Olivia Clark

Welcome to this week's Invision Insight!
The Team have been hard at work finishing up the Gallery refresh, which is now available for testing (more on this later).
I am in the process of drafting up a new edition of community tips; publishing date yet to be confirmed. I do hope these are helpful not only to those communities that are starting out, but also to the larger and more established communities out there that are looking for ways to adapt and grow. If you haven't yet read the blog entry, I have linked to it below. If you have something you would like me to write about specifically or have subject matter you'd like me to talk about, then by all means let me know. I am always open to your suggestions. 🙂
 
New Version
We have released a new beta version of Invision Community, 4.7.7 Beta 3, moving us one step closer to the stable February release.
As with all beta releases, upgrading your community is at your own risk. Please make sure you backup before pressing that button! There are also some changes affecting third party developers and designers to take note of.
Never tried out a beta before? We've got you covered. 😉
Cloud
If you are a Cloud client, you would firstly enter your Client Area and click on Manage this purchase, scroll down the page and click on Yes, I would like to opt-in to beta releases.
Go to your AdminCP -> System -> Applications and click on Check for Updates, and the beta version will become available for you to upgrade in the normal way you would perform any other upgrade. Your community will show you all future betas while that line is in the constants.php file. You can opt out once you no longer wish to use beta versions in the same way.

 
Self-hosted
If you are a self-hosted client, there are two ways to currently do this. One option is by using the automatic upgrader, the other is manually.
Automatic Upgrader

Backup your community.

Create a constants.php file if you haven't already done so (use the guide below for assistance).Add: <?php define( 'USE_DEVELOPMENT_BUILDS', TRUE ); Then go to your AdminCP -> System -> Applications and click Check for Updates, and the beta version will become available for your to upgrade in the normal way you would perform any other upgrade. Your community will show you all future betas while that line is in the constants.php file. You can opt out once you no longer wish to use beta versions by simply removing the above code from your constants.php file.
Manual

Backup your community.

Enter your Client Area and click on Manage this purchase, scroll down the page and click on Yes, I would like to opt-in to beta releases. Under the usual Download Invision Community button, there is a download x.x.x Beta x (pre-release) link. Download and upload those files and perform a manual upgrade from '/admin/upgrade' in your browser.

 
I cannot stress enough to PLEASE backup your community if you intend to run betas on a production community.
 
Gallery
After last week's announcement of the new-look Gallery, we have officially opened up testing to our community!
Follow the topic below to stay in the loop and give it a go yourself.
 
Upcoming Event
Our February 2023 Release Chat is scheduled for next week. @Charles will be front and centre discussing all the latest features due in our next release. Lock in the date and make sure you tune in!
 
Changelog
Here's what the dev team have been working on over the last seven days:
See you in the community and next week right here for another Invision insight! I look forward to hearing from you all!
Thank you everyone! 🦘

We recently announced large updates to Gallery:
You can now play with the new version of Gallery here on our site. Give it a try!
https://invisioncommunity.com/gallery/

Welcome to this week's Invision Insight!
Whilst the weather gets warmer Down Under and colder to those in the northern hemisphere, we are nearing the end of our 20th year of Invision Community! So much has been achieved through the years and 2022 specifically is no exception.
I felt it couldn't be a better time to approach our team to participate in this week's Invision Insight. I'll share their take below.
Before we get to that though, if you didn't get a chance to attend yesterday's Content Curation event, don't fret! You can watch the video and discuss your thoughts below.
 
Invision Community Team Insight
During the week I took it upon myself to annoy our busy Invision Community staff members and take them away from their work (momentarily of course). All for good reasons! 😇
I asked them to weigh in on one of three questions. This gives us a glimpse into their minds and is a fun opportunity to hear directly from those that make Invision Community great. As usual, we are all very proud of the work they have produced; the results really do speak for themselves. Team, a huge thank you for playing along and taking the time to get your answers to me.
What is your favourite thing or feature we delivered this year?
@Jim M - My favourite feature we delivered this year was the real-time viewing/typing. I feel like this added a whole new level to our software to know in real-time that someone is viewing/replying the same time as you. Really helps with continuing the conversation, as if I reply and see someone else replying back, I'll stick around a few more seconds rather than moving on. For our support usage, it is also nice because we can see if another staff member is already replying and follow up with them internally before going to the client if we have something to collaborate.
@Lindy - The new Image Scanner (https://invisioncommunity.com/news/invision-community/our-new-image-scanner-and-discoverability-ai-keeps-your-community-safe-video-r1263/) is my favourite feature/service that we've rolled out in 2022. I have been in the technology sector for 30 years (ouch!) and have watched the evolution of so many incredible technologies, but AI-driven technology continues to blow my mind, truly. I love that we are among the first to begin developing AI-based features within community platforms and I look forward to our brilliant team incorporating more of this technology as we move forward.
@Mark H - I'd have to say my favourite enhancement was the "Who's Typing/Viewing" feature that others have already mentioned. It encourages more engagement among both members and staff, and for us techs, also reduces doubling up on an issue. A runner-up favourite would be the Image Scanner feature. It's quite effective when pre-moderation of content is a necessity and reduces the workload of community managers.
@Marshall Slemp - My favourite feature that was delivered this year has to be the Live Features (Who's Typing and Who's Viewing). It's really cool seeing new technologies being introduced into the platform and being leveraged to add that real-time experience. I think it's been mentioned before that even though the outcome seems simple, there is a lot of work involved in getting to this point and this is just the beginning. The devs (not me) have been working tirelessly to further utilize these new technologies to bring more real-time features such as Live Topics. Also, JavaScript is heavily involved and who doesn't love JavaScript?
@Matt Finger - Obviously Live Topics. It has taken up like the last third of the year for me and I am super excited for it to go live. This year though, I think my favourite thing as a developer was the existing real-time stuff; Who's Viewing and Who's Typing. From the user's perspective, they seem small and simple, but from my perspective we had to put in place a lot of newer technologies (new to IPS at least) such as Node.js, WebSockets, and dozens of AWS tools. With that robust, performant and secure foundation it opens up all sorts of avenues for where we can take our software in the future.
@Olivia Clark - We have such a great team! Our ability to work and deliver great product and service with togetherness only continues to improve. I know that sounds cliche but we are improving processes, getting the software is ready for those next great things, and testing new waters - together. Our customer support team serves our customers so well and is always looking for ways to do that better. It is fun to hear the developers working on projects that they cannot wait to sink their teeth into, areas that have been a paint point of theirs for years and areas where they see potential. I love the enthusiasm, the willingness to help those of us that are not as technical and the genuine passion for Invision Community. So, that's my favourite 'thing' delivered this year - greater cohesion and even more enthusiasm amongst our team.
What are you most excited for in 2023?
@Ehren - Funnily enough, one of my favourite features from this year is something that'll actually be available in early 2023, our refreshed Gallery. Andy and I spent a few months giving the Gallery a much-needed makeover, deleting a bunch of redundant code and replacing it with a far more modern approach; one example is the new masonry grid, powered completely by CSS! We worked on a new UI with a better focus on features images, we improved support for videos and added some nice new features such as a NSFW filter. My very biased opinion thinks we've made some really nice improvements that our customers will love, so fingers crossed they agree! Just like a Spring clean, I've always found it quite satisfying diving into an old framework and refactoring it using modern techniques. Looking towards 2023 and beyond, I'm really excited to take things even further with not only other application updates (I'm looking at you Downloads and Commerce), but Invision Community as a whole!
@Marc Stridgen - I'm looking forward to that next jump forward in look for the suite. It always amazes me that just as you think the software looks modern, that next evolution comes along and makes everything before it feel old. It gives a real feeling of moving forward and can pump a new lease of life into every community.
@Ryan Ashbrook - I think I am most excited for our infrastructure improvements we have planned for 2023. Our development of things like live community, real-time trending content, image scanning and so forth has allowed us to learn and grow how we deliver new features efficiently. But, in addition to that, I am looking forward to improvements to the overall software as a whole - such as the upcoming Gallery refresh. I'm really excited to see all of the applications get the same treatment as Calendar did (which is also one of my favorite things we've done this year).
@Stuart Silvester - The most exciting thing for 2023 for me is the new Live Topics feature, it's really awesome. The team working on that are doing a great job and I cannot wait for us to share it with you. Besides that, I feel like 2023 is going to be another great year, we've got lots of things coming to the software in the foreseeable future and I'm excited to be able to get new features out to our customers.
What was the most challenging obstacle you overcame this year?
@Andy Millne - It seems like more than a year ago but implementing Trending Content was challenging. We wanted to make sure trending items were not just ranked on dumb count of views. What we came up with is really quite clever and takes account of a number of metrics like replies and reaction but also recency. Doing this in a way that reflected real time results and was still performant was challenging but rewarding when it was proven to work.
@Matt - The biggest obstacle we overcame this year was the PHP 8 transition which impacted our self-hosting clients. Invision Community is built upon several server level software languages, and occasionally there are major updates which cause breaking changes. PHP 8 is a significant upgrade from PHP 7 as it is stricter on how to work with it. Given the size of the Invision Community codebase and the flexibility it affords for after-market code additions, it was a step we had to plan well for. We built tools to assist third party developers and created a multi-step process over many months to ease into the final step of cutting off PHP 7 support. It took a big, coordinated approach with several Invision Community teams and our third-party authors.
 
Forum Showcase Prune
In an effort to ensure we give our community the most accurate examples of the Invision Community product suite in practice, I spent a few hours going through this topic. All links to communities that have since moved on to another software and/or contained links to blatant advertising and explicit content have been hidden or removed (I went the extra mile and removed the same links from quoted posts). If you find something that isn't quite right that I may have missed, please do shout out so I can sort it out.
Otherwise, feel free to post a link to your own communities below! We would love to see what you have done! Going through the topic made me realise just how far some communities have come from the very beginning, sharing links to their communities for the first time.
 
Changelog
Here's what the dev team have been working on over the last seven days:
See you in the community and early in January right here for another Invision Insight! I look forward to hearing from you all! Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year! 🎄
Thank you everyone! 🦘

Welcome to this week's Invision Insight!
Well doesn't time just fly by?! We are a little over two weeks away from Christmas and well into the holiday season! I hope everyone's got their presents ready or at least has an idea of what to buy for their loved ones. I'm a last-minute man so I have so much time left before joining the crowds... 😅
For those following the World Cup ⚽, despite Australia being knocked out of the tournament by Argentina, my equally supported team from my roots, Portugal, has made it through to the quarterfinals! 🎉
I would love to hear what you are up to and are most excited about this time of year.
To keep you in the loop with Invision Community...
December 2022 Chat - In Summary
We received some feedback from the chat we hosted last week, (shoutout to @jesuralem), so I thought I'd provide a summary of key items discussed to offer everyone an opportunity to catch up on the latest from the team! For those that can, though, give the video a watch to get the full context. I hope you've got your reading glasses on...
Intro
Improved the software and user experience. Collaboration through our clients, community and the team, we identified needs and delivered additions and improvements. We planned to pivot where it made sense regarding feature requests and suggestions. Industry and client needs have changed, including during and post COVID-19. Goals for this year was content engagement and also on support communities, which have been a big driver of growth. Factor in time to fix bugs, do updates such as PHP 8 and build the tools needed to get people through the transition. Security and performance problems which we have to prepare for. It's a balancing act with new exciting features and necessary things required to ensure the software functions correctly. Refactor language system, which is time intensive, however required for functionality. Delivered
6:11 minutes into the video: New Alerts System was launched in July 2022, with version 4.7. Engage with single users or multiple member groups with a message that must be acknowledged and dismissed before further engagement with the community. 11:51 minutes into the video: Webhooks and Integrations was initially launched in April 2020, with version 4.5. Webhooks implemented in February 2022 with version 4.6.10. Enhancements and more apps released in July 2022, with version 4.6.10. 18:57 minutes into the video: Live/Smart Community was launched in July 2022, with version 4.7. Includes trending content, who's typing and who's viewing, image processing for discoverability and moderation, this is an immediate function and not cached and it changes the dynamic of a community in a positive way. 26:36 minutes into the video: Improvements Solved/Unsolved filter for Activity Streams was launched in July 2022, with version 4.7. Schedule topics to be published on a future date was launched in August 2022, with version 4.7.1. Marking posts as solutions was launched in September 2022, with version 4.7.2.1. 28:39 minutes into the video: Applications: Revamp, Refresh, Repurpose Calendar, renamed to Events, was launched in October 2022, with version 4.7.3 (additional updates deliver in November 2022, with version 4.7.4). 32:00 minutes into the video: Gallery revamp preview - Coming in 2023! 37:11 minutes into the video: Full list of key features we delivered in 2022 (including over a massive 800 bug fixes!). 40:15 minutes into the video: Community questions asked and answered live. Coming
47:18 minutes into the video: Summary of what we have planned for 2023, including (but not limited to) Gallery, Live Topics, GraphQL and other integrations, an Invision Community style update, statistics and reporting, email balance management on the Cloud platform, more enhanced security backends, tech improvements such as OpenSearch and Elasticsearch, removing some JavaScript for efficiency on the frontend, Commerce and Pages. Closing
1:01:50 minutes into the video: Closing comments and sign off. Expectations of a forum as a platform, the mindset of a community and the human component. 1:05:50 minutes into the video: Some reminders, including slow-down of development over the Christmas and holiday period. No new release in January, but back to our monthly release cycle thereafter. If you missed the event or video altogether, I'll link it below. Fast track to the above timestamps if you want to skip straight to what you are most interested in hearing about.
Feel free to below on this topic or the December Year in Review and 2023 Preview (Video) topic.
Upcoming Event
The Invision Community team has been at work organising another event, this time delving into the world of automated and manual curation methods available for you to implement in your very own communities.
Please don't forget to RSVP and mark yourself as going (or at least a maybe) so you don't miss out! Anyone that hasn't RSVP'd will not receive the Zoom link.
Changelog
Here's what the dev team have been working on over the last seven days:
See you in the community and next week right here for another Invision Insight! I look forward to hearing from you all!
Thank you everyone! 🦘

Our December Year in Review and 2023 Preview Chat is complete! Thank you to those who joined us live and thank you to those who will watch the replay.
 
@Mattand @Charles discussed what we delivered in 2022 and shared some insights on what to expect for 2023. It’s great to hear them chat about the meaning behind our deliverables and hear their excitement for what’s to come.
 
Watch the video, share your thoughts and let us know what questions you have! We look forward to sharing our 2023 journey with you! 🎉
 

A couple of ideas to enhance the events feature:
On the day of the event, it would be cool if there was a way to promote that event more.   Automatically being able to schedule an announcement or a alert XX minutes before the event takes place.   In the Upcoming Events widget, add a "Happening Now" call out and a link to join the event. Add the ability to automatically remind folks via email or PM of the event.   
 

Our December Year in Review and 2023 Preview Chat is complete! Thank you to those who joined us live and thank you to those who will watch the replay.
 
@Mattand @Charles discussed what we delivered in 2022 and shared some insights on what to expect for 2023. It’s great to hear them chat about the meaning behind our deliverables and hear their excitement for what’s to come.
 
Watch the video, share your thoughts and let us know what questions you have! We look forward to sharing our 2023 journey with you! 🎉
 

On past events, the green "Open Event" button remains but links to an invalid Zoom meeting ID. 
Instead, the button should turn into a disabled "Event Closed" message or something like that? 

@Gary Love this! Miss my Invision fam and I'll def be looking forward to these. 

Welcome to this week's Invision Insight!
We are getting so close to the silly season and whilst things may be slowing down for 2022, we are so excited for what is to come in 2023!
I am really enjoying the engagement from everyone lately and I want to take this opportunity to give you some confidence or relief, whichever is more relevant. Any feature suggestions, bug fixes or reports are all actively read and reviewed, and whilst I cannot promise every single thing will be implemented, it is definitely noticed and appreciated by the team. I thought it a good idea to address this having seen a few comments on Invision Community regarding not getting an answer to your topics. We will always do our best to reply to everyone and everything as they come up.
On other news, how are you all enjoying the FIFA World Cup? ⚽ What team/s are you supporting?
Do you have any travel plans over the Christmas and New Year break?
New Version
On 29 November, Invision Community released their most recent version of the software, 4.7.5.
As I mentioned last week, this release is the last one for 2022. We thank everyone for your support this year and can't wait to introduce some exciting new features in 2023. It's definitely going to be a very good (and busy) year!
Please ensure your communities are up to date to take full advantage of our product suite.
Please click here to read up on the full release notes.
Upcoming Event
The December Year in Review chat happened yesterday, and what a great job the team did communicating what we delivered in 2022, as well as providing an insight into what can be expected for the new year.
@Olivia Clark, @Charles and @Matt, you are all a wealth of knowledge and I'm sure I'm not the only one that is overly excited for 2023! Teamwork makes the dream work!
Check out this topic to discuss the event, otherwise you can catch the video below in case you couldn't make it live!
Changelog
Here's what the dev team have been working on over the last seven days:
See you in the community and next week right here for another Invision Insight! I look forward to hearing from you all!
Thank you everyone! 🦘

Our December Year in Review and 2023 Preview Chat is complete! Thank you to those who joined us live and thank you to those who will watch the replay.
 
@Mattand @Charles discussed what we delivered in 2022 and shared some insights on what to expect for 2023. It’s great to hear them chat about the meaning behind our deliverables and hear their excitement for what’s to come.
 
Watch the video, share your thoughts and let us know what questions you have! We look forward to sharing our 2023 journey with you! 🎉
 

Our December Year in Review and 2023 Preview Chat is complete! Thank you to those who joined us live and thank you to those who will watch the replay.
 
@Mattand @Charles discussed what we delivered in 2022 and shared some insights on what to expect for 2023. It’s great to hear them chat about the meaning behind our deliverables and hear their excitement for what’s to come.
 
Watch the video, share your thoughts and let us know what questions you have! We look forward to sharing our 2023 journey with you! 🎉
 

Our December Year in Review and 2023 Preview Chat is complete! Thank you to those who joined us live and thank you to those who will watch the replay.
 
@Mattand @Charles discussed what we delivered in 2022 and shared some insights on what to expect for 2023. It’s great to hear them chat about the meaning behind our deliverables and hear their excitement for what’s to come.
 
Watch the video, share your thoughts and let us know what questions you have! We look forward to sharing our 2023 journey with you! 🎉
 

Our December Year in Review and 2023 Preview Chat is complete! Thank you to those who joined us live and thank you to those who will watch the replay.
 
@Mattand @Charles discussed what we delivered in 2022 and shared some insights on what to expect for 2023. It’s great to hear them chat about the meaning behind our deliverables and hear their excitement for what’s to come.
 
Watch the video, share your thoughts and let us know what questions you have! We look forward to sharing our 2023 journey with you! 🎉
 

Our December Year in Review and 2023 Preview Chat is complete! Thank you to those who joined us live and thank you to those who will watch the replay.
 
@Mattand @Charles discussed what we delivered in 2022 and shared some insights on what to expect for 2023. It’s great to hear them chat about the meaning behind our deliverables and hear their excitement for what’s to come.
 
Watch the video, share your thoughts and let us know what questions you have! We look forward to sharing our 2023 journey with you! 🎉
 

Welcome to the very first Invision Insight, hosted by yours truly! 😎
I'm excited to connect with you each week to share what's happening inside Invision Community. For those that haven't yet seen me making my way around this community, I'm Gary, and I have just recently joined the Customer Service team at Invision Community.
We are currently working hard to close out our 20th year in business on a high note!
There are still so many things to look forward to before the year is done though, and I wanted to give you all a few things to keep your eyes out for. It truly is a testament to the hard work, motivation and dedication of the entire team, and we thank each and every one of you for your contributions, suggestions, feedback and overall engagement within the Invision Community space. We have you to thank for the past 20 years, and we hope to still bring you a dynamic community platform for the next 20 (and beyond)!
New Version
Invision Community have released their most recent beta, 4.7.5 Beta 1.
This release is our December release and focuses mainly on providing bug fixes and improving stability in the software. This will be our last release for the year as we prepare ourselves for some new features in 2023!
Please click here to read up on the full release notes.
Blog
Earlier this week, I posted my first blog entry providing insight on how keeping it simple provides the best experience for the users of your community. It would be awesome if you could check it out if you obviously haven't already done so!
This makes up the first of a mini-series of blog entries I have planned, so stay tuned to read more in the next few weeks.
Upcoming Event
Want to hear from Olivia, Charles and Matt as they discuss what we have delivered this year? How about getting your eyes on the roadmap and what we have planned for next year? Join us for this very special December Release and Year in Review Chat, due to kick off in just a week's time!
It'll be 2:30 am my time, but I'll try my best to be there too!
Changelog
And just to keep you all in the loop, and because we know you love what our outstanding development team are doing each week, I thought I'd steal @Jordan Miller's idea (😈) in providing you all with a list of updates and fixes made to Invision Community in the last seven days:
See you in the community and next week right here for another Invision Insight! I look forward to hearing from you all!
On a side note, if you have any ideas for future Invision Insight content, I'm all ears! Feel free to send me a private message if you don't want it mentioned publicly.
Thank you everyone! 🦘

Thanks so much, Lindy! Appreciate our time together. Lots of Jordust™ to share

I truly appreciate the fresh perspective and positive energy you brought to us, Jordan. I wish you the very best in your future endeavors and have no doubt that you will carry that ++ vibe wherever you go. 🙂 
You are certainly leaving a void, however, I'm hopeful you'll continue to check in, let us know how you are doing and sprinkle some of that magic Jordust™ that the community has come to love and appreciate. 
Best of luck! 🙏

Oh no, he's going to add that to the list now.

Jami, thank you for your kind words! Great to see you on this side 🙂 
 

In Invision Community's November Release Live Webinar, we discuss a few key features included in the next platform update. 
 
@Charles gave us a review of some new moderation actions and more additions to our Events App. 
We also covered the switch to PHP8 that is effective with this release. 
 
Also, thank you David for your question! We are excited to bring the functionality for "paid events" to the Events App. This is in the early planning stages but we are happy to tease such a wonderful addition since it is "in the works". 🎉 
 

Do you have a question about the November 2022 release? Feel free to ask in this topic.
Did you miss the webinar? No worries. We uploaded the video session for you to watch:
 

Hells yeah! I'm "sad" to say I only found these videos (and the youtube channel) now but Olivia you're an absolute natural star! 
E: And obviously Charles, he seems like he is super comfortable on camera and combined with his technical knowledge is a dang superstar!

Congratz, nice feature, finally no more complaints from users when their content was moderated, so they are aware of what happened.

You two are my favorite Australians! We could totally do an interview with you guys from 'the future'.  

In Invision Community's November Release Live Webinar, we discuss a few key features included in the next platform update. 
 
@Charles gave us a review of some new moderation actions and more additions to our Events App. 
We also covered the switch to PHP8 that is effective with this release. 
 
Also, thank you David for your question! We are excited to bring the functionality for "paid events" to the Events App. This is in the early planning stages but we are happy to tease such a wonderful addition since it is "in the works". 🎉 
 

Do you have a question about the November 2022 release? Feel free to ask in this topic.
Did you miss the webinar? No worries. We uploaded the video session for you to watch: