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Matt

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Everything posted by Matt

  1. Matt

    IC5: Theme Tools

    Those aren't theme settings as you're used to, those are CSS variables and are exported along with the theme, so you can just export/import the theme between installations.
  2. Indeed, there's a more technical sister blog here: https://invisioncommunity.com/developers/devblog/blog/ic5-theme-tools-r14/?
  3. We have an internal wiki that is quite basic, but we'll eventually get an improved version out to the public (this is a little out of date but you get the idea).
  4. Matt

    IC5: Theme Tools

    Pages is its own thing, I'd imagine more complex templating for databases will be retained for that. Yes, theme export still works as you'd expect containing theme editor settings, any custom CSS from the admin and any designer CSS/JS. Yes, they are retained. The default theme does not have any custom settings, so the tab isn't shown. Yes, you can use existing template syntax in the custom templates.
  5. Ehren will go into more details but things like ipsType_ no longer exists, it's much more structural now.
  6. When Ehren talks about the new CSS structure, you'll see how it all goes together. The new CSS framework is remarkable.
  7. New developer's blog on theme tools for Invision Community 5:
  8. Matt

    IC5: Theme Tools

    Theming has been a core component of Invision Community since its inception, and this continues with Invision Community 5, but in a very different way. If you haven't already seen Ehren's blog on the new Theme Editor, please do take the time to watch it. The all-new theme editor reduces the complexity of theming by taking complex concepts like HSL CSS variables into a pretty slick UI that almost any Invision Community owner can use to personalise or brand match to any existing properties. Ehren will talk more on the technology behind the theme editor in another developer blog soon, but the short version is that the CSS framework has been completely rewritten from scratch with a new approach to how CSS classes interact with page elements. Of course, if you're reading this, you'll want to know what tools you have for more advanced theming in v5. Custom templates and template hooks Invision Community 5 merges the concepts of custom templates and template hooks into a single feature. In the past, you could edit templates directly and create theme hooks. With Invision Community 5, these features are replaced with the new custom template system. You can create new templates, which you can use in other custom templates via the short tag: {customtemplate='key'}. You can also hook into specific areas with a custom template allowing you to insert code before the opening tag, after the opening tag, before the closing tag or after the closing tag. CleanShot 2023-10-19 at 13.17.16.mp4 For example, if you wanted to add something custom before the reply editor when viewing a topic, you would target that area like so: The result, when viewed on the front end, is as follows: These hookable areas are defined by a special tag that we add to the core templates. We would expect a lot of requests through the beta release and will likely create a request form so we can process them. We will try and accommodate as many areas as possible. While direct template editing is no longer possible in Invision Community v5, the new custom template and hook system allows you to add new functionality, while the new CSS framework makes it easier to target and change elements without the need to edit templates. We also added a suite of new development tools to enable you to target menus, data attributes and other areas where developers commonly had to edit templates before. The good news is that now custom templates are not built on top of our 'master' template engine; they are virtually upgrade-proof and do not require manual merging. Theme Designer Mode Those who create themes for others have some extra tooling to enable them to build truly custom themes. Even though the theme editor has space for custom CSS, there is always a need for CSS that your customers cannot edit, and Invision Community 5 has a special area for that once Theme Designer Mode has been enabled. You also can add any ad-hoc javascript for when you want to hide elements or provide custom interactions. As direct CSS editing and direct template editing are no longer possible with Invision Community 5, there is no need for a 'sync' tool to copy from the filesystem. Conclusion The new front-end theme editor is now the primary way to manage themes. This is where you upload logos and toggle settings. As you can see, theming may look different in Invision Community v5. Still, the new custom templates, theme designer tools and UI extensions provide a lot of functionality that means you can do nearly everything you did in v4, but often in an easier way. I'm sure you'll have many questions, so please add them below, and we'll do our best to answer them for you.
  9. Matt

    classic license

    The self hosted version ($499) comes with clubs and achievements (as well as forums, gallery, Pages, commerce, downloads, calendar, etc). More information here: https://invisioncommunity.com/buy/self-hosted/
  10. Matt

    classic license

    You can renew at any point 24 months after purchase and retain support and access to upgrades. After that 24 month period, assuming that you do not renew you can continue using your Invision Community without any issues. You will however no longer have access to support and updates. If you wish to upgrade in the future you can purchase a new license. Please do keep in mind that we do not tie our licenses to specific versions; it's not abnormal to ask for a new license payment for each major version in the world of licensed software which would mean that you'd have had to pay for v1, v2, v3, etc. We offer regular updates beyond bug fixing and maintenance. We add a lot of functionality to our product In the past 2 years, we've released 22 updates which have added the following: - Improvements to streams - Improvements to SEO - New reporting tools and metrics - New features for achievements - Combined forum stream/fluid view - New spam captcha tools - New alert system - Ability to disable your PM inbox - Easier ways to edit a theme - Trending content feature (cloud only) - Revamped Calendar into a new Events app - Moderator approval queue improvements - Moderating with personal alerts - New Gallery features - GraphQL - Live Topics (cloud only) - Downloads updates - Email bounce management (cloud only) - Courses app (cloud only) - New privacy and PII data features - New statistics engine - More spam prevention features Along with hundreds of bug fixes. As you can see, the software is continually improving making it a very different experience from where it was in October 2021. We had to find a new viable license format for v5 to ensure we can keep offering a self-hosted version for the foreseeable future and we feel this strikes the balance of fairness for both you and us. In the past we've just asked for a renewal for any license, potentially purchased ten years ago and you'll get tens of thousands of hours of development across multiple versions for just $40. We felt moving forwards that this would be detrimental to the costs of maintaining the self hosted version. I also want to point out again that you are welcome to use the version you initially paid for beyond the two year renewal limit. I've seen people suggest that you need to take down the software or DMCAs, etc will be issued which is not true at all. We would hope that serious community owners will keep their renewals up-to-date to ensure they get the latest features, bug fixes and security updates and that $199 a year is a very reasonable cost for this. If you are only thinking about upgrading every 3-5 years then perhaps Invision Community isn't a good fit given our continual releases bring our customers timely bug fixes and new features to help their communities be successful.
  11. It is likely that some after market developers will leave, nothing stays static and change is inevitable. One of the main themes coming through v5 is reducing the complexity for things that used to require developers so there will be less opportunity to sell expertise in certain areas. It's why we moved forward with the directory approach. There is a strong future in providing bespoke development services.
  12. It's also worth noting that the removal of JS and CSS removes render blocking items, whereas cover photos are additional bandwidth but do not stop the page from rendering until loaded.
  13. The extra cost would make it the same as a cloud plan.
  14. You're focusing on Classic versus Cloud but it's more granular than that, as Charles explained.
  15. AdminCP theme settings 🤔 Where we're going, we don't need no ACP theme settings. Next week's blog should really help clear up what theming looks like in v5. Spoiler: It'll be very different.
  16. Not a lot off the top of my head, @Daniel F?
  17. That quote is going straight into the top of our marketing. Also, may I recommend: Honestly, though during the initial building phases back in early summer we used to have a weekly sync meeting with Ehren as he's in Australia and everyone else is not and he'd take us through concepts, and ideas and we'd all just say 'wow' for about 20 minutes. Now I just send him badly annotated screenshots and broken HTML I mangled at 2am his time while he's sleeping.
  18. A final supported release is unlikely before 2024 just because we are heading into three consecutive months where there are holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year) so releasing a brand new version would increase workload at a time where we want our team to relax and enjoy those holidays. I've patched releases on Christmas Day before and it's not the best time. 🙂 I think we can expect a public preview and some beta releases before then, though.
  19. I'll be doing a dev blog on the significant changes in how you create and edit themes in v5.
  20. In addition, I do want to point out that we have removed a significant amount of JS that is no longer needed including some libraries that acted as shims for older browsers. The entire CSS framework has been rewritten and is more compact, so there are significant savings already.
  21. To be clear, we have no plans to remove jQuery from 5.0.0. We expect to begin a fairly lengthy migration process over several releases where we'll start rewriting our UI and utility classes to use native. That said, I do not think it is critical to remove jQuery to improve page speed scores. We can probably get away with using jQuery slim, which is about 23kb of data sent once, and then your browser caches it. 23kb isn't insignificant but then a single image added to a page will negate any savings. Removing jQuery now would add further stress onto third party developers and delay v5 by 6-9 months given the huge amount of JS we are using for really little gain. Anything significantly new is using native. Here's the result of running Lighthouse for mobiles on my development install running with IN_DEV on (so no caching, no compiled or minified CSS, hundreds of script tags, etc). I would expect that to hit high 90s when not using IN_DEV mode.
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