Olivia Clark

Cancel your evening plans, because 5.0.12 Beta 1 has just been released!

(The plans I'm not cancelling)
It's almost time for pumpkin carving, heavily sweetened coffees and raking up leaves for months, but first our October release is ready for testing!
You can see the full change log for 5.0.12 here.
Along with a good number of bug fixes, we've squeezed in a major update on dropdown menus. I know that doesn't sound exciting but it means we can have native feeling menus when using a mobile device via the browser or PWA. It really does make it feel more app-like.

It's also a major technical change so please give all menus a good test, both on desktop and on mobile. Ehren and Matt spoke a lot about webcomponents and popovers. 🤷‍♂️
Let us know how you get on!

We've released a security update for Invision Community 5.0.7 for those using Invision Community Classic.
We recommend that all those using Invision Community Classic update using the AdminCP as soon as possible. To do this, log into your AdminCP, head to System > Support and apply the patch from the top left box.
Please note that Invision Community Cloud and Enterprise customers already have this security update applied.
What does this update do?
The update fixes a security vulnerability with the theme editor. This issue was reported to us by Egidio Romano from Karma(In)Security. We thank Egidio for reporting this issue to us.
I'm using the self hosted version (Invision Community Classic) on a version older than 5.0.7, what should I do?
You can upgrade to 5.0.7 via the AdminCP. Follow the instructions in the banner to upgrade to the latest version which has been updated to include the security update.
I'm using the self hosted version (Invision Community Classic) who upgraded to 5.0.7 previous to this announcement, what should I do?
You can use the patch system as described at the top of this post.
I'm using Invision Community Cloud, what should I do?
You don't need to do anything. All packages except Invision Community Classic are already protected even if you're not on the latest version.
If you have any questions, let me know!

No idea what you're talking about 🙃

It's been a very eventful week here at Invision Community, with the launch of Invision Community 5 and I wanted to take a minute to give an update on what has happened and what we've learned this week.
Fixes and Patches
Despite being a brand-new platform, Invision Community 5 has had a very low number of critical issues, primarily thanks to months of careful testing and preparation before this release.
We have made two patches this week that fix the following issues:
An issue where some Cloud sites would block .svg and webp images when uploaded.
An issue where updating the approval queue during the v4 to v5 upgrade could fail.
An issue where the Policy Page would show an error when Send Grid is enabled.
An issue where some template hook locations were missing.
An issue where PayPal attempts to use a full name even when it's not required.
We've been reading all your posts about your experiences upgrading to Invision Community 5, and there is one area where we think we can improve.
Pages Upgrades
Right now, once the v4 to v5 upgrade has completed, your Page Databases retain their custom templates. However, because the CSS framework has changed, those pages look broken.
We plan to rename all v4 Pages templates containers and reset the defaults on all the databases very soon (likely 5.0.2) so your pages do not look broken after the upgrade. You can then choose from one of the new default views or move your customisations back into the default templates.
We will also add this information to the Invision Community 4 "Prepare for v5" page in the Admin CP.
In the meantime, reverting custom Pages Templates will solve broken views.
Next Release
We want to continue releasing regular releases as we fix issues. Invision Community 5.0.1 is expected to be available early next week.
Before I go, I just wanted to mention that I've heard some customers looking forward to upgrading this weekend. Just keep in mind that support is limited over the weekend, and we always recommend taking at least a database backup before you run the upgrader.
Thanks again for all your help this week!

We’ve got some exciting news! All communities hosted on the Invision Community platform will be switching to Cloudflare Enterprise edition for CDN and Firewall services. This transition starts now and will be complete by the end of January 2025.
Don’t worry, you won’t experience any downtime during this transition. If you do see any issues, like a secure certificate warning, just clear your cache and try again. If your community keeps getting connection errors for more than 5 minutes, please reach out to our support team.
We’re thrilled to offer you these improvements, including enhanced security, faster speeds, and more redundancy. We’ll also be able to better control bots and filter bad-bots while still allowing Google, Bing, and other safe search engines to crawl your community. AI content scrapers have become a real pain for communities, constantly searching for great human-generated content. This change will help us control those AI bots.
We’re confident that this transition will be smooth and hassle-free. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact our support team. We’re excited to see these improvements and many more in the coming months!

Can you start from a stock Invision Community 5 installation and have it themed, customized, and a new homepage built in under an hour without relying on custom templates and coding?
Yes, and Jimi Wikman, a long-time Invision Community customer, did just that in his latest YouTube video.
Jimi has over twenty-five years of experience in development and twenty years of experience in graphic design.
Invision Community 5 has been in testing for a few months now, and Jimi produced this amazing walkthrough of Invision Community 5's new page editor and theme editor while re-creating his own site.
Our vision for Invision Community 5 was to put the power into the hands of everyone, not just those who are proficient in PHP, HTML, and CSS. Jimi's video shows this vision as a reality as he moves through the theme editor to create his custom theme, and the page editor to build a custom homepage.
Sit back and enjoy watching Jimi put together a new site.
Thanks Jimi!
If you're interested in testing Invision Community 5 for yourself, just join our Beta Testing Club.

View full blog entry

Introducing new Page Builder tools in Invision Community 5
Widgets are an incredibly powerful tool for displaying curated content of your choice on any page of your community - and despite the extensive array of settings for customizing their data, they've often been limited in terms of their design options. But this changes thanks to the new Page Builder tools in Invision Community 5!
Widget Designs
Previously in version 4, widgets would often have 2 designs: one for the main content area and a more minimal version for the sidebar. This worked well, but it meant your page was very limited in terms of design as you'd typically need to use the same table-like layout for most widgets. Anything beyond that would typically require a custom block to be coded, often with additional HTML or CSS.
Version 5 offers much more customization by allowing you to change the design of each widget with the click of your mouse - no coding necessary! When dragging a widget onto your page, a new toolbar at the bottom of the page appears, holding all of the widget design options. Lets take a look at some below!
Grid
A familiar a very layout used elsewhere in the suite, the Grid design neatly aligns entries in a grid with a large cover photo sitting up top. A great combination of visual imagery alongside meta data such as entry descriptions.

 
Featured
A spacious list and a great way to feature content, pardon the pun.

 
Wallpaper
Perfect for content which includes uploaded cover photos or thumbnails! The Wallpaper design stretches each image to make it occupy the entire background, overlaid by a minimal amount of content. A subtle gradient sits behind the text to ensure it's easy to read, even on detailed images.

 
Rows (table)
The Rows design is a very familiar one, used very often throughout other areas of the suite. Content is displayed in a neat table, that collapses into a more compact design on small screens.

 
Minimal
Great for displaying a lot of content in a compact area! Minimal only shows primary information and hides meta data such as entry descriptions and stats. Great for sidebars, or areas with limited width.

 
Minimal Grid
The Minimal Grid design removes large meta information and displays content in a nice, compact grid. A nice option for displaying a lot of content while being cautious of vertical space.

 
Carousel
The Carousel option is quite unique because it can be applied in tandem with other widget designs, and is a perfect way to make the existing layouts even more compact. For example, by default, the Wallpaper design is aligned as a grid, but with the Carousel option enabled, the layout is converted into a carousel instead:
Carousel-widget.mp4
Here's another example, using the Featured and Carousel options:
Blog - featured carousel.mp4
 
Fun fact for developers: All of these designs use the exact same HTML structure; the only thing that differs is the class name on the parent element. This makes it incredibly easy to adjust the design of your own widgets without needing to manually code multiple layouts.
 
Widget Areas
Version 4 was often quite limiting when it came to aligning widgets in pages. Widgets could be dragged into a stacked, vertical list but that was typically as far as you could go in terms of design. Version 5 introduces a new concept called Widget Areas, which allow you to align multiple widgets in a variety of ways. Lets take a look!
To create an area, you simply need to drag one widget on top of another.
Blog - areas.mp4
By default, they'll align themselves into a grid, but can be realigned with ease by using the toolbar at the bottom of the page. The toolbar also holds controls for adjusting the width of widgets, and the gap between them:
Blog - alignments.mp4
 
Widget Designs and Widget Areas in Version 5 make it incredibly easy to create a completely custom page in a matter of seconds. We're really excited for you to get your hands on these new tools in Invision Community 5, and are looking forward to seeing all of these new page designs in the wild, in the very near future!

View full blog entry

As we find ourselves with our toes over the precipice of June; signalling the half way point of the year, I thought it's a good time for an update.

Apologies southern hemisphere.
Invision Community 5 has been in alpha testing for a while, and a small group have found a good number of bugs, and offered their thoughts and suggestions, some of which we've implemented. During this time we've wrapped up the new editor, a boat load of UI improvements and more.
We are now ready for the next stage, which is to give our alpha testers their own Cloud v5 to test with. This opens up testing for the Admin CP, and all areas without using developer mode. v5 has a lot of changes to how CSS, JS and resources are managed. They are now built when we build the apps, and should never need rebuilding. We also store compiled templates now, so lots of slow eval() calls are no longer needed. In brief testing locally, it has made the entire platform super-fast.
We are choosing to use a Cloud v5 to test with, rather than a traditional download for two reasons. The first is that using our hosting platform means we don't have to chase down issues with PHP, MySQL and unix versions which can be time consuming in the early stages. The second is that we're still writing the new build code, so we can't actually produce a versioned zip just yet. 😂
But fear not, downloadable versions will be coming at some point.
We're aiming to have this alpha demo system ready next week, so if you want to help alpha test, drop a comment below. I want to keep the first round (1-2 weeks) fairly small or it becomes overwhelming sifting through the feedback and bugs but please do register your interest.
In terms of functionality, we're wrapping up the tagging changes; I'd expect a blog on that next week. The final parts of the Pages app are coming together. We even tested an upgrade of this site to v5 to see how the Pages built pages looked, and much to all of our relief, it looks great with just a few CSS classes needing updating.
It's been a long journey - and a little longer than we'd first hoped but we're getting closer to betas when the fun really starts.
We're really proud of v5 and we hope you like what we've created.
 

Finally, one of the most requested features for clubs in Invision Community is coming with our March 2024 release: Pages databases in Clubs.
You may be surprised to see a new feature being introduced for Invision Community 4 during our flow of news for Invision Community 5, but as we're committed to Invision Community 4, we wanted to continue to bring optimizations and improvements to the platform.
What is the benefit of this new feature?
Clubs enable communities to host multiple micro-communities with many benefits. Clubs allow more specialized and focused discussions on specific topics. This can lead to higher-quality content and a deeper exploration of niche subjects that may get overlooked when posted on a busy forum. Clubs also offer the ability to tailor the community experience based on the needs of that community. That customization is what this feature focuses on.
Pages is a powerful application that allows truly custom layouts for content areas. Simply by adjusting templates, you can create a news feed layout (it is what we use for this news blog area!) or something even more customized to your needs.
The March 2024 release allows you to create Pages database categories directly inside clubs, including custom fields and templates.
How does it work?
Setting up your Pages database to allow clubs to use categories is simple. Simply allow categories to be created within clubs when creating or editing a database.

Once that is done, club owners can add a Pages database category to their club in the same way they can add topics, galleries, etc.

Once the Pages database category has been added, you can then add content as you would any other club area with the added features of Pages, including custom templates and custom fields.
This example club uses a custom Pages database listing template to show the articles in a custom format along with custom field data.

Likewise, viewing an article in this example club showcases the use of custom templates to present the content differently from the standard topic templates Invision Community uses elsewhere.

Allowing Pages database categories inside clubs brings the opportunity for more complex custom areas making use of multiple custom fields along with truly custom layouts using templates. This is a great way to bring additional areas, such as news articles, into your club areas to compliment discussions.
We hope you enjoy this feature, and if you have any comments, please leave them below!

View full blog entry

🍂 🦃 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍎🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
 
Current Happenings
Invision Community Version 5 news is all the rage! 🎉
Follow the Invision Community Insider Forum and our Invision Community Blog to be among the first to see those updates each week. 
Aren't those videos awesome?!  🤩 
 

New Version
The official November release was made available last week. Upgrade your community now.
Here is what is included in November release, version 4.7.14. https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/
 
Looking Ahead
As we near the holiday season, we will post announcements for our holiday hours. Expect delays for general support. Our team is, however, available for urgent requests and system monitoring. 
 

Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 
 

🍂 🦃 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍎🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
 
Current Happenings
Invision Community Version 5 news is all the rage! 🎉
Follow the Invision Community Insider Forum and our Invision Community Blog to be among the first to see those updates each week. 
Aren't those videos awesome?!  🤩 
 

New Version
The official November release was made available last week. Upgrade your community now.
Here is what is included in November release, version 4.7.14. https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/
 
Looking Ahead
As we near the holiday season, we will post announcements for our holiday hours. Expect delays for general support. Our team is, however, available for urgent requests and system monitoring. 
 

Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 
 

🍂 🦃 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍎🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
 
Current Happenings
Invision Community Version 5 news is all the rage! 🎉
Follow the Invision Community Insider Forum and our Invision Community Blog to be among the first to see those updates each week. 
Aren't those videos awesome?!  🤩 
 

New Version
The official November release was made available last week. Upgrade your community now.
Here is what is included in November release, version 4.7.14. https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/
 
Looking Ahead
As we near the holiday season, we will post announcements for our holiday hours. Expect delays for general support. Our team is, however, available for urgent requests and system monitoring. 
 

Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 
 

🍂 🦃 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍎🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
 
Current Happenings
Invision Community Version 5 news is all the rage! 🎉
Follow the Invision Community Insider Forum and our Invision Community Blog to be among the first to see those updates each week. 
Aren't those videos awesome?!  🤩 
 

New Version
The official November release was made available last week. Upgrade your community now.
Here is what is included in November release, version 4.7.14. https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/
 
Looking Ahead
As we near the holiday season, we will post announcements for our holiday hours. Expect delays for general support. Our team is, however, available for urgent requests and system monitoring. 
 

Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 
 

🍂 🦃 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍎🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
 
Current Happenings
Invision Community Version 5 news is all the rage! 🎉
Follow the Invision Community Insider Forum and our Invision Community Blog to be among the first to see those updates each week. 
Aren't those videos awesome?!  🤩 
 

New Version
The official November release was made available last week. Upgrade your community now.
Here is what is included in November release, version 4.7.14. https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/
 
Looking Ahead
As we near the holiday season, we will post announcements for our holiday hours. Expect delays for general support. Our team is, however, available for urgent requests and system monitoring. 
 

Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 
 

🍂 🦃 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍎🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
 
Current Happenings
Invision Community Version 5 news is all the rage! 🎉
Follow the Invision Community Insider Forum and our Invision Community Blog to be among the first to see those updates each week. 
Aren't those videos awesome?!  🤩 
 

New Version
The official November release was made available last week. Upgrade your community now.
Here is what is included in November release, version 4.7.14. https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/
 
Looking Ahead
As we near the holiday season, we will post announcements for our holiday hours. Expect delays for general support. Our team is, however, available for urgent requests and system monitoring. 
 

Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 
 

🍂 🦃 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍎🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
 
Current Happenings
Invision Community Version 5 news is all the rage! 🎉
Follow the Invision Community Insider Forum and our Invision Community Blog to be among the first to see those updates each week. 
Aren't those videos awesome?!  🤩 
 

New Version
The official November release was made available last week. Upgrade your community now.
Here is what is included in November release, version 4.7.14. https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/
 
Looking Ahead
As we near the holiday season, we will post announcements for our holiday hours. Expect delays for general support. Our team is, however, available for urgent requests and system monitoring. 
 

Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 
 

🍂 🦃 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍎🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
 
Current Happenings
Invision Community Version 5 news is all the rage! 🎉
Follow the Invision Community Insider Forum and our Invision Community Blog to be among the first to see those updates each week. 
Aren't those videos awesome?!  🤩 
 

New Version
The official November release was made available last week. Upgrade your community now.
Here is what is included in November release, version 4.7.14. https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/
 
Looking Ahead
As we near the holiday season, we will post announcements for our holiday hours. Expect delays for general support. Our team is, however, available for urgent requests and system monitoring. 
 

Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 
 

🍂 🦃 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍎🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
 
Current Happenings
Invision Community Version 5 news is all the rage! 🎉
Follow the Invision Community Insider Forum and our Invision Community Blog to be among the first to see those updates each week. 
Aren't those videos awesome?!  🤩 
 

New Version
The official November release was made available last week. Upgrade your community now.
Here is what is included in November release, version 4.7.14. https://invisioncommunity.com/release-notes/
 
Looking Ahead
As we near the holiday season, we will post announcements for our holiday hours. Expect delays for general support. Our team is, however, available for urgent requests and system monitoring. 
 

Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 
 

Invision Community offers fantastic ways of customizing the user experience for your members, and today, we’re excited to introduce some new and really simple ways of customizing Invision Community 5 even further using our new icon tools.
 
Icon Picker
Lets begin with our brand new icon picker. Containing both Font Awesome icons and emojis, the new picker allows you to easily search and assign icons to specific areas throughout your site. Lets take a look at some examples!
icon-picker.mp4  
Navigation icons
Adding icons to the navigation list has been a highly requested feature, so we're happy to announce that you can now use this new picker to do exactly that, for both the horizontal and vertical navigation panels, without needing to modify your theme.

 
Forum icons
Uploading forum icons is a great way to personalize individual areas of your community. In the past, these icons have typically been images, uploaded via the admin panel. In addition to the upload form, the icon picker now makes it a breeze to assign icons to forums - and if a Font Awesome icon is chosen, it'll even inherit the featured forum color.

 
Forum Feature Color
We have brought the existing forum feature color to feed view allowing for a flash of color and personalization that helps associate a color with a specific forum. The feature color pairs really well with the card image to lift the forum display.

 
Icon creator for badges, ranks and reactions
Creating unique badges, ranks and reactions is a great way to boost activity within your community by encouraging members to share more engaging and frequent content - but designing these icons from scratch using a graphics program often comes with hurdles of its own.
With our new icon creator, you can now design your own custom icons for badges, ranks and reactions straight from your Admin panel, using a combination of colors, icons and shapes.
icon-creator.mp4  
 
We think this new icon creator will make the rank, badges and reactions features even more accessible for everyone, allowing you to create a user experience that is uniquely yours. With Invision Community 5, bringing in customization and personalization moves beyond adding new themes.
We're excited to see how you can take advantage of these new tools, and we look forward hearing your feedback in the comments below!
 


View full blog entry

🍂🍁 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍁🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
This week's updates from the Invision Community team are below. 🙂 
 
Current Happenings
Version Five News is Flowing! 🎉
Ehren has more to unpack about this new version. Dark mode, accessibility, performance, oh my! 🤩 
Check it out for yourself 👇

 
Marketplace Closure
Reminder that our Marketplace Closure is set for October 30th. Information can be found in the following two blogs. 
 
Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 

🍂🍁 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍁🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
This week's updates from the Invision Community team are below. 🙂 
 
Current Happenings
Version Five News is Flowing! 🎉
Ehren has more to unpack about this new version. Dark mode, accessibility, performance, oh my! 🤩 
Check it out for yourself 👇

 
Marketplace Closure
Reminder that our Marketplace Closure is set for October 30th. Information can be found in the following two blogs. 
 
Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 

🍂🍁 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍁🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
This week's updates from the Invision Community team are below. 🙂 
 
Current Happenings
Version Five News is Flowing! 🎉
Ehren has more to unpack about this new version. Dark mode, accessibility, performance, oh my! 🤩 
Check it out for yourself 👇

 
Marketplace Closure
Reminder that our Marketplace Closure is set for October 30th. Information can be found in the following two blogs. 
 
Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 

🍂🍁 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍁🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
This week's updates from the Invision Community team are below. 🙂 
 
Current Happenings
Version Five News is Flowing! 🎉
Ehren has more to unpack about this new version. Dark mode, accessibility, performance, oh my! 🤩 
Check it out for yourself 👇

 
Marketplace Closure
Reminder that our Marketplace Closure is set for October 30th. Information can be found in the following two blogs. 
 
Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 

🍂🍁 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍁🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
This week's updates from the Invision Community team are below. 🙂 
 
Current Happenings
Version Five News is Flowing! 🎉
Ehren has more to unpack about this new version. Dark mode, accessibility, performance, oh my! 🤩 
Check it out for yourself 👇

 
Marketplace Closure
Reminder that our Marketplace Closure is set for October 30th. Information can be found in the following two blogs. 
 
Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4. 
 

🍂🍁 Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! 🍁🍂
Thank you for checking out our weekly, round up post. I hope you have had a wonderful week. 
This week's updates from the Invision Community team are below. 🙂 
 
Current Happenings
Version Five News is Flowing! 🎉
Ehren has more to unpack about this new version. Dark mode, accessibility, performance, oh my! 🤩 
Check it out for yourself 👇

 
Marketplace Closure
Reminder that our Marketplace Closure is set for October 30th. Information can be found in the following two blogs. 
 
Changelog
For those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the last two weeks for version 4.