Matt

I'll DM you the answer.

New blog: IC5: Developer Center.

Hmm. I can see why the code does that. The XML does not have header/footer, so any changes to those areas look to be reset when you upload a "new" version which does not have any header/footer code so the theme represents what is in the XML. I guess what you're asking for is header/footer code to persist through upgrades? It may mean you get some conflicts you'll need to manually manage.

What was deleted? This was a standard upgrade that would not remove data from custom themes.

2030 at the earliest, I'd say.

Already in, but we've not spoken about it yet.

New blog: IC5 Commerce

You won't be able to place ads anywhere on the Live Topics UI. The advertisement system has had an update for v5, but I don't think we've spoken about it much. I think I spent more time making up fake adverts than writing about it.

The specifics are to be determined, but it will be part automated, part manual most likely.

Another Invision Community 5 blog is on its way right now. There's been a lot going on, but we're waiting for a few things to be finished before we can show it off. We're currently revamping the theme resources UI, lots of Pages things in progress including a brand new easy page builder along with QA of what's already been added.

We really want to improve this during v5's lifespan.

We are experiencing a significant DDoS attack (4.5 million requests) which we are taking steps to mitigate. We're all here and working on it and should see an improvement already. Any significant changes will be added here: https://status.invisioncommunity.com

If you are interested in switching in the future, just let us know. We can help you get your data migrated. We're fully booked this side of Christmas and New Year is already busy for self hosted to cloud conversions but we'll always do what we can to help. It is indeed. 🙂

Bring your community to life with the latest live community features coming to Invision Community 5. Last year we introduced new features that immediately showed who was currently reading a topic and who was replying. This feature leveraged new technologies to connect members with each other instantly. In this blog post, we'll delve into the latest live community features for Invision Community 5 and explore how they enhance our sense of togetherness within our communities. We'll examine how these features instantly notify us about new events, updates, or interactions and how they contribute to a shared sense of presence. These features go beyond the static posts and comments we've grown accustomed to and introduce a real-time element. Whether you're part of a support community, a gaming forum, or a professional network, these features will have you feeling like you're interacting with other community members simultaneously, fostering a strong sense of shared experiences. Posting We've all been involved in a busy topic where you're keen to see what replies your latest post has. Select packages on Invision Community 4 can see who is active on a topic and who is typing, but you have to hit refresh to see the new posts added to the topic. If you're anything like me, then you hammer refresh until something new appears. With Invision Community 5, this is no longer a problem. As you interact with a topic, new replies are automatically added to the topic without needing to refresh. This one feature brings the conversation to life, and you get a real sense of other members interacting with the topic at the same time as you. Reactions Did you drop a razor-sharp GIF or post something applause-worthy? Watch as others react to your content in real time with Invision Community 5. There's no need to refresh or return to the topic later to see who enjoyed what you wrote. Getting rewarded for your content is gratifying and encourages you to post more and show your appreciation for other's content via reactions. Notifications Notifications have long been a valuable way to be notified when anything important happens in your community. It may be that someone has quoted your content, tagged you in a post or started a new topic in a forum you're following. With Invision Community 5, you can watch the notification count rack up in real time, alerting you to new events that you may otherwise miss as they happen. We hope that you've enjoyed reading about these new features and look forward to them coming to select packages for Invision Community 5. They provide a sense of togetherness and immediacy, making it feel like we're interacting with fellow community members simultaneously. We're keen to hear what you think, please leave a comment below. The features discussed in this announcement will not be available for Invision Community Classic. Click here to learn more about switching to our platform to get this and other benefits. View full blog entry

It'll be included in our January update.

Just for clarification, Pages is getting a substantial update for v5 and is a core part of our community platform strategy.

As an addendum, I would say that a core part of any community strategy is to convert guests into members. Members have more tools including notifications to make your site more 'sticky'. Allowing guests too much scope will reduce the number of sign-ups you ultimately get. There is a balance of course, I dislike things like restricting viewing attachments (often photos) to members only and restricting the number of topics they read, but finding ways to encourage registration is a good long term strategy.

No, live topics are not cached. The vast majority of traffic for any forum is guest traffic. This can be from bots, as well as people coming in from external links. We have some communities that may have 1500 people online, but 10,000 guests. Caching via CDN allows us to serve that traffic without touching any processing (PHP/MySQL/Redis, etc) for maximum efficiency. The cache lasts for around 15 minutes which is absolutely fine for communities. If your guests want 'live' updates, then simply encourage them to sign up. Logged in members will be served the live pages, not the CDN cache.

There's a practical issue in that you cannot write a file to a cloud community, but there may also be an issue in getting permission to scan a database and pull data out at scale. This kind of thing is often very intensive.

This most likely won't work on cloud.

Yeah, I think we can stick in a bug report for this. It does make a pretty big loophole for spammers and bad actors.

I still think that a summary will rob the community of its character and voices. It’s still important to see the author next to their content IMO.

I think it depends on what you’re doing. For example, if you have chosen a book you’ll want to read it page by page but if you’re searching for the right book, you might read the blurb of use the chapter index to see if it’s right for you.

The problem is that too many people want to throw AI at everything. I've seen loads of AI based 'executive summaries' on things like Helpscout, Amazon Reviews, etc that honestly do not offer much value. We are happy with using signals and a mathematical model for this feature. @Matt Finger has been discussing building a LLM for many things, so it's an area we are interested in.