of certainty and satisfaction that you know how to interact with your community.
But what if I told you there’s a whole world of wonder at your fingertips, young grasshopper?  Your Invision Community includes stars to navigate by; magical pictures that appear and disappear; and little yellow men who giggle, laugh, and sometimes roll over in delight. 
Here are 5 hidden tips to help you discover a little more of the IPS magic for you and your users.  

How do you know what you don’t know?
1. Click-and-hold
Be sure to dazzle your users with this secret way of changing your content title.  Change titles of your content items such as topic titles, album titles, and download files by using the click-and-hold strategy. Go to your forums and click-and-hold down the mouse over any topic title until you see that you’re able to edit the title.  Surprise! Use this secret strategy as the perfect way to quickly mass edit titles.

Click-and-impress your users with the click-and-hold strategy
2. Stars and Dots
Active forum users jump around dozens of boards every day to stay involved.  And within a loooong topic with many pages, you need a fast way to jump to the most recent unread topic.  Before each topic is an icon: either a dot or a star.  Clicking these icons will always jump you to the latest unread post, so you can quickly dive back into the conversation.  Dot means unread; Star means you participated in the topic.

My forum icon constellation tells me that I’m most compatible with a Capricorn.
3. Emoji Short-codes
One of the newest features to be included in Invision Community is emojis.  While there are ways to insert emojis from both mobile keyboards and the editor, you can also start typing “:thumbs up:” to reveal the secret emoji menu.  Try it now in the comments of this article. Last person to give me an emoji thumbs up wins! 

Be a 💯 with 🙂 
4. Image Attachments
Forum posts come alive with image attachments that add color and vibrancy. But adding thumbnails to the bottom of your posts is a missed opportunity to enrich your post at the appropriate spots within the post.  After you upload an image attachment to a forum post, double-click on the image attachment.  You’ll be presented with a secret menu with options to align and resize, so you can create stunning forum posts with images.

Much color. Much alignment. So much wow.
5. Profile Banners
Banners play a prominent part in multiple parts of the community, such as the Calendar, Profile, Clubs, and Blogs.  But usually the page only displays a portion of the banner, and most of the banner is hidden.  If you ever want to see the full banner in all of its glory, click near the top of the banner to auto-magically reveal everything!  Now you see, now you don’t.  

The iceberg is a metaphor
How many of these five secret tips did you know?
If you knew all five, give yourself a round of applause!  It’s rare for even the most seasoned Invision Community administrator to know all five, and you’ve mastered them all.
Did you know four?  Congrats, you’ve done a great job of exploring your community suite and you should keep it up.
Did you know three or less?  You should do some serious soul searching. Kidding. 
But it’s a definite sign that your soul would benefit from reading Invision Community News for more useful tips.  
Becoming a great community manager is a combination of community strategy and product knowledge.  By empowering yourself with more functional knowledge and tools, you’re giving yourself the ability to leverage a bigger toolkit.  Whether you’re typing emoji short-codes to laugh with your members or inserting attachments into a tutorial on hidden tips for your community, I hope you learned something new, something surprising, and something perhaps even a little wonderful. 
Let us know in the comments below what hidden tip surprised you the most.     

Dealing with spam can be an annoying problem for community moderators. It's bad enough that our inboxes get clogged up with it daily.
Invision Community comes with several tools designed to mitigate spam, and make it hard for spammers to get a foothold in your community.
This short video takes you through several key areas:
The Invision Community spam defense system CAPTCHAs Question and Answer challenges Group Promotion Flagging a member as a spammer Do you have any tips on dealing with spam or spammers? We'd love to hear them. Let us know in the comments.

Communication has come a long way since those very early humans grunted at each other to determine if they wanted more mammoth for lunch.
The course of human history has seen cave paintings, hieroglyphics, the written word, emoji and now GIFs.
GIFs have been around since the dawn of the internet. Many websites proudly displayed a 'man at work' animated GIF when they were under construction.
Now, GIFs are now mostly used to express complex thoughts and emotions by showing a short animation.

Mind Blown
 
Invision Community has allowed GIPHY to be used as an embed for a while now, but we craved something much more straightforward.
Behold, the GIF button!
Now your members can reply with the majesty of animation.
Of course, GIFs won't replace real and meaningful conversation, but they are a fun way to express yourself quickly and encourage more engagement.
The GIPHY functionality is enabled via the 'Community Enhancements' page in the Admin CP.

GIPHY is enabled from the enhancements page
All you need to do is grab a key from GIPHY, and you're all set!

Configuration
You'll notice a "MPAA style rating" option.
This allows you to select a maximum rating for the GIFs as some will have adult themes and language that may not be suitable for your community.
For example, you can choose "G" for general audiences, "PG" or "PG-13" to limit what is shown.

Yes!
Drop your favourite GIF below to show us how you feel about this new feature.
This is a blog about our upcoming Invision Community 4.4 release, due later this year.

It's not often that we get to blow our own trumpets. That's not just because we don't own trumpets, but also because we like to keep our heads down and focused on producing fantastic software [Ironic trumpet blowing - Editor].
Many of our team also run their own Invision Communities.
So this month, we asked:
What is your favourite Invision Community feature?

Here's what we said.
Brandon
My favorite feature would be Pages 'databases' feature. You can quickly and easily create databases of content, and then you can adjust the templates to make those databases display in a more relevant manner for the type of content you are working with, all without having to modify any code. On my wife's real estate website, I have used Pages to create databases for hosting leads, property listings, closings, and realtor contacts. Being a developer I've further enhanced some of those areas with plugins, but even right out of the box the system is powerful enough to do quite a lot with just a little bit of configuring and templating.

Trying to remember the block names when creating Pages templates
Jennifer
So, I love Invision Community. I've loved it for ages and it's hard to pick just one favorite feature. I'm going to say that Clubs and Pages are probably my top two favorite things in the whole wide world on Invision Community.
For clubs, it allows your members to create special interest groups/forums/galleries/etc without having to do all of that yourself. It makes pulling together people of similar interests really easy and it makes it to where you don't have to manage "as much" of the responsibility for having a billion forums or groups. I also find it's a great way to get people excited and talking about things that they love which spreads positivity and happiness, which I love as an administrator.
For Pages! There is so much! From Databases that you can super customize to blocks! There is so little I can't do with Pages!! I've made a super custom link directory (https://rpginitiative.com/directory/), a directory of searchable people (https://rpginitiative.com/pb-directory/) and one of my favorites a copy and paste code directory (https://rpginitiative.com/codex/). They all are unique in look and feel and all have different purposes but they fill them so well. I of course have a basic Guides listing (https://rpginitiative.com/guides/) but I don't think it's nearly as cool. Pages gives me a sense of empowerment on my community. It gives me the ability to create content that is special to my site and doesn't have to be cookie cutter in any way.
Honestly, the whole suite always makes me happy because I get the community I want out of it and to me that is always the best and most special thing about Invision Community. [This is the best answer - Editor]

Mark H
Given my forum’s niche, amateur pyrotechnics [Must be nicer to Mark - Editor], my favorite feature would be the Gallery. You can describe a pyrotechnic shell, effect, build process, etc, with as many pages of text as you wish, but photographs or videos are truly worth 1000 words. While our Gallery isn’t the largest one around, it does contains a large number of items that our members have contributed to showcase their work, some of which are quite impressive.

Mark's last day at Invision Community
Matt
I've given this a lot of thought [Makes a change - Editor]. There are several contenders, Pages (because I wrote it), Social Promotion (because I wrote that too), Commerce (I did not write this) and Gallery. All deserve to be picked on their own merits.

I decided to go with the profile completion system. It's not a massive feature, and it's not the most exciting feature but it does its one job very well.

It helps reduce overwhelm when registering. It's critical to make the transition from guest to member as frictionless as possible, and having a dozen custom profile fields to complete is a good way to put people off.
The profile completion system allows you defer data collection after registering, which reduces the barrier.

Mark W
The auto-upgrader. When I first started at Invision Community one of my responsibilities was doing upgrades - often from 2.x to 3.x at the time - hours and hours of uploading files by FTP (sometimes painfully slowly) and clicking the upgrader, over and over again. I'm glad those days are behind us!
I think it was quite a good technical achievement too. The system knows what version you're coming from, what apps you have installed and only downloads the files you need. It knows if it needs to ask you for FTP access or if it can just write the files. Recently we made it so it knows if your themes are going to be compatible with the new version and warns you before you upgrade if they might not be.
Perhaps most significantly for me though is the backend behind it. Releasing an update used to be a bit of a nightmare (we had to build zip files ourselves!) - now I just tag the release in our git repo and everything magically figures itself out [Only if following instructions to the letter - Editor]. It still delights me every time I do it.

Mark (not) doing upgrades now
Marc S
For me it has to be the block manager. The block manager makes it was so easy to set up the basic structure of your site. And it's hard to believe we used to disable hooks to remove an item, or even comment them out in some cases. Adding something like a list of new posts was something you would need a 3rd party plugin to achieve, and adding a simple bit of text is something you would have likely done in your theme. This brought a large amount of flexibility for users that wouldn't have previous had the capability to make some of these changes, and generally just made life easier for others.
Daniel
Pages App because of blocks and databases.
I have all kind of custom databases which I use daily to organise my work (Linklists, Knowledge Bases, Documentation) It saves one a lot of time and makes coding own apps quite unnecessary in most cases.
Ryan
Okay, I think I've finally decided that Reactions is my favorite feature. It's really cool to see how clients implement the feature on their own sites with different reaction types. Also, I wrote the backend and it was probably one of my favorite things I've done in the software.

Indeed
Stuart
I like OAuth and RestAPI, I wanted us to do those since 4.0 and they work really well. [That's it? Can I make up the rest of the answer? - Editor]
Those are our favourite features - but what are yours?

We'd love to hear, let us know below!

A positive community is a wonderful thing. It's fun to read and almost irresistible to join. You instantly feel welcomed and quickly make new friends.
Carefully managed communities tend to be respectful. Individuals may occasionally argue and disagree, but these are short term incidences that do not affect the community.
Is this by chance or by design?
Your role as a community leader will make all the difference in how your members react to each other. Your community boundaries will have a direct impact in the number troublemakers that infiltrate your community.
I'm sure you've come across trolls and troublemakers on your digital travels. You may be unlucky enough to have met some on your own site. Some trolls may be quite benign and productive members of the community. That is, until something or someone triggers them.
Some trolls like to annoy others because they are bored. Others because they are angry. Whatever the reason, they can be a handful to manage well.
A well managed community offers excellent protection against trolls that may join only to cause trouble. The troll has no fun against a charming community unwilling to engage in hateful behaviour.
Therefore, a positive community is essential in protecting your members, as much as it is making a welcoming atmosphere for new members.
Community Leaders
Your community leaders are there to model good behaviour.
How your leaders speak to your members is very important. If they are rude or offensive, then the community will view that as the culture you endorse and act likewise.
It's important that your leaders refrain from becoming embattled in aggressive discussions. An ideal leader is cool, calm and impartial. If members see your leaders engaged in heated debate, they may follow suit.
A good strategy is to use a leader's forum or Pages database where they can discuss contentious topics in private and agree on a way forward together. Forcing your leaders to remain impartial and discuss the topic elsewhere is a great way to retain professional separation.
If your leaders want to engage in debate, then allow them to create a personal account. This allows them to air their personal views inline with your boundaries.
It is vital to remember that your leaders carry your brand and message at all times.
Create a strong terms of service
Invision Community's terms of service feature is ideal to outline your community and what is acceptable.
Be positive with your terms and rules. Creating a positive culture from the earliest interaction with your site is important. This sets out boundaries in a friendly way.

Invision Community's build in terms editor
Avoid using negative words such as "don't" and "can't". People tend to skip over these words. It is better to be positive, for example:
"A signature CANNOT have more than one image"
Could be better explained as:
"Your signature may have a single image".
This positive interaction feels better but still enforces your rules.
Keep the number of rules to a minimum. Visitors connect better with sites that aren't laden with rules and threats for stepping out of line. Indeed, reading a terms of service that outlines punitive action for every minor misdemeanour makes the site look unruly and embattled.
Even good productive members have bad days and may display out of character behaviour.
Weeding out the early signs of trouble
Not all arguing is bad. We've seen some dynamic and informative topics that have flowered from an initial disagreement.
The first step is identifying which behaviours you find unacceptable. Your community and culture will define these boundaries. What is acceptable for a casual community with a very young demographic may not be acceptable for a very formal conservative site.
Is this member trolling? A classic troll is someone who seeks to derail rational conversation through abuse, hectoring or needling. A troll isn't someone that disagrees with you, your product or your choices. Civil disagreement is the foundation for any rich discussion. A troll is less tolerant and their end goal is to aggravate others.
Is the member new? Perhaps they are unfamiliar with the expectations of your community. New members can often be eager to impress veterans and may come across as over excitable. 
It is worth noting down topics which have the potential to derail and check in on them often. You can add hidden replies that do not trigger notifications. This is an ideal way to leave notes to other community leaders.
The best judge is often experience. It may take a while to develop your sixth sense with your community.
Motivation through rewarding good behaviour
Invision Community is equipped with a reputation system which is linked to the number of positive reactions a piece of authorered content obtains.
The simplest expression is the humble 'like'. To encourage members to like and thank others for useful content empowers individuals and motivates them to post more good content.

Thumbs up!
You may wish to send a personal message offering thanks for exceptional content to your members. A brief personal note is a welcome gift in today's world of often impersonal automation.
We have seen communities that post up weekly topics linking to great content. Likewise, you can leverage featured posts to draw attention to your good content.
The Our Picks feature is yet another way you can promote great user submitted content. It must be very rewarding to see your hard work showcased to the rest of the community.
Avoid special forums for 'unmoderated discussion'
Some communities try and address the balance between the need for rule enforcement through moderation against the desire to offer a venue for raw discourse. This usually presents as a special forum often labeled as "Unmoderated", "The flame zone" or similar.
The intention is a good one and the logic makes sense. Provide a venting space for your community in one area to keep the rest of the community friendly.

Don't make your members bring boxing gloves to a topic!
In our experience, this plan quickly backfires. The unmoderated area becomes hateful, toxic and very unpleasant. Basal desires that are kept in check by your rules and boundaries are left to run amok. 
It's very likely that these discussions become so heated that members leave your site for good. That isn't a desirable outcome!
It's much better to keep your rules consistent throughout all areas of your site. Encouraging contentious discussion is rarely a good thing.
Punitive tools are the last resort
Invision Community is loaded with excellent moderation tools to handle persistent offenders.
We would encourage you to try speaking with a troublesome member first via the personal message system. Give them a chance to explain themselves and remind them of the rules.
If you have exhausted all avenues, you have several options to choose from.
1) Warning
Invision Community's warning system allows you to pre-set different warning thresholds which trigger specific actions.
For example, you may decide that after 10 warns, the member is set to full moderation. This means that their posts are hidden to other community members until you review and approve them.
This is an excellent tool and has success in rehabilitating hot headed members that react quickly and often find themselves in hot water with your community leaders.
Invision Community 4.3 introduced crowd sourced moderation. This allows the administrator to set up thresholds for actions based on the number of reports a content item receives from other members.

The warning system
For example, you may decide to hide a post after it receives reports from five or more different members.
2) Full moderation
You have the option to enforce review and approval of all members topics and posts. The downside is that it increases the workload of your moderators, so should be used sparingly.
It is a very effective tool when used for a short time after a heated debate gets out of control. It allows you to enforce a time out until the situation has calmed down.
3) Short term banning to cool off
Invision Community allows you to temporarily ban a member from your site for a specified number of hours.

It is especially effective to enforce a break from your site. This allows an otherwise good and productive member time to cool down and reflect on how they wish to contribute. In most cases, the member comes back calmer and ready to post productively.
4) Permanent banning
As a true last resort, you can exclude the member from accessing your site completely. A banned member can no longer access forum lists, topics or posts. They can of course log out and view the community as a guest.
In most cases, members can be rehabilitated through personal messages, moderation or an enforced cooling off period.
A permanent ban can be lifted by an administrator at any time.
Conclusion
Cultivating a positive community can take a little work from your community leaders but the benefits are numerous. A fun engaging community of respectful members is a real joy. The infectious spirit of the members makes it very easy to join and contribute.
There is always a learning curve, so use any issue as a learning experience and give your members the benefit of doubt.
You wouldn't want to punish an overzealous and excitable new member and make them feel unwelcome by reaching for a moderation tool too soon.
Try and guide conversation by using your community leaders to model good behaviour. Try and keep a sense of fun and take the time to get to know your members.
Above all, enjoy the journey! Taking the time to engage in your community is a great experience and offers many opportunities to learn and grow as a leader.
Invision empowers you with the tools to manage and reward behaviors, but it's ultimately your stewardship to thoughtfully design a positive community.
We'd love to know which of these tips you already practise. Let us know below!

We've recently spoken about how we've brought our Gallery and Blog apps up to date with interface overhauls to bring them inline with the high standards our customers expect.
Keeping this in mind, we're thrilled to announce that we've taken Commerce right back to 2009.
This needs an explanation.
Way back in 2009, Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President. Minecraft was put into beta, Slumdog Millionaire was released to critical praise and we had a product called IP.Subscriptions.
IP.Subscriptions was a lightweight member subscriptions manager that allowed members to purchase elevated permissions via a user group upgrade.
It was a fine little app. However, on the horizon we had a brand new eCommerce app in development. Then called Nexus, now called Commerce (we took months to come up with that).
It made sense for us to merge the products into one app given they both had overlapping functionality. They both could create packages to promote members to a new user group. Commerce was much more developed as an invoicing and billing system.
Everyone was happy.
Almost.
Commerce has grown to be an incredibly powerful app. It can sell anything from physical products like t-shirts, to digital products such as license keys and it can even manage your hosting set-up.
We use it for our support and billing systems, so we know how robust it is.
While it's an incredibly powerful commerce system, setting up basic subscriptions packages became a little more complex.
Over the past few years we've received a lot of feedback on this.
We've listened.
Commerce Member Subscriptions
We've built a brand new section into Commerce specifically for membership subscriptions.
Let's take a look at this in more detail.
On the front end, there's a very clear and easy to understand page for membership subscriptions.

The main subscriptions interface
Here you can see all the available packages, which one you're currently subscribed to and the upgrade and downgrade options.

A simple way to upgrade
There's several choices for costing upgrades in the Admin CP, here we have chosen to charge the difference between packages.

Get to your subscriptions easily
Your subscriptions are easily found in the user menu.
If the Admin allows, the package you're subscribed to appears as a badge on your profile.

 
There's also a little widget showing the packages which you can drag and drop to the sidebar for an additional prompt for non-subscribers.

 
This gives Invision Community a very clear and easy to understand interface for subscriptions which lives outside of the Commerce store and its packages.
Now, let's dive into the Admin CP
The main engine for this feature is the package list. This is in a separate area within Commerce.

 
The list also shows the number of currently active and inactive subscribers. This links to the list of subscribers.

 
Other than Bob having a total nightmare, you can easily view which members are currently active. The buttons link you to the Commerce invoice and purchase.
If you wish to add a member to a subscription without charging them (you generous soul, you), then that is easily possible.

 
Creating a new subscription package is very straight forward. We've built a new form which is stripped down to the fundamental items you'll need for a subscription.

 
As you would expect, there are several settings to control the system.

 
A few things worth mentioning here:
You can force new members to purchase a subscription on sign-up You can show or hide the profile badge indicating which package they purchased. You can choose to allow upgrades or downgrades. You can choose how you'd like to charge for upgrades or downgrades Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback over the years. We're really pleased to present this new feature and hope that it'll make your daily lives just a little easier.
Let us know what you think!
 

Videos are everywhere. We shoot them on our smart phones, share them to social media, messengers and more.
Up until now, the only way to share a video to Invision Community was to use a service like YouTube or Vimeo. If you uploaded a video file it would be treated like an attachment, and if the user clicked the link it would download it to their computer.
In Invision Community 4.3 we've improved this. Now if you upload a video file (mp4/3gp/mov/ogg/ogv/mpg/mpeg/flv/webm/wmv/avi/m4v), it will embed similarly to an image.

Uploading a video
When viewing an uploaded video, if it is in a format that the user's browser and platform natively supports, it will show an embedded player. This will have all of the features supported by the operating system - for example, almost all browsers support fullscreen, and Safari supports Airplay and picture in picture.

An uploaded video
If the video is in a format not supported, it displays exactly as it does now - as a download link.

An uploaded video in a browser without playback support for that format

Emoji: built in to Invision Community 4.3! ?
Invision Community has a long history. We remember the early days of forums, back when graphical "emoticons" or "smilies" were added.
We have always shipped our products with a basic set of emoticons with the ability to add your own images and has supported emoji from mobile devices.
Emoji has become a standard across mobile and desktop devices so it made sense to bring them to Invision Community fully.
You can choose from 3 different styles of Emoji:
The native style provided by the user's operating system (if you choose this option, users on different platforms will see different styles) Twitter style EmojiOne style
Emoji Settings
Once you have chosen one of these options, all of the available Emoji will show in the emoticons selector when making a post. Unlike in older versions, the entire list is scrollable (the categories drop down will jump you to the category rather than filter), you can search, and standard Emoji features like skin tone modifiers are fully supported, and of course, you can make them as big as you like.

Navigating Emoji

Skin Tone Modifier

Make Emoji any size
 
Autocompleting Short Codes
In addition to using the selector, you can also use optionally enable standard :short_codes:. These will be autocompleted as you type.

Autocompleting Short Codes
You can also enable more conventional ASCII emoticons to be automatically replaced too:

ASCII Short Codes
 
Don't Worry: Custom Emoticons Aren't Going Anywhere!
You can use custom emoticons either instead of, or even alongside Emoji. If you give your custom emoticons a text replacement starting and ending with : they will even show in the autocompletion alongside Emoji.

Custom Emoticons
 
Technical Details 
Whichever style you choose, Emoji is stored in the database as the actual Unicode characters, so you can even change the setting and all Emoji, even those in existing posts, will immediately change.
If you choose to use the native style (so the Emoji will match the style provided by the operating system), the system will automatically detect which Emojis are supported and the selector will only try to show the ones the platform can render.