SeNioR-

Version 4.1.17 is in the final stages of development and will be released soon!
Check out the release notes for the full list of what's new and our preview articles for details on some of the most interesting changes:
Better Analytics Integration Tag Quick Edit Default Warning Notes Custom RSS Feeds Word and Link Filters Leaderboard Moderation Improvements Security and Privacy Embeds and Integration We hope you enjoy all these new additions coming in 4.1.17 and be sure to read the release notes for many smaller changes. The big feature in 4.1.17 is the new Leaderboard which we really think will enhance your community.
If you like using pre-release beta versions, the public beta of 4.1.17 will be available in the client area on 28 November. We support betas on live installs with some exceptions so give it a try if you like to be first to try the new features!

When a moderator is warning a user they can already input a reason for the warning. However, on busy sites this can get quite tedious plus you also may want some content in there such as your Terms of Service to highlight the member's reason for a warning.
We have added a new default warning note for the warning actions. This allows the admin to setup these notes to pre-populate for the moderator when they select a warning reason. So you might input an admin-approved message, highlight the section of the rules your member violated, or for corporate clients you might include some notice from your legal department.

Admin Configuration
On the front end the moderator will see that content as a pre-filled area in the notes box but the moderator can still edit it to the specific situation.

Moderator Warning Panel
We think this will streamline moderation particularly on busy communities. Admins will be able to define how to approach certain member situations to balance keeping your community running smoothly with the importance of looking professional and polite when you do have to take action on a member. Moderators will also be able to speed up their work by simply clicking a post, selecting a reason, and submitting the warning. No typing needed.
 
This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

We are improving our integration options with analytics tracking services to better track and credit all page views. Our focus here was to add the ability for IPS Community Suite to communicate with your analytics tracking provider of choice when it does page change events that do not otherwise get tracked.
Some tracking providers do not understand that an inline AJAX page load (one that loads new content without a full page refresh) should still count as a new page. Even though your browser did not do a full reload, all your content is different so it should count in your metrics.
To solve this issue, IPS Community Suite can now automatically put in custom code to execute on pagination. We include Google Analytics and Piwik code by default and there is also an option to include your own custom pagination event code for other services.

Analytics in AdminCP
If you already have your Google Analytics code in our existing (basic) analytics system then the Suite will detect this on upgrade and automatically enable the new pagination tracking. The screenshot above shows the "Other" option if you do not use Google Analytics or Piwik. If you have other providers you want us to consider just post a feedback topic.
Note: be sure that you embed Google Analytics into your Suite using the built-in analytics system. If you simply pasted the code into your theme templates then we cannot automatically enable the new tracking.
We hope this new feature allows for easier integration with analytics tracking providers and also gives you much better insight into your traffic by properly counting all the page views you may currently be missing out on!
 
This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

Tags are a powerful feature in IPS Community Suite 4 and we have seen clients using them in many ways to enhance content discovery on their site. Adding tags to an item is quite easy but modifying them after the fact requires you to edit the root content item. Not only is this tedious but it also then shows an edited-by line for that item even if all you did was change a tag.
To make this process more user friendly we now have the ability to quickly edit tags when viewing any content item. When you view an item that has tags enabled and you have permission to edit then you will see a link to edit tags.

Tag Quick Edit
That brings up an input box where you can manage your item tags without leaving the page to a full edit screen.

Tag Quick Edit Input
We have been testing the feature for a few weeks internally and it has already saved us time as we tag our discussions. But beyond that, and I think more important, is the fact that we find we are using tags more often. More use means more organization and filter possibilities of your content which is a great thing for busy, data-drive communities.
So we hope that not only will controlling your tags be faster an easier but you too find you use the tagging feature more often with this small but useful change.
 
This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

I'm pleased to announce we're finally ready to open our new Developers area. The aim of this project has been to improve our existing developer documentation by building a central place to contain it, as well as update and expand the content available.
As of today, we have the regular documentation and REST API documentation ready to use. Over the coming weeks and months, we'll be expanding what's available further, going into more detail about the tools available within the framework. We've also started work on comprehensive Getting Started guides, that will walk you through simple developer projects from start to finish - these will be available soon, once they're complete.
If there's a particular aspect of IPS4 development that you don't feel is adequately catered for right now, please let us know! This will help us direct our efforts to the most useful places.
Enjoy!

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

IPS Community Suite 4.1.16 is nearing the end of development so I wanted to go over some of the new features in this upcoming release. Some are big and some are small but we always enjoy making any sort of enhancements to the Suite.
We expect 4.1.16 to go to public beta next week. If you are interested in using a public beta please check out our beta forum (clients only) with more info. We welcome as much testing as possible and our betas are considered safe to use on a live site. We do offer support for betas so, if you are technically minded, consider giving them a try.
Commerce: New Ticket Listing
We have redesigned the ticket listing view in Commerce to be much more user friendly and better use screen space. You can also now group by department which is great for organization.

 
Much like Activity Streams on the front end you can create custom views for tickets based on how you work.

The new My History view allows staff to quickly see their latest replies and actions along with some basic stats.

There are many other smaller improvement in Commerce in 4.1.16 as well. We think you will enjoy all the updates.
Security Questions
To enhance the security of your member accounts we now have a new security questions feature where you can allow your members to put in their own, personal security questions. The member will then be prompted to answer those questions for account actions you define.

Account Change Emails
Members will now receive confirmation emails when they change their email address...

and their password...

Topics per Page
You can now define the number of topics per page in forum view.

Remove all Followers
Moderators can now remove all followers from any item that allows follows. This is useful if you are archiving an old item or otherwise do not want people getting notified of new activity on an item.

Automatic Following
Your members can already choose to automatically follow content they start or reply to but now you can define this as the default behavior for all members. Your members can of course override this to their own preference.

Embed Failure Message
To answer the constant question "why didn't my media embed?" we now show you why. Regular members will just see a message indicating the Suite tried to embed but was not able to. Admins will get more information on what failed.

Suspended Member Page
When you banned/suspended a member previously they simply saw a generic permission denied message. We now show a more friendly page saying they were suspended and why.

The member can click to get the full information from the Warning System as well.

Contact Us
The contact us page now has configuration options to control where messages are sent. You can do email and even Commerce support departments now.

Announcements
Global announcements can now be restricted by member group.

And some technical stuff...
In addition to the new feature additions we have also fixed dozens of issues reported by clients. There was a particular focus on Commerce, Pages, and IPS Connect. Some other items of note:
Performance improvements in: profile view, sitemap generator, posting replies, and Activity Streams We now try to more reliably detect the AWS S3 endpoint for those using S3 file storage Tasks view will now show the last time a task ran More efficient license key checking to keep the keys from being checked too often which can slow your site down If group promotion based on date is enable the system will now auto-promote even if a member does not login If you move your site to a new URL you no longer have to update a constant if using the image proxy You can now press ctrl/cmd+enter in any editor window to submit the reply (yay!) In Commerce ticket view there are keyboard shortcuts to perform common actions (such as press 'r' to open reply box or 'n' for note) There is now logic to prevent double-posting when the initial post encounters an error on submit If your datastore (cache system) is not working properly the AdminCP will now show you a warning telling you that it needs attention.    

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

An enterprise customer recently asked us how to have a different feed block for each of their forums. Their goal was to have each forum show a 'popular topics' block containing topics only from that particular forum. Unfortunately this isn't possible using the standard block manager right now, since each view is treated as one configuration. That means that any blocks added to forum view will show for all forums.
However, as usual in IPS4, some of the more advanced power under the hood does allow you to achieve the same goal - in this case, by using HTML Logic. This technique uses a similar idea to the one I outlined in the Dynamic-ish Forum Feeds blog in May.
 
Creating conditional blocks
The way we would implement this functionality is by creating a custom block that is simply a wrapper for other blocks. This wrapper block will contain HTML Logic that determines which feed block to show, based on some information about the current page.
The first step would be to create standard feed blocks for each of the forums to which this should apply. In our example we're creating 'popular topics' blocks, but it could be anything you wish - the principle will remain the same. Another idea would be to create a 'Topics from other forums' block for each of your forums, whereby in the block configuration, you set it to include topics from all forums except the one in which it will be displayed - a good way of cross-promoting your topics.
In order to include the blocks later, set the template key of each to be forum_x, where x is the ID of the forum in which you will display the block.
 
Once we've created a block for each forum, the next step is to create our wrapper block, which should be a custom block set to use Manual HTML, with the following code:
{{if request.app == 'forums' && request.module == 'forums'}} {{$id = \IPS\Request::i()->id;}} {block="forum_{$id}"} {{endif}} What's happening here is we're checking the app and module from the page URL are both 'forums', which indicates we're in forum view. We then use the {block} tag to insert the appropriate block based on the ID parameter from the URL.
To use this block, simply save it, then using the Block Manager on the front-end, drag it into the desired location in your forum view.
I hope this quick suggestion gives you some ideas for other ways to create blocks that show contextually depending on what the user is viewing. If you have ideas for interesting ways to use this technique, share them in the comments!

Blocks are an extremely popular feature in IPS4, used by a huge number of customers to great effect. They range from feeds of topics, to statistics, to custom blocks that can contain anything you wish. They're a great way to add dynamic content to your community theme.
What many people don't know is that blocks you create with Pages can be used anywhere in your theme, not just in the designated block containers (in the header, footer & sidebar).
 
The {block} tag
It's really easy to do so. Here's the tag you'd use:
{block="block_key"} That's it! The block_key is the one you specify when you're creating the block in Pages (if you don't specify one manually, Pages will auto-generate one for you).
 
Where can you use them?
Block tags can be used anywhere that template logic is supported. That includes:
Theme templates Pages page content Other kinds of templates (e.g. database templates) Even within other blocks!  
What can you do with them?
The obvious benefit of blocks is that they are reusable, so in any situation where you need the same content duplicated, it makes sense to put the content in a custom block instead, and simply insert it wherever needed. Then if you need to update the content later, you have one place to do so. Custom menus are a great example of reusing blocks; since blocks have full use of template logic, you can build your menu HTML in a block, use HTML Logic to highlight the correct item, and insert the menu block on each of your pages. We use this approach on our feature tour section menu. Here's a snippet of the menu block HTML for that page:
<nav id='elTourNav'> <div class='container'> <ul class='ipsList_inline'> <li><a href='/features/apps' {{if \IPS\Request::i()->path == 'features/apps'}}class='sSelected'{{endif}}>Our Apps</a></li> <li><a href='/features/engagement' {{if \IPS\Request::i()->path == 'features/engagement'}}class='sSelected'{{endif}}>Engagement</a></li> <!-- ... --> </ul> </div> </nav>  
Blocks are useful beyond that, though. A couple of weeks ago, we showed you how to use HTML Logic to only show content to certain groups. Using blocks is actually an easier way to do this - simply add the content to a custom block, then check the groups who should see it. We use this technique to show a 'welcome to our community' message to guests on our own community. We created our welcome message as a custom Pages block, set it so that only guests have permission to view it, and then added it to our template header. Simple, effective and easy to manage.
That's just two ways you can use blocks - there's many other creative users too! If you've used blocks in an interesting way, share your example in the comments!