[R]NuclearGeneral

This is an incredibly simple sidebar hook that just wraps Javascript to display an analog 'ticking' clock. The time displayed is the machine time of the user. The Javascript for 'Cool Clock' is copyright Simon Baird 2010, released under the BSD License 1.0. More details at this link All changes to the clock face, size, etc must be made by editing the skin template bit and following the documentation at this link I may add an interface to this in future to allow the clock to be customized via AdminCP rather than skin edits. View the full article at IPS Resources

This hook will show block with Most friendly users View the full article at IPS Resources

Notifies members when someone rated their posts By default, notifications are working with the "Like System (Positive rep only, visible names)" type of reputation This hook extends reputation notifications Work with: - Positive Reputation Points - Negative Reputation Points - Both Positive and Negative Reputation Points View the full article at IPS Resources

This hook allows administrators1 to remove votes of banned users from a poll 1 users who have ACP access View the full article at IPS Resources

http://community.invisionpower.com/index.php?app=downloads&module=display&section=screenshot&id=7008 Foundation Theme by ThemeTent 1.0.0 Category: Complex Skins Last Updated Apr 22 2014 10:28 AM Foundation Theme Foundation is a beautiful outstanding theme which can adapt to any forum genre, with the ability to add a custom background allowing you to change the whole experience of the theme with one image. With detail in mind the theme is built using ThemeTent's powerful framework which allows you to focus on the community and interaction. We've reviewed several areas of IP.Suite and rearranged them to work more efficiently. Notification Message Works similar to the guest message but appears to everyone, this is ideal if you wish to inform all your members (and guests) and important updates or changes to your forum - Such as a brand new theme! Social Awareness The theme supports Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Google+ and Vimeo allowing your community to easily find you on all the latest social networks and keep up to date in seconds. 3rd-Party Application Support This theme should support all applications within the IPS Marketplace, major applications such as the Shoutbox and Pro Menu's have previously been tested and are fully functional. If you discover an application which has conflicts please inform me and I'll look into it further. License / Copyright We require no copyright notice to remain in the footer, or anywhere on the forum. We only ask that you simply credit us if anyone requests information about the theme. All back-end coding is branded using our typical classes for css and theme settings, this will not change. Multiple screenshots can be seen on the file page itself or a live demo here. This theme is just $16 on IPS Marketplace! http://www.themetent.com/public/style_images/nun/themes/theme_foundation.png View the full article at IPS

I'm pleased to announce the new release of Teams, which is 1.1.0! http://community.invisionpower.com/index.php?app=downloads&module=display&section=screenshot&id=5967 Teams 1.1.0 Category: User and Social Engagement Last Updated Apr 25 2014 11:16 PM Teams 1.1.0 was initially be slated to be an entirely new product entitled "Teams Extended", as there are a few new features added which are more social and may not be for the typical Teams administrator, however I have simply made these features optional with toggles in the AdminCP and rolled those into Teams. Team Topics Previously when a team was created, it was hidden away in the Teams area and it wasn't really noticeable. Unfortunately without any View New Content functionality, Teams had to be visited to find new content. This has been fixed in 1.1.0 with the introduction of Team Topics. Team Topics are simply a new topic added to a forum of your choice when a Team is created. They look like this: http://mikey.junkput.com/skitch/New_Team_Created__Eminem_Fans_-_A_Test_Forum_-_Invision_Power_Board_190B674C.png The topic title is customisable, as is the forum the topic is posted in to (great for a pure "teams" section, or even just for your "off topic" section): http://mikey.junkput.com/skitch/IP.Board__Teams___Manage_190B6764.png Team Topics updated with News Posts This brings me on to my next addition, which was only natural with the addition of Team Topics, and that is to add any new News Posts for a Team directly into their Team Topic, as you can see here: http://mikey.junkput.com/skitch/New_Team_Created__Eminem_Fans_-_A_Test_Forum_-_Invision_Power_Board_190B679C.png As you can see, Team News and the News Post into the Team Topic supports the full BBCode, and is encased in a Quote to separate it from the regular discussions. It is also toggle-able - meaning that if you don't want news posts cluttering up any team discussions, you don't have to: http://mikey.junkput.com/skitch/IP.Board__Teams___Manage_190B67E9.png Team News Comments The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed the "View & Comment" link in the above screenshot. This is arguably the largest, and most requested addition to Teams this time, which is Commenting on News Posts. This makes news less of an announcement and more of a discussion, which is what a lot of people wanted. http://mikey.junkput.com/skitch/What_re_your_favorite_songs___-_Eminem_Fans_-_Teams_-_Invision_Power_Board_190B68CC.png As comments use the in-built IP.Board API's, they support editing, deleting, moderation and all of the standard things such as BBCode, etc. Team News and Comments will both show on the main team index, making it easy to get an overview of whats going on in your team: http://mikey.junkput.com/skitch/Eminem_Fans_-_Teams_-_Invision_Power_Board_190B6917.png Moderation of comments is also available from the main teams index, making it easy to get rid of spam comments there and then. http://mikey.junkput.com/skitch/Eminem_Fans_-_Teams_-_Invision_Power_Board_and_iTunes_190B6951.png Bug fixes As with every release, Teams 1.1.0 also fixes lots of bugs. The most notable being an annoying issue where the team logo wasn't able to be set, and was removed on edit of the team. The same type of issue was fixed for closed teams being reset to open on edit, as well as some miscellaneous issues. Teams is currently available on the IPS Marketplace for only $12, and this upgrade is free for existing customers! http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png View the full article at IPS

We are releasing patches for IP.Board 3.3.x, IP.Board 3.4.x and IP.Nexus 1.5.x to address three potential file inclusion issues recently reported to us, as well as one cross site scripting issue reported to us. It has been brought to our attention that certain PHP configurations allow for a potential file inclusion security issue through some of our files intended to be run from the command line. We are releasing patches today to resolve this issue. Additionally, it has been brought to our attention that through social engineering it is possible to direct a user to a page which can trigger an XSS (cross site scripting) attach. We are also releasing a patch today to resolve this issue. To apply the patch Simply download the attached zip for your IP.Board version and upload the files to your forum server. You do not need to run any scripts or the upgrade system. The attached zip files also include the patch for IP.Nexus, if you are using IP.Nexus. IP.Board 3.3.x http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/public/style_extra/mime_types/zip.gif 3.3.x.zip 28.75KB 217 downloads IP.Board 3.4.x http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/public/style_extra/mime_types/zip.gif 3.4.x.zip 31.31KB 2318 downloads If you are an IPS Community in the Cloud client running IP.Board 3.3 or above, no further action is necessary as we have already automatically patched your account. If you are using a version older than IP.Board 3.3, you should contact support to upgrade. If you install or upgrade to IP.Board 3.4.6 or IP.Nexus 1.5.9 after the date and time of this post, no further action is necessary as we have already updated the main download zips. We extend our thanks to sijad ( http://community.invisionpower.com/user/194954-sijad/ ) for notifying us of the file inclusion issue privately and promptly. We extend our thanks to Christian Schneider (@cschneider4711) (http://www.christian-schneider.net/) for notifying us of the cross site scripting issue as well. View the full article at IPS

I recently released version 5.0.0 of my betting app. The name was changed from Sports Betting to just Betting, for now, since it could technically be used in other ways. Speaking of which, it's intended to be used legally, so you're responsible for knowing laws, in case you want to sue it in conjunction with another app to have money involved or whatever other uses may be prohibited in some places. I made this just to be a funw ay of betting points, though. The whole system was pretty much changed around on the back end, including the main functions related to paying out the points for the various matchups. I definitely recommend that anyone who already uses the app upgrade to this version, as there were many, many bug fixes. Most were probably related to the new version itself, but I tested this version very thoroughly and for some bug fixes, it was harder tot ell if they were already in previous versions, so you're best off using 5.0.0. The NBA Playoffs are going on, and, as usual, you could add a bracket style contest for predicting the winners. Here are some of the changes in this version. A more complete list is on the marketplace page for this app: Changed pickem contests to be more like bracket contests with deadlines, perfect entry rewards, tiebreakers, entry fees, etc....Join groups with your bracket or pickem contest entries.Ability to delete contest entries until the contest starts.Added ability to delete categories, contests, matchups, teams, and brackets, under certain circumstances.Added a "revert matchup" feature, in case you accidentally entered the wrong winner.Added friendly URLs.Now you only enter who won the actual game in real life and the app determines if they covered the odds.Added ability to have team dropdowns only show teams from selected categories, to make them smaller.Added auto topic functionality for new bracket or pickem contests and ability to have them added to different forums than the ones for new matchups.Changed the app to use modules and sections instead of one large file.Pickem results are in a separate area than bets, now and all picks can be made on one page.bug fixes, skinning changes, and many more feature changes!Visit the app's marketplace page here! View the full article at IPS

One of IPS Community Suite 4's main goals was to overhaul the user interface. We wanted to go further than just a few cosmetic changes to the theme, we wanted to examine each part of the user interface and see what could be improved. The community suite has a lot of functionality and there's a lot of tools that we all use regularly so we felt that any improvements on these common areas would be very welcomed. I'd like to focus on such a change in IP.Downloads. IP.Downloads has always had version control. Essentially, this allows you to upload new versions and keep a historical record of the older versions. You can read change logs and even download older versions where allowed. Let's take a look at how IP.Board 3 does it currently: Although there's nothing particularly wrong with this form, we can see that it mixes up the ability to upload a new version with the general file settings such as title and description. The end result is a bit confusing and a little intimidating the first few times you use it. The section to add your change log is a little lost in the file information block. Now lets take a look at how IPS Community Suite 4 handles this: The first step is to enable download revisions for this category inside the Admin CP. Now that this has been enabled, lets navigate to the "File Actions" menu to upload a new version. This loads the "Upload a new version form". As you can see, it's very clean, very easy to follow and isn't cluttered with settings and text fields that you aren't interested in editing. Once you've uploaded your new version, you can see what's new on the file listing page. You can even view previous change logs and the download link without leaving the page. Conclusion As this blog entry shows, IPS Community Suite 4 is really focused on making real improvements to everyday interfaces. We believe that these changes are very important to modernise the suite and to make it as easy to use as possible. Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-82359600-1392721791_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-06787400-1392721793_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-18354000-1392721794_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-20084700-1392721795_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-35081700-1392721796_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-20905400-1392722004_thumb.png View the full article at IPS

One of IPS Community Suite 4's main goals was to overhaul the user interface. We wanted to go further than just a few cosmetic changes to the theme, we wanted to examine each part of the user interface and see what could be improved. The community suite has a lot of functionality and there's a lot of tools that we all use regularly so we felt that any improvements on these common areas would be very welcomed. I'd like to focus on such a change in IP.Downloads. IP.Downloads has always had version control. Essentially, this allows you to upload new versions and keep a historical record of the older versions. You can read change logs and even download older versions where allowed. Let's take a look at how IP.Board 3 does it currently: Although there's nothing particularly wrong with this form, we can see that it mixes up the ability to upload a new version with the general file settings such as title and description. The end result is a bit confusing and a little intimidating the first few times you use it. The section to add your change log is a little lost in the file information block. Now lets take a look at how IPS Community Suite 4 handles this: The first step is to enable download revisions for this category inside the Admin CP. Now that this has been enabled, lets navigate to the "File Actions" menu to upload a new version. This loads the "Upload a new version form". As you can see, it's very clean, very easy to follow and isn't cluttered with settings and text fields that you aren't interested in editing. Once you've uploaded your new version, you can see what's new on the file listing page. You can even view previous change logs and the download link without leaving the page. Conclusion As this blog entry shows, IPS Community Suite 4 is really focused on making real improvements to everyday interfaces. We believe that these changes are very important to modernise the suite and to make it as easy to use as possible. Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-82359600-1392721791_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-06787400-1392721793_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-18354000-1392721794_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-20084700-1392721795_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-35081700-1392721796_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-62-0-20905400-1392722004_thumb.png View the full article View the full article at IPS

1). Make your Articles Beautiful to Read, not Dull. Create short and catchy headlines.Always write your own unique content. Never directly copy from someone else and claim it as your own.Include images that are of high quality. Make sure they are relevant and interesting to your content.Finally, feature your most popular/best/recent articles by incorporating a slider into your website. IPC Slider has impressed and delivered to well over 100+ clients, rising to one of the most popular hooks for a good reason: It makes you and your Articles look fantastic! http://k4z.co.uk/tmp/ipcsliderintro.png 2). Change up your theme and make a homepage with Content. No-one will wants to see the same 'out of the box' design. Purchase a theme that you think will most suit your community. Consider "Responsive themes" or "Responsive Hooks" to accommodate your mobile/tablet audience.Create a homepage with Content, and utilise Content Layouts to design an effortless page. Content Layouts will allow you to create the perfect homepage without touching a line of code. Simple yet effective settings to create a three, two, or single column layout in one page only. Its an ideal hook for someone wanting to create an easy, no hassle page. http://k4z.co.uk/tmp/contentlayouts_feature.png 3). Transform those Bad Topic Titles into a Clickthrough On almost any site you will see a 'Recent something' panel. Unless your community are a bunch of copywriters the chances are your Topic Titles are never quite as good as you would like them to be. Could it be effecting how your visitors view and engage with the rest of your site?Create a new way of making your Topics more engaging by including images of the topic within the sidebar. Recent Topics is the perfect solution for any IP Content powered site wanting to feature a list of Recent Topics, with attachments. (It also integrates with the IP Board sidebar) http://k4z.co.uk/tmp/recent_topics_feature.png 4). Feature those all important Topics, not just Articles! Featuring Topics with a Slider was almost unheard of in the IPS community until recently. The newest addition to the IPC Slider family, is Topic Slider. Set a bunch of parameters, and watch your community topics fly into a slider with images, without lifting a finger. http://k4z.co.uk/tmp/newintro.png View the full article at IPS

Effective moderation features are essential for online communities. Forums, blog entries and member-to-member messaging are particularly attractive for spam bots and nuisance users alike. IPS Social Suite has always been best in class when it comes to moderation features with features like the free IPS Spam Service that are completely unmatched by other web applications. Over this series of 5 blog entries I'm going to introduce you to some of the new moderation features in the IPS Community Suite 4.0. Part 1: Setting up moderators Part 2: Approval Queue Part 3: Reports Part 4: Effective Moderation Part 5: Warnings Introduction A lot of what I'm going to cover in this blog entry is similar to the warning system in 3.x which was recently overhauled. Since warnings and moderations are such an important aspect of running a community though, I wanted to reintroduce the system, showing off the new UI for 4.0 and highlighting some of the tweaks that have been made. The warnings system in the IPS Community Suite is point-based. When issuing a warning to a member, you select a reason, and each reason is tied to a number of points, and then when a member reaches a certain number of points, an action (such as to ban them from the site) is taken. This is the setup page for reasons - I've set up each one to give one point which is never removed. For each reason, I can choose if moderators can override that or not: This is the setup page for actions: I've set up a number of actions so that the following flow happens: On the first warning, nothing happens (it's a verbal warning only) On the second warning, all posts the user makes for the next day will need to be approved by a moderator. On the third warning, the user will be banned for one day and all posts the user makes for the next week will need to be approved by a moderator. On the fourth warning, the user will be banned for a week. On the fifth warning, the user will be permanently banned. You can control whether members can see their previous warnings or not. Moderator Permissions For each moderator you can control is they can see, issue and revoke warnings, and control how often they can give warnings: Viewing Warnings You will be able to see the current warning points for a member from their hover card (which shows whenever you hover your mouse over their name throughout the suite) and can see the details in their profile. Clicking on a warning brings up the details which show a link to the content the user posted which prompted the warning, the notes both for the member and for other moderators, and lists the actions taken (points given, if the member was suspended, etc.): In addition, when viewing content (posts, comments, etc.) if that post prompted a warning, this will be shown to moderators: Issuing Warnings When issuing a warning, selecting a reason will automatically fill in the number of points and actions to take based on the number of points the member already has (these can be changed if the administrator has allowed it). You can clearly see the pre-defined actions for each point level on the right. You can optionally add notes, both a note for the member and for other moderators. Acknowledging Warnings You can optionally set the system so that members have to acknowledge a warning before they can post again. When this is the case, the member will se a message on every page: Viewing the warning details will have a button allowing the member to acknowledge the warning: Even if you do not require warnings to be specifically acknowledged - members who have restrictions applied to their account (are on moderator queue, are restricted from posting or are banned) can clearly see this and the reason why. For example, this is what a member who is on moderator queue sees when making a comment: Revoking Warnings A new feature in 4.0 is that warnings can be revoked. You can reverse all the actions of the warning, or just delete the record of it: Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-84040700-1392754686_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-11681900-1392754700_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-56958300-1392754758_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-07617100-1392755318_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-88765400-1393244220_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-37552000-1393244226_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-88509900-1396340103_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-70740700-1396340501_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-15383700-1396340812_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-01829300-1396341080_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-97957300-1396341373_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-13816100-1396341386_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-84099300-1396341546_thumb.png View the full article at IPS

Effective moderation features are essential for online communities. Forums, blog entries and member-to-member messaging are particularly attractive for spam bots and nuisance users alike. IPS Social Suite has always been best in class when it comes to moderation features with features like the free IPS Spam Service that are completely unmatched by other web applications. Over this series of 5 blog entries I'm going to introduce you to some of the new moderation features in the IPS Community Suite 4.0. Part 1: Setting up moderators Part 2: Approval Queue Part 3: Reports Part 4: Effective Moderation Part 5: Warnings Introduction A lot of what I'm going to cover in this blog entry is similar to the warning system in 3.x which was recently overhauled. Since warnings and moderations are such an important aspect of running a community though, I wanted to reintroduce the system, showing off the new UI for 4.0 and highlighting some of the tweaks that have been made. The warnings system in the IPS Community Suite is point-based. When issuing a warning to a member, you select a reason, and each reason is tied to a number of points, and then when a member reaches a certain number of points, an action (such as to ban them from the site) is taken. This is the setup page for reasons - I've set up each one to give one point which is never removed. For each reason, I can choose if moderators can override that or not: This is the setup page for actions: I've set up a number of actions so that the following flow happens: On the first warning, nothing happens (it's a verbal warning only)On the second warning, all posts the user makes for the next day will need to be approved by a moderator.On the third warning, the user will be banned for one day and all posts the user makes for the next week will need to be approved by a moderator.On the fourth warning, the user will be banned for a week.On the fifth warning, the user will be permanently banned. You can control whether members can see their previous warnings or not. Moderator Permissions For each moderator you can control is they can see, issue and revoke warnings, and control how often they can give warnings: Viewing Warnings You will be able to see the current warning points for a member from their hover card (which shows whenever you hover your mouse over their name throughout the suite) and can see the details in their profile. Clicking on a warning brings up the details which show a link to the content the user posted which prompted the warning, the notes both for the member and for other moderators, and lists the actions taken (points given, if the member was suspended, etc.): In addition, when viewing content (posts, comments, etc.) if that post prompted a warning, this will be shown to moderators: Issuing Warnings When issuing a warning, selecting a reason will automatically fill in the number of points and actions to take based on the number of points the member already has (these can be changed if the administrator has allowed it). You can clearly see the pre-defined actions for each point level on the right. You can optionally add notes, both a note for the member and for other moderators. Acknowledging Warnings You can optionally set the system so that members have to acknowledge a warning before they can post again. When this is the case, the member will se a message on every page: Viewing the warning details will have a button allowing the member to acknowledge the warning: Even if you do not require warnings to be specifically acknowledged - members who have restrictions applied to their account (are on moderator queue, are restricted from posting or are banned) can clearly see this and the reason why. For example, this is what a member who is on moderator queue sees when making a comment: Revoking Warnings A new feature in 4.0 is that warnings can be revoked. You can reverse all the actions of the warning, or just delete the record of it: Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-84040700-1392754686_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-11681900-1392754700_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-56958300-1392754758_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-07617100-1392755318_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-88765400-1393244220_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-37552000-1393244226_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-88509900-1396340103_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-70740700-1396340501_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-15383700-1396340812_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-01829300-1396341080_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-97957300-1396341373_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-13816100-1396341386_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-108264-0-84099300-1396341546_thumb.png View the full article View the full article at IPS

Save 30% On All Skins & Premium Memberships (and renewals) at IBSkin! Use Coupon Code: IBSEASTER30 5 Days Only! - Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday & Tuesday Only. (Friday, April 11th, 2014 through Tuesday, April 15th 2014) We just released the all new "Seascape" skin for IPB 3.4.6 http://www.ibskin.com/hosted/screenshots/34/Seascape_TN.png www.ibskin.com Stop by our forums to view all our skins live in action. We have over 50 skin designs to choose from for IPB 3.4.6 We also offer, logo text changes, skin installation, copyright removal, custom logo design, custom skin design, custom advertising banners, custom fav icons, custom team icons and much much more. Visit IBSkin.com for all your IPB forum skinning and advertising needs! View the full article at IPS

I can distinctly remember 5 years ago reading a blog entry on this site about the "personal conversations" feature in IP.Board 3.0, which we were working on at the time. Up until then, the messenger system in community software and other websites was much like email - you sent one message at a time, with little continuity between messages. We were one of the first, on the entire of the web, to introduce what we called "personal conversations" - a sort of "private topic" between invited members - it was a really exciting idea back then. For 4.0, we wanted to really focus on the experience of using the messenger - making it super fast and easy to compose, navigate and participate in conversations. Starting a conversation When browsing the site, you'll see a messenger icon at the top of every screen just like you do now. When hitting the "Compose Now" button inside though, the form to send your message will appear as a modal window, and when you send, it will disappear again with no page reload. This makes it incredibly fast and easy to send a message from wherever you are, without interrupting your flow. You can also send a message to a specific member by hovering over their name wherever you see it on the site and clicking the "Send Message" button in the hover card that shows. Browsing conversations We've completely redesigned the main messenger pages. You now see a (infinitely scrolling) list of all your messages on the left-side. Clicking on any message opens it up in the main pane. All the common actions are enhanced with AJAX so you can open a conversation, add a user and reply all really quickly. Mobile We've not forgotten about mobile devices! The new responsive design in IPS 4.0 means the whole messenger works and looks great whether you're on a desktop or on your phone. Summary We recognise that when members send a new message, it is often as a response to content read in all areas of the suite. You can now send messages in place without disrupting your flow. We have improved all aspects of sending, receiving and managing messages and are confident these changes will make communicating with other members in private simpler and faster. Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-358840-0-39445200-1397208551_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-358840-0-53106100-1397208714_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-358840-0-20309100-1397208617_thumb.png View the full article at IPS

I can distinctly remember 5 years ago reading a blog entry on this site about the "personal conversations" feature in IP.Board 3.0, which we were working on at the time. Up until then, the messenger system in community software and other websites was much like email - you sent one message at a time, with little continuity between messages. We were one of the first, on the entire of the web, to introduce what we called "personal conversations" - a sort of "private topic" between invited members - it was a really exciting idea back then. For 4.0, we wanted to really focus on the experience of using the messenger - making it super fast and easy to compose, navigate and participate in conversations. Starting a conversation When browsing the site, you'll see a messenger icon at the top of every screen just like you do now. When hitting the "Compose Now" button inside though, the form to send your message will appear as a modal window, and when you send, it will disappear again with no page reload. This makes it incredibly fast and easy to send a message from wherever you are, without interrupting your flow. You can also send a message to a specific member by hovering over their name wherever you see it on the site and clicking the "Send Message" button in the hover card that shows. Browsing conversations We've completely redesigned the main messenger pages. You now see a (infinitely scrolling) list of all your messages on the left-side. Clicking on any message opens it up in the main pane. All the common actions are enhanced with AJAX so you can open a conversation, add a user and reply all really quickly. Mobile We've not forgotten about mobile devices! The new responsive design in IPS 4.0 means the whole messenger works and looks great whether you're on a desktop or on your phone. Summary We recognise that when members send a new message, it is often as a response to content read in all areas of the suite. You can now send messages in place without disrupting your flow. We have improved all aspects of sending, receiving and managing messages and are confident these changes will make communicating with other members in private simpler and faster. Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-358840-0-39445200-1397208551_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-358840-0-53106100-1397208714_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_04_2014/blogentry-358840-0-20309100-1397208617_thumb.png View the full article View the full article at IPS

The site eGullet.org was literally the first client of Invision Power Services when our company was founded over 12 years ago. Steven Shaw, along with his partner, stepped up and supported IPS in its first days and stayed with us all these years. They were our first paying client, our first hosting client, and often the first to get early betas of our releases. It was with great sadness that I read today of the passing of Steven Shaw. Steven was a friend and mentor to me personally. He advised me as IPS grew, provided valuable feedback, was our first attorney (he actually registered the first code copyright of IPB), and was always on board to hear out ideas. My first trip to New York City, my first cruise, and many great dining ideas (the man who convinced me to try wine) were all based around his friendly advice. He honored me with a copy of his book when it was released. And of course he introduced me to the joys of Julia Child by shipping me some old recordings of her show. Steven Shaw will be missed. I personally am in debt to his generosity and advice over the years as is IPS as a company. For other great tributes please Google his name. View the full article at IPS

The site eGullet.org was literally the first client of Invision Power Services when our company was founded over 12 years ago. Steven Shaw, along with his partner, stepped up and supported IPS in its first days and stayed with us all these years. They were our first paying client, our first hosting client, and often the first to get early betas of our releases. It was with great sadness that I read today of the passing of Steven Shaw. Steven was a friend and mentor to me personally. He advised me as IPS grew, provided valuable feedback, was our first attorney, and was always on board to hear out ideas. My first trip to New York City, my first cruise, and many great dining ideas were all based around his friendly advice. He honored me with a copy of his book when it was released. And of course he introduced me to the joys of Julia Child by shipping me some old recordings of her show. Steven Shaw will be missed. I personally am in debt to his generosity and advice over the years as is IPS as a company. View the full article View the full article at IPS

Some sites make use of multiple calendars to help differentiate what type of events are being contributed to the community. You might have a staff calendar that allows staff members to add events and a community calendar for the rest of your users. Or you may have a holidays calendar as well as a gaming "raids" calendar on your community. Individual calendars are a form of categorization in IP.Calendar, and we wanted to bring some enhancements to them in the 4.0 Community Suite. Colors You will now be able to specify colors for each calendar you create. The software will automatically suggest a new unique color each time you create a new calendar with several pre-determined colors to start with (and then falling over to randomly chosen colors if you happen to create enough calendars to use these defaults up), but you are able to specify any color you wish for any calendar you create. (As an aside for developers - you can easily implement similar "color" fields in your own forms using the form helper class IPSHelpersFormColor) Merged view If you are familiar with the current iteration of IP.Calendar, you might be wondering what good implementing calendar colors actually does. After all, the software does not show events from different calendars mixed together right? As of 4.0, IP.Calendar does indeed support a merged-calendar view. In fact, it is the default in IP.Calendar. Your users will see all events from all calendars (that they have permission to view) merged into one view, but can click a menu at the top of the page to filter by calendar if they so desire. They will see events from all calendars merged together When viewing an event the calendar it has been saved to is of course indicated here as well. The merged calendars model is supported for all of the major views in IP.Calendar: the monthly view, the weekly view, the daily view...and the new "event stream" view which we will talk about in a future blog entry (shhh). Conclusion We feel these minor changes makes Calendar more intuitive, and especially makes handling multiple calendars within your IP.Calendar installation more practical and useful. We hope you find working with multiple calendars to be easier and clearer with these changes, and we hope you find new ways to make use of the multiple calendar support present in IP.Calendar as a result of the merged views and better calendar differentiation. Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-46197-0-17178000-1392668794_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-46197-0-95937500-1392668888_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-46197-0-74566900-1392669019_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-46197-0-35777200-1392823325_thumb.png View the full article at IPS

Some sites make use of multiple calendars to help differentiate what type of events are being contributed to the community. You might have a staff calendar that allows staff members to add events and a community calendar for the rest of your users. Or you may have a holidays calendar as well as a gaming "raids" calendar on your community. Individual calendars are a form of categorization in IP.Calendar, and we wanted to bring some enhancements to them in the 4.0 Community Suite. Colors You will now be able to specify colors for each calendar you create. The software will automatically suggest a new unique color each time you create a new calendar with several pre-determined colors to start with (and then falling over to randomly chosen colors if you happen to create enough calendars to use these defaults up), but you are able to specify any color you wish for any calendar you create. (As an aside for developers - you can easily implement similar "color" fields in your own forms using the form helper class IPSHelpersFormColor) Merged view If you are familiar with the current iteration of IP.Calendar, you might be wondering what good implementing calendar colors actually does. After all, the software does not show events from different calendars mixed together right? As of 4.0, IP.Calendar does indeed support a merged-calendar view. In fact, it is the default in IP.Calendar. Your users will see all events from all calendars (that they have permission to view) merged into one view, but can click a menu at the top of the page to filter by calendar if they so desire. They will see events from all calendars merged together When viewing an event the calendar it has been saved to is of course indicated here as well. The merged calendars model is supported for all of the major views in IP.Calendar: the monthly view, the weekly view, the daily view...and the new "event stream" view which we will talk about in a future blog entry (shhh). Conclusion We feel these minor changes makes Calendar more intuitive, and especially makes handling multiple calendars within your IP.Calendar installation more practical and useful. We hope you find working with multiple calendars to be easier and clearer with these changes, and we hope you find new ways to make use of the multiple calendar support present in IP.Calendar as a result of the merged views and better calendar differentiation. Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-46197-0-17178000-1392668794_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-46197-0-95937500-1392668888_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-46197-0-74566900-1392669019_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-46197-0-35777200-1392823325_thumb.png View the full article View the full article at IPS

Copying Settings Sometimes you need to change the same setting across multiple categories. For example, let's say up until now I've not allowed comments on files and now I want to enable it for most categories. In IP.Downloads for 3.x, I'd have to go into each category one by one and toggle the setting on. In 4.x, when editing a category, each setting has a "Copy" button next to it, when opens a window asking which categories to copy that setting value to, so I can make the change to one category and then copy it to others (or all) quickly. This feature is also available when editing things in other applications, such as forums in IP.Board or products in IP.Nexus. New Settings We've moved some settings which were previously global settings into per-category settings to give you even greater control over your community: "Require approval of comments" "Log all downloads" and "Prune download logs" - we also added a new per-category setting: "Allow file submitter to view log?" "Allowed file extensions" (this used to be managed using complicated "Mime Type Masks" - now you can just provide the extensions which are allowed in that category, or allow any file type). "Enable versioning control" and "Number of revisions to keep" Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-33363400-1392669202_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-77269500-1392669206_thumb.png View the full article at IPS

Copying Settings Sometimes you need to change the same setting across multiple categories. For example, let's say up until now I've not allowed comments on files and now I want to enable it for most categories. In IP.Downloads for 3.x, I'd have to go into each category one by one and toggle the setting on. In 4.x, when editing a category, each setting has a "Copy" button next to it, when opens a window asking which categories to copy that setting value to, so I can make the change to one category and then copy it to others (or all) quickly. This feature is also available when editing things in other applications, such as forums in IP.Board or products in IP.Nexus. New Settings We've moved some settings which were previously global settings into per-category settings to give you even greater control over your community: "Require approval of comments""Log all downloads" and "Prune download logs" - we also added a new per-category setting: "Allow file submitter to view log?""Allowed file extensions" (this used to be managed using complicated "Mime Type Masks" - now you can just provide the extensions which are allowed in that category, or allow any file type)."Enable versioning control" and "Number of revisions to keep" Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-33363400-1392669202_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-77269500-1392669206_thumb.png View the full article View the full article at IPS

Copying Settings Sometimes you need to change the same setting across multiple categories. For example, let's say up until now I've not allowed comments on files and now I want to enable it for most categories. In IP.Downloads for 3.x, I'd have to go into each category one by one and toggle the setting on. In 4.x, when editing a category, each setting has a "Copy" button next to it, when opens a window asking which categories to copy that setting value to, so I can make the change to one category and then copy it to others (or all) quickly. This feature is also available when editing things in other applications, such as forums in IP.Board or products in IP.Nexus. New Settings We've moved some settings which were previously global settings into per-category settings to give you even greater control over your community: "Require approval of comments""Log all downloads" and "Prune download logs" - we also added a new per-category setting: "Allow file submitter to view log?""Allowed file extensions" (this used to be managed using complicated "Mime Type Masks" - now you can just provide the extensions which are allowed in that category, or allow any file type)."Enable versioning control" and "Number of revisions to keep" Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-33363400-1392669202_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-77269500-1392669206_thumb.png View the full article View the full article at IPS

Effective moderation features are essential for online communities. Forums, blog entries and member-to-member messaging are particularly attractive for spam bots and nuisance users alike. IPS Social Suite has always been best in class when it comes to moderation features with features like the free IPS Spam Service that are completely unmatched by other web applications. Over this series of 5 blog entries I'm going to introduce you to some of the new moderation features in the IPS Community Suite 4.0. Part 1: Setting up moderators Part 2: Approval Queue Part 3: Reports Part 4: Effective Moderation Part 5: Warnings Multi-moderation It's really important that moderators can quickly take action against undesirable content without spending too much time or effort. If your community is the victim of a spam attack, or perhaps even just an over-enthusiastic poster, you want to be able to hide, lock, move, merge and delete content quickly. Throughout the entire suite, whenever you content (be that topics in IP.Board, files in IP.Downloads or even comments on a particular file in IP.Downloads or anything else you can think of), as a moderator, when you move your mouse over it, you will see a checkbox, and at the top of the list, you have controls to quickly select particular items: As you can see, in addition to checking individual items or all items, quick options are available for me to select all hidden, unapproved, pinned, locked or featured items, or even the items that I personally have read or not read. After selecting one or more items, you will see a menu appear at the bottom: This menu is incredibly smart. It automatically shows you options available based on the type of item you're looking at and the specific items you've selected. For example, here in IP.Downloads I see the options (from left-to-right): feature, pin, hide, lock move and delete (if you hover over any of the buttons a tooltip will show you what it is). If, I'm in IP.Board instead, I see a slightly different bar: Here, I have two new options: merge and Saved Actions (the new name for the IP.Board "Multimod" feature which allows you to define specific actions to do multiple moderator actions quickly). Also, it takes into consideration the specific items I've selected - if I select items which are not currently hidden, there is the "hide" button - if I select items which are currently hidden, there is the "unhide" button - and if I select a mix of both, I see both buttons. After clicking a button, the action is performed on all items and I'm taken back to the screen. Here's a short video demonstration of this in action: Quick editing Editing posts and comments is something moderators do on a daily basis. We already have quick reply (where when making a post or comment, it appears using AJAX without a page reload) and now in 4.0, we have quick edit too. When you click edit, the post/comment immediately changes into an editor: And when you click save, the editor disappears and is replaced by the new content. Here's a short video demonstration of this in action: Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-90764300-1392739471_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-91729900-1392739523_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-06896100-1392739675_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-90688100-1392740515_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-68651200-1392740695_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-33803900-1392740807_thumb.png View the full article at IPS

Effective moderation features are essential for online communities. Forums, blog entries and member-to-member messaging are particularly attractive for spam bots and nuisance users alike. IPS Social Suite has always been best in class when it comes to moderation features with features like the free IPS Spam Service that are completely unmatched by other web applications. Over this series of 5 blog entries I'm going to introduce you to some of the new moderation features in the IPS Community Suite 4.0. Part 1: Setting up moderators Part 2: Approval Queue Part 3: Reports Part 4: Effective Moderation Part 5: Warnings Multi-moderation It's really important that moderators can quickly take action against undesirable content without spending too much time or effort. If your community is the victim of a spam attack, or perhaps even just an over-enthusiastic poster, you want to be able to hide, lock, move, merge and delete content quickly. Throughout the entire suite, whenever you content (be that topics in IP.Board, files in IP.Downloads or even comments on a particular file in IP.Downloads or anything else you can think of), as a moderator, when you move your mouse over it, you will see a checkbox, and at the top of the list, you have controls to quickly select particular items: As you can see, in addition to checking individual items or all items, quick options are available for me to select all hidden, unapproved, pinned, locked or featured items, or even the items that I personally have read or not read. After selecting one or more items, you will see a menu appear at the bottom: This menu is incredibly smart. It automatically shows you options available based on the type of item you're looking at and the specific items you've selected. For example, here in IP.Downloads I see the options (from left-to-right): feature, pin, hide, lock move and delete (if you hover over any of the buttons a tooltip will show you what it is). If, I'm in IP.Board instead, I see a slightly different bar: Here, I have two new options: merge and Saved Actions (the new name for the IP.Board "Multimod" feature which allows you to define specific actions to do multiple moderator actions quickly). Also, it takes into consideration the specific items I've selected - if I select items which are not currently hidden, there is the "hide" button - if I select items which are currently hidden, there is the "unhide" button - and if I select a mix of both, I see both buttons. After clicking a button, the action is performed on all items and I'm taken back to the screen. Here's a short video demonstration of this in action: Quick editing Editing posts and comments is something moderators do on a daily basis. We already have quick reply (where when making a post or comment, it appears using AJAX without a page reload) and now in 4.0, we have quick edit too. When you click edit, the post/comment immediately changes into an editor: And when you click save, the editor disappears and is replaced by the new content. Here's a short video demonstration of this in action: Attached Thumbnails http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-90764300-1392739471_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-91729900-1392739523_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-06896100-1392739675_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-90688100-1392740515_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-68651200-1392740695_thumb.png http://community.invisionpower.com/filestore/uploads/monthly_02_2014/blogentry-108264-0-33803900-1392740807_thumb.png View the full article View the full article at IPS