OptimusBain

Hey Invision fam, I'm interested in contributing blog posts to Invision related to either community building, social media and/or handy features in Invision. 
Before I put pen to paper, err... finger to keyboard, I wanted to loop you guys in and see if you had any suggestions/ideas for blogs you'd enjoy reading.
These future stories will be fun, digestible content, but before I dive in I'd love your input!
Drop me a line in the comments 🙏 
 
Just as a little FYI, I'm Invision's new Community Advocate. More on that here.
 
Let me know!

I responded in another comment with the below, but figured it deserves its own dedicated topic. 🙂
I would LOOOVE to see a hashtags feature.
Would it be possible to re-purpose / reutilize the Tags feature?
Members could use Tags (as hashtags) in their posts / comments. When you click on the hashtag, it links you to a search page where other members have also used that same hashtag. 
Then, include a way to show Trending hashtags in a widget based off of usage (like the Popular Now or tag cloud widgets). 
I would be super interested in this and I know my members would love it.
There's a lot of #JusticeFor campaigns on social media, and that could be super powerful to tap into on my forum as well. Just food for thought 🙂

You can migrate over from Advanced Tags and Prefixes to Radical Tags for IPS 4.5:
 

They were not approved because they didn't follow the marketplace guidelines  (The last submission was still altering IPS core database tables)

The version I have is the last one released which is not compatible with 4.5 and is the version of Invision I am running. As this was a one-time purchase with no renewals, I cannot say that I have not had my money's worth of use from the product.  
If you purchased this product just prior to updating to 4.5 then I can understand your disappointment, but there was no indication that it was compatible with 4.5 or that it would be updated so, there were two things you could have done: 1) hold off updating to 4.5 until the app was compatible, or 2) do without the use of the app if you were intent on updating to 4.5 knowing that the app was not compatible and wait for an update..
There's no obligation on any developer to update an app to work on the latest version of Invision.  Is it disappointing? Indeed, it is, but then life is filled with such disappointments.  The good news is that the developer has said he will update this app, but has given no indication of when, just that it will be updated.  Even with that indication, if it proves too troublesome then there is still no obligation for the developer to make good on what he said.
I understand you're not after a refund, just a version that works with 4.5 so your only option is to either wait or look elsewhere.

Unfortunately there's no way to add tags or prefixes to categories at the moment, I'm not sure if/when this would ever be possible either I'm afraid, as categories are simply not designed to work with the core tagging system.

Thanks a lot. I will go for it then 🙂

Hi. This app does not suggest to members to read a topic, but instead it sets a topic as must read and members will get an error when trying to enter the forums and the other topics informing them of that fact. i.e. it will force your members to read the topic set by the amdin as must read.
The error message you see is the standard one added by the app. It can be customized. You can use html should you wish to do so. Please see the attached screenshot. (The field that says: Error Message).

To provide a quick update, I've got most of the forum/category setting features implemented, and will be adding a script allowing you to import your existing configurations over from Advanced Tags and Prefixes as well.
In addition, I'm reworking the application a bit so that instead of it providing custom formatting exclusively for prefixes, you can optionally add custom formatting to regular tags as well (so if you want color coded tags to display in the normal tag list, you'll be able to do that now!)

Thank you for your purchase!
Both of these features will be added in the future releases. Right now this is still an early beta of the application (hence the discounted price) and am working to make sure all the more basic features are functioning as intended first.
Currently the application will format prefixes when selected using the regular "Item prefix" option in the tag menu,

I'll also be adding in the option to require prefixes/select which prefixes can be used on a per-forum basis in the next release, but want to see if there's a way I can cleanly hook into the native "Item prefix" menu instead of requiring two different forms for it as happens with Advanced Tags and Prefixes,

Keep in mind everything here was rebuilt from the ground up and naturally I can't just copy features directly from the old Advanced Tags & Prefixes mod, so when doing everything for IPS 4.4 and onward I want to make sure everything it's done to modern standards and in as user-friendly of a way as possible.

Any intentions to update the plugin for IPS 4.5? Thanks

I have WP SSO working on my WordPress site and it did involve setup assistance from my LiquidWeb Host support.
My Self-Hosted setup includes using the WP plugin User Role Manager to connect Registered WP users to the Invision WP SSO plugin.
You set up groups in User Role Manager based on the access or product you offer, also create those groups in the WP SSO plugin, and when WP gives access to the WP content, it also grants access and auto logs in the user to your community.

This apps is absolutely brilliant.....love love love it & members too.

I bought version 2.3.2 on TheJackal84's website and updated to 2.3.3 last week !
Looks working perfectly. I did not noticed any problems.

I advice peoples to buy it & enjoy it....and encourage the developper to update it for ever.
 

Apps updated again to 2.3.3 hopefully I ain't missed nothing on this one, Once IPS check it if all good then everything should all be OK, Just to let everyone know, With all my applications and plugins when there is not one without a renewal it is basically your buying as is, i,e it works for the current version it states, there is no guarantee that there will be updates etc when IPS release major versions, sometimes there are reasons where they can't get updated like a couple I have already as it can only work using the IPS database and IPS no longer allow that, there are reasons where it is no longer feesable to keep updating them, there are hundreds of reasons why it might not get updated but you are buying it as is, but I personally like this application and will probably update it regardless, If anyone remembers the first version is was shocking lol a plugin what showed like 3 notes but like I say I like this app and use it myself, if anyone has any questions etc let me know

And by the way, I've flagged this up once already on this thread – but there's been no response:

We are using a standard Invision theme simply with some colour changes.

Although the sticky notes works, there are glitches in that it doesn't place a link on each post as its intended to do and also when you try to go to the global settings on the admin CP, it goes to a 500.

I flagged this up a couple of weeks ago and there's been no reaction.

It would be great to have a new functionality that would allow us to disable the Grid View on certain forum categories. When the grid view is selected as default, every forum category will be in grid view, it just can't be disabled for specific forum categories. And that would be great.
The grid view works great for many forums, but there are sometimes where certain forum categories look better, more accessible and user-friendly in normal view. Could this function be created?
I found a plugin that enables the Grid View on certain categories when the forum is set in traditional mode. That functionality should also be built-in the backend of IPS because it would give us a lot of flexibility. I asked the creator of the plugin if he could create that functionality. However, I strongly believe that IPS backend should have built-in the possibility to enable/disable grid view for any forum category. Thanks a lot
 
 

If the developer wants to changes pricing structure for the future – then that's fair enough and of course existing customers will have to make a choice.
However, if there is going to be a change which will affect existing customers then I think that they should be told about it and also given sufficient notice – for instance, at least six months – the period of a typical renewal.
Once again, it's all about information and transparency.

Until then, it seems to me rather unfair to effectively de-prioritise existing customers because there is a pricing decision made by the developer when he first came up with the idea of the third-party add-on and made his decisions about how he was going to price it.
Existing customers went along with the add-on and also with the pricing scheme in good faith and I think it requires a certain amount of reciprocal good faith from the developer.
So, for instance, the developer could upgrade to 4.5 and announce to existing customers that in six months time the app would not be supported any more and that the next upgrade would only be available to people who signed onto the new pricing structure – but as a gesture of loyalty to existing customers, they would not have to make the initial purchase, they would simply sign up for the renewal fees – which are generally speaking less than the initial payment.

That is something which I think is fair all round and takes into account changing circumstances for the developer, the customer, and market conditions generally.

 

The screenshot I posted is a screenshot of your application on the default theme – just with a colour change. The announcement is part of the standard Invision platform.

I accept completely that you wouldn't be responsible for your application working on a non-default theme – and in fact we don't use any. The Christmas theme is the first one ever. However, many people do use non-standard themes and so I was flagging that up to them.
The fact that the sticky notes are covered by standard Invision announcements is a problem.

I would certainly be grateful for reimbursement of the purchase price – and eventually have it configured so that we can update it through the marketplace.

Thanks for the offer of something extra – but that really isn't necessary. I'm only trying to get what I paid for – no more no less. I think that's what other people here want as well.

My username on your site is exactly the same as here.

Please don't refund me the extra. I'm not looking for it – and if you think you have something left over then find some homeless people on these cold nights and I'm sure they'll be very grateful.

Well it's very disappointing because the developer @TheJackal84 seems to come online here quite regularly and quite recently and yet isn't dealing with this thread.

So I bit the bullet and went to his own site and bought another copy – a second copy – of the sticky notes application.
I should say right now that we don't make any profits from our website and we simply give a lot of free help to tens of thousands of people who have difficulty with their banks and debt collectors and bailiffs and retailers and so forth – so this money is really hard to come by

I do hope it's a genuine one because last time I went and bought a copy away from this site, apparently it was a counterfeit.

Anyway I installed it on our site www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk and it seems to be pretty glitchy.

First of all, if you want to go to the settings page for the "global" sticky notes, is going to a error page 500.

Secondly, in the previous correctly working version it placed a very useful sticky notes link at the bottom of each topic post and when you click that, it was automatically addressed to the owner of that post. Excellent.

On the new version which I have just installed, although it allows you to configure that to happen, the link is not appearing.

Over the festive period we installed a Christmas theme and the sticky notices do not appear with that theme and only with the default Invision theme. Given that many people use a third-party add-on theme, you should be cautious about purchasing this application without an assurance that it will work with a third party theme.

Finally, even on the default theme, where there is an announcement, the announcement displays over the sticky so that you can't see the contents of the sticky if it is displayed at the top right hand corner and in fact you can't even dismiss the sticky unless you dismiss the announcement

 
I'm sorry to say that this used to be an excellent plug-in/application but now considering the glitches and also the lack of support, I think people need to be careful.

I'm sure that if the developer decided to become engaged with it again then it could be excellent once again.

I wonder if there is someone else you might want to take over and to bring it up to scratch – with the approval, of course, of the developer

@TheJackal84, as mentioned above, there seems to be a 4.5 compatible version on your website.  As I have an account there (but did not buy it on your site), would it be possible for you to fix me up with download privileges there so I can get the most recent version (you can see in your records that I've already purchased the app)?
I'm sure this would be useful for other members who have been waiting to update Sticky Notes as well.

A bit of a shame if we've already paid for it though.

Also, the last time that I bought one of this developers plug-ins away from this website, it turned out that I had bought a pirated version and it led to a big argument between me and the developer @TheJackal84
 
So is this one genuine?

Well it is certainly taking a long time and I have to say that I'm rather losing hope. I'm sorry to say that the lack of engagement from the developer doesn't help.

I did update it to 4.5, just checked it and I did not mark it as 4.5 it's still sat on 4.4, I will only need to change the compatibility field to 4.5 but think it will need to be approved again, 2 minutes and it will get changed to 4.5

Good day,
Is it possible to create blocks of different sizes in the same row? Is it a template or you just drag each block and set the size for each of them as you wish? I want to create a grid with different blocks sized and I was looking for something that allowed me to do that.
Thanks a lot