Haku2

This I find more than reasonable, @Adriano Faria. I would never expect a developer to go out of their way to help me with personal modifications that weren't explicitly supported by the software or official documentation. It's unfortunate some of your clients don't see it this way. I appreciate you continuing to develop modifications and allowing modifications despite this.

This I find more than reasonable, @Adriano Faria. I would never expect a developer to go out of their way to help me with personal modifications that weren't explicitly supported by the software or official documentation. It's unfortunate some of your clients don't see it this way. I appreciate you continuing to develop modifications and allowing modifications despite this.

I do permit BUT I leave pretty well clear that I don't support ANY modification. User is allwed to do it but he's on your own... including current supported files. Funny because even having this in the Terms, people still review your file with 1 star because you don't support. 😆

Throw in an option to disable quicksand and I'm in.
 

It would be nice to see a 'manage purchases' as an option, just like the client page. Can keep up to date with all the apps/plugins in one place.

To be honest, apps and plugins that get abandoned are one prime reason we need a way to sensibly obtain the files to fix issues ourselves if we want. I know many wont have the skills to do that but as someone who has patched abandoned plugins for vbulletin for years I think we as customers of plugins should have some ability to get plugins manually.
We are customers, pirates will always find a way to do what they want and they arent all lost sales but causing issues for customers will lead to lost sales. Always think of those that are prepared to pay over the concerns of those that would never pay.

Actually, I would expect quite the opposite. Just as with the movie industry who imposed non-skippable scenes on retail DVDs, or the gaming industry whose certain games impose constant Internet-based license validation for single-player mode under the guise of an "enhanced experience," the nulled/cracked/ripped version provides the best experience. It's only the paying, honest customers who get hurt and punished by these types of imposed restrictions.

Such is the risk we run relying on resources sold by others, and why it's important to be able to pick up maintenance of critical functionality for your community that you've come to rely on should others drop the ball (or simply be unable to) continue maintaining what you've come to depend on. Helpful to that effort is the ability to download and maintain code repositories of purchased plugins, applications, themes, etc. @Lindy welcomes your letting him know that this niche feature is something you'd appreciate to help guide potential future restoration of that ability.
It would be very nice to see things in the marketplace marked as abandoned or no longer maintained. Xenforo's market for modifications seems to do that at a cursory glance, yet I'm not a customer of theirs. It would be very very nice to have built in provisos that encourage developers to setup mechanisms that take effect when their resources are no longer able to be maintained by them. Suppose @Adriano Faria decides to go off the grid and move to a private island... or the private island swallows him whole in a tragic turn of events. What happens to the things so many have come to depend on?
You purchase things right now at your own risk, with no guarantee that anything will work or that it won't break your community, or that it will be maintained in any future capacity. When thinking about third party things, it's important to consider those inherent risks vs. the benefits of the addon/modification. It's a good idea to have plans in place for contingencies if those are things that are important to you. And, for goodness sake, test things in your test install before installing them on your live site. Hopefully those in the cloud have test installs included.
To borrow an analogy, "Apple," (IPS) in this instance, would suggest you download another similar app or hire someone to take on recreating your abandoned resource and let the "marketplace" of developers here sort that out for you. Things will sell at the rates people are willing to pay for them--you need to consider if it's worth the listed price to you along with the risks of depending on someone else when it comes to things like upgrading to new versions, fixing vulnerabilities, and very real risks of developers falling into quicksand. Before purchasing, realize that short of getting a download at that moment, all bets are off going forward.

Actually, I would expect quite the opposite. Just as with the movie industry who imposed non-skippable scenes on retail DVDs, or the gaming industry whose certain games impose constant Internet-based license validation for single-player mode under the guise of an "enhanced experience," the nulled/cracked/ripped version provides the best experience. It's only the paying, honest customers who get hurt and punished by these types of imposed restrictions.

Lindy. I appreciate you taking the time to respond as well. I agree that this change is useful as it will help novice and less technical users with preventing breakages. However, I do hope that the team will find time to offer the alternative of manual downloads that we have been very much used to, especially for us who like to set up third-party applications before launching our communities or those of us who run intranet-only sites. To me, it seems that with every major release, there are always about three features removed or new restrictions put in place that limit the control of our own communities. From what I've seen from all my years here, it is very rare that a feature is brought back or a restriction is lifted. And, I'm not sure if this is true, but I heard there was even a rule forbidding mod developers from reintroducing removed features. Furthermore, changes like this make me miss the days of third-party marketplaces such as Invisionize where I could select the version of applications I wanted all without having to worry about keeping my license current or the application being delisted simply because it wasn't updated for the latest version. There are apps that I've even paid for here that are just removed at the staff's discretion. It just seems that IPS is becoming a controlling monopoly in regards to marketplace applications.
I like that there's at least this positive aspect. I was also a bit worried that there would be alot of hassle in this situation. Although, I do find it a bit overreaching to revoke someone's license because they broke a third-party software's license terms.

Interesting seeing that XF has had one for over 8 years with over 5,000 mods, addons etc from developers for either sale or for free:

 

Lindy. I appreciate you taking the time to respond as well. I agree that this change is useful as it will help novice and less technical users with preventing breakages. However, I do hope that the team will find time to offer the alternative of manual downloads that we have been very much used to, especially for us who like to set up third-party applications before launching our communities or those of us who run intranet-only sites. To me, it seems that with every major release, there are always about three features removed or new restrictions put in place that limit the control of our own communities. From what I've seen from all my years here, it is very rare that a feature is brought back or a restriction is lifted. And, I'm not sure if this is true, but I heard there was even a rule forbidding mod developers from reintroducing removed features. Furthermore, changes like this make me miss the days of third-party marketplaces such as Invisionize where I could select the version of applications I wanted all without having to worry about keeping my license current or the application being delisted simply because it wasn't updated for the latest version. There are apps that I've even paid for here that are just removed at the staff's discretion. It just seems that IPS is becoming a controlling monopoly in regards to marketplace applications.
I like that there's at least this positive aspect. I was also a bit worried that there would be alot of hassle in this situation. Although, I do find it a bit overreaching to revoke someone's license because they broke a third-party software's license terms.

That's brilliant thank you. I've just removed some old files from my other licence as they were not used (hence my question), and wished to transfer them and use on my second licence. So I still only have one instanced of the file installed (as agreed upon purchasing).

Hi guys. I'm sorry for any confusion and frustration. This is something I personally insisted upon and it was done for a multitude of reasons. 
First and foremost, we want to really promote more harmony within third party applications. 4.4, because of its looser standards that did not require authors to use versioning/update notifications, ultimately allowed a hodge podge of current and outdated resources that would collide with one another (and the core) leading to unnecessary issues, customer frustration and support overhead. With everything managed within the AdminCP, you have easy access to updates - the same as the core software. 
Requiring Marketplace apps be installed through the AdminCP also helps ensure that what you're installing is the latest the author has uploaded, it was been reviewed by IPS (our process for this has changed and improved with 4.5 and we also screen upgrades now.) If we were to permit downloads and manual installation, you would get the warning that it is an untested resource (there are no provisions in the file itself that indicate it came from the marketplace), it would be installed outside of the Marketplace management/upgrade system and things like the support tool would warn you every time you use it that you're using an untested third party application. 
I understand the use case for 'localhost' development and testing. I would consider that a niche case at this point, but later down the line, we would be happy to, if demand dictates, explore potential ways to allow manually saving a file in a manner that ensures the file and account are validated and the file operates within the Marketplace framework.  We have no immediate plans to consider that development expenditure at this time, however. 
You could reach out to the author as well with these rare circumstances, but to be honest, this change also helps them from a piracy standpoint, so they may not be willing to give up files to customers so easily and again, if they do, it would not be installed within the new Marketplace framework. 
I'm sorry again for the frustration and @Dean_ you're not being a nuisance at all. I completely understand your position. Again, should circumstances change in the future, we can re-evaluate. At this point, just slapping up the file again would defeat the entire purpose of the 4.5 Marketplace, so that's unfortunately not under consideration at this moment. 
@Paul E. I'm sorry that happened to you and we've found similar. Because of that, there are new development guidelines in place that authors must adhere to and we have become very stringent in what we will approve. 
@ibaker XF, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't even have an App Store/marketplace and they don't review any third party resource. That's respectfully an apples and oranges comparison. As a point of clarification, although you find things from Invision Community creeping into XF, we on the other hand have no interest in competing with XF. If I were to simplify the comparison in this case, they adopt more of an Android approach and we prefer the Apple approach. You can hack your Android up to pieces if that's your thing, but the beauty of an Apple device lies in its balance between power, simplicity and stability. Our core demographic has demonstrated time and again, they prefer and expect the Apple-esque approach from us. Respectfully, if Android is your thing, please don't make yourself angry and miserable by shoehorning your expectations into an Apple device and/or trying to turn Apple into Android. 🙂 
Thanks for your understanding!

Exactly that, but it's a bit of a hassle.

I get what you guys are saying and understand. Actually I fully support what you say. But, manual download from IPS Marketplace should stay intact. That's all. I appreciate what you guys do and that's why I've chosen IPS as my go to and it's always recommended friends. So please don't think I'm being a nuisance.

I figured there would have been a way to manually grab and install marketplace files post 4.5 as I like to archive old versions and track changes but I wont be able to do that any more?
I love the marketplace integration and it makes sense for a lot of users but a manual fallback should still be in place as well.

Using many Word Press sites, you can install the app via the Admin CP OR download the app and save it to your computer. 
 

There's currently only one built-in manual option in the Withdrawal settings.  I'd like to see this expanded to at least 3 if possible.  We no longer use the built-in PayPal option and instead created our own manual one for PayPal, but we'd like another manual option to add Stripe for people who live in countries that PayPal is not available.
Thanks!

It stops me and probably many others from doing any pre-work
In fact their whole licensing arrangements stink...I have 2 licenses and only use 1 live install. I wanted to check to see if I could migrate a site from XF to IPS easily by installing a test version of IPS in a sub folder of the XF site but it didn't migrate well but it ties that test install to that domain and trying to get them to remove it is darn near impossible to the point I was near threatening legal action to overcome their arrogance. This just drives people away from using IPS in my opinion...you can see my extreme frustration with them 😡

I'm hopeful this is an oversight that will be promptly addressed prior to release.

I presume like many many others, I have a test/development copy installed on my local PC using xampp. Here I do all my testing and development of any changes to suit my live site first. I have this development/test environment for unit, system etc testing, I have a pre-production test environment on my live dedicated server for integration etc testing and then I have my live production environment. Nothing, I mean NO ADDONS, NO TEMPLATE CHANGES etc gets to a pre-prod environment until it is completely tested on my local PC first...this is the way I am sure even IPS do it. So why in hell can't I download and test addons etc in my development/test environment on my local PC...why has IPS stopped this with v4.5 especially when everyone is developing and testing v4.5:

It seems like as IPS progresses further it becomes even more frustrating to use...it seems along with other licensing things IPS is trying their hardest to drive people away from IPS and straight over to Xenforo who make it easy to create what you need and manage your installs.

I don't think it's the issue that you can't point to the marketplace. It's the issue that you can't download and inspect the packages directly from IPS any more. There's now a requirement that the test install have internet access and that you install things before inspecting them, and for localhost installs, you can't install and test applications and plugins published by the community (without a roundabout process of installing in test and then extracting the resource).
For many communities, plug and play is probably just fine. But it's not serving the needs of those clients that have more stringent policies or requirements that they follow in the development lifecycle. Now, there's an extra step of using a test install to acquire files rather than being able to download and inspect them as before (or put them in a virtual localhost environment).
The IPS marketplace should have a download button for 4.5 resources, and have its current integration as well. Go install from your ACP, or download here. That would be ideal.
Just to add for context, we've purchased, downloaded, and installed a few applications and plugins from IPS Marketplace that, when tested in our local environments, we quickly identified conflicts, issues, and breaking changes that would degrade our member experience and/or simply not work at the scale of a community the size of ours. We identified issues that would have otherwise taken down our production copy and/or production installs due to things like altering the core_members table rather than having an application/plugin specific table. Whatever checks of things (if any--I'm not sure) happening at IPS, they're insufficient for our needs, and we have a duty to our stakeholders to test things and ensure they're ready for our environment and configuration.
This change is an obstacle to that process. We have a workaround, yet it's needlessly causing us to install things in test and have to revert that environment after the fact when our workflow of installing in a local dev first and doing comparisons was much preferred.

I also agree with this, please bring back manual downloading. The marketplace download functionality is great for the ease of basic users and looks nice, but for others, I feel having a manual download option is a need.

Totally agree with @Dean_ &  @Paul E. this needs sorting. 

Absolutely a necessity to support multiple localhost development environments and to support the download of application/plugins directly from the IPS marketplace as existed in 4.4 and earlier. The inability to download files directly from the marketplace limits severely limits those that have installations that are not accessible from the outside internet, whether that be an internal corporate install or various development / virtualized environments.
It also prevents administrators and security folks from being able to audit applications and plugins prior to installation in any environment. At present, one must install an application/plugin prior to being able to review. In the past, we've purchased plugins/applications that upon inspection of the downloaded file, we found that there were breaking changes that did not follow IPS development guidelines and that would have resulted in a degradation of service in our production environment. Without inspecting those files in advance, we would have not been able to identify these issues.