AnthonyKinson

In our spirit of keeping everyone up to date, this topic will serve as a running list of what's new in IP.Board 3.2.0. As we make changes we will update this topic so check back now and then. This is not yet a complete list as we are still making changes, adding new features, and doing other work. If you don't see what you're looking for here just yet please check back later!

As always with IPS, everything listed here is not part of a "possible" roadmap. We will only post items on this list when they are 100% complete and included in IP.Board 3.2.0 so you can trust that what we post in public is what you will get.

Calendar Improvements

• SEO Improvements: http://community.inv...o-improvements/
  
• Consistency: http://community.inv...ii-consistency/
  
• RSVP: http://community.inv...-part-iii-rsvp/
  
• Simplification and interface changes: http://community.inv...erface-changes/
  
• iCalendar support: http://community.inv...lendar-support/

Moderator Functions

• Report Center improvements: http://community.inv...r-improvements/
  
• Editing Member improvements: http://community.inv...r-improvements/
  
• Moderator Control Panel: http://community.inv...-control-panel/

New Text Editor

• New editor and auto-save: http://community.inv...ew-text-editor/
  
• Cleaner interface, quick reply, quick quoting: http://community.inv...editor-part-ii/
  
• New post alert while typing reply: http://community.inv...ditor-part-iii/

AdminCP

• New style: http://community.inv...-admincp-style/
  
• New "like" reputation mode: http://community.inv...tion-mode-like/
  
• Easy member management: http://community.inv...ber-management/
  
• Improved restrictions: http://community.inv...s-enhancements/
  
• Forum Management: http://community.inv...rum-management/
  
• Remote skin editing: http://community.inv...e-skin-editing/

Core Functionality

• View new content and topic marking improvements: http://community.inv...d-topic-marking and part 2: http://community.inv...t-improvements/
  
• New Photo Editor: http://community.inv...w-photo-editor/
  
• Shared media: http://community.inv...e-shared-media/
  
• Tagging and prefixes: http://community.inv...g-and-prefixes/
  
• Notification enhancements: http://community.inv...n-enhancements/ and http://community.inv...cations-part-2/
  
• New mobile skin: http://community.inv...te-mobile-skin/

Miscellaneous Changes

• "Delete All" button has been added to the SQL error logs page
  
• Linear+ and Outline modes removed for topic viewing (they're a hold-over from an older time on the web and it's time to retire them)
  
• Support for IPv6
  
• You can now use the member management tools to search for incomplete members
  
• Pagination added to the incomplete members page of the ACP
  
• If only one skin or language is choosable, the dropdown selector at the bottom of the page will be hidden
  
• Member photos and member avatars are being merged into one function: member photo. There was too much overlap between the two features.
  
• IP.Calendar and IP.Chat will no longer be bundled in the IP.Board download zip to reduce the size of the download. This also allows clients who have no interest in IP.Chat or IP.Calendar to choose not to download or install those applications. Of course those who do wish to use those applications can easily download from the client area and install them.
  
• Rebuild FURL cache button has been moved to the cache management page.
  
• It is now possible to rename the “hooks” folder to something else editing the constant IPS_HOOKS_PATH in initdata.php.
  
• You can now edit each group’s report center permissions directly from the group management area
  
• Report center now supports item marking to remember and indicate which reports you’ve viewed
  
• Customers who have purchased Copyright Removal no longer need to enter a separate Copyright Removal key. The copyright will automatically be removed when activating your license.
  
• New settings for attachments to limit size of files stored on disk
  
• Separate ACP restriction options have been added for managing spam users and incomplete users (access to these areas were previously controlled by the option “can manage banned users”).
  
• “Show X Last visitors in profile” now shows always the last 5 visitors if the setting is enabled rather than having a 3, 5, 10 dropdown choice.
  
• New ACP tool to create the cronjobs to rebuild sphinx indexes
  
• When adding a ban filter in the ACP you will now have an option to enter a reason visible to all admins (the reason won’t show in the public side).
  
• Pinned, polls, and moved topic prefixes have been moved to language files (they were previously in the settings area)
  
• Many redundant or pointless settings removed. Other settings moved to more logical locations. Some settings groups merged to create fewer groups to go through when setting up your community. System Settings menu item moved to a top-level menu item under System tab so it's available with one-click anywhere in AdminCP.
  
• The note box in your My Settings (UserCP) area has been removed. It is a hold-over from years past and doesn't seem to make sense in community software. If you are one of the very few people who use this: make a copy of your notes before upgrade.
  
• The unread topic marking system will now remember what page of a topic you left off reading rather than assume you read the entire topic on the first click.

Other Important Changes

• IP.Subscriptions, our simple application to allow you to sell member group promotions on your community, will be updated to work with IP.Board 3.2 but this will be the last update to IP.Subscriptions. IP.Subscriptions has been around for many years - long before communities were assumed to bring in revenue - and it's time to retire it to focus on our more modern application: IP.Nexus. With the release of IP.Board 3.2, IP.Subscriptions will be considered end of life (EOL) and will no longer be supported. Clients should switch to the new IP.Nexus product which is continually updated and contains many more opportunities to monetize your community. A member of our community, Andy Rixon, has agreed to take on continuing development of this product so those of you who use it will still have a solution.
  
• The Portal application in IP.Board has existed from the very early days of our company. It was only ever intended as a simple portal and demo of the software but grew a bit over time. It has had minimal updates and the feature set is very minimal when compared to today's expectations of community owners and operators. The Portal application will not ship with IP.Board 3.2 and should be considered EOL. It will be available in the IPS Marketplace after IP.Board 3.2's release for those of you who do use it so you can still upgrade to 3.2. We will also post information on how to easily replicate the Portal's functionality in IP.Content which offers all that the old Portal did and much, much more. A member of our community, Andy Rixon, has agreed to take on continuing development of this product so those of you who use it will still have a solution.
  
• As IP.Board 3.2 will have a whole new default skin, the CleanCut skin will become redundant and will therefore no longer be updated by IPS.

We were recently inspired to write up our own year end review of 2010 to go over the highlights of all the accomplishments our staff made during the year. It's also a great overview of the advancements IPS constantly makes for our customers. Here are the highlights:


December 2009

We began blogging about IP.Board 3.1 and IP.Content 1.2. Everyone was very excited to start revealing the upcoming changes to IP.Board and to further the maturing of the new IP.Content product.

January:

• IP.Chat 1.0.0 released as final. IP.Chat 5 user room provided for free to all customers with an active support contract.
  
• Blogged about expected updates to our addon applications
  
• Released public phpdoc documentation for developers
  
• IP.Downloads 2.1.0 released final. IP.Downloads 2.1.0 provides friendly URLs, upload progress bar, multiple files per record, interface updates, and more.
  
• IP.Content 1.2.0 released final. 1.2.0 provides WYSIWYG editors, better control over fields, and better support for attachments.
  
• Gallery 3.1.0 released final. 3.1.0 introduces album cover images, friendly URLs, sub albums, profile picture albums, friendly only albums, and fancy slideshow.
  
• IP.Blog 2.1.0 released final. 2.1.0 includes support for group blogs, Blog This!, RSS imports, resource improvements and more.
  
• Continued blogging about IP.Board 3.1 improvements

February:

• Improvements to spam monitoring service.
  
• Continued blogging about IP.Board 3.1.0 and addon application updates to be expected
  
• Extended our demo system to 48 hours (extended to 5 days later in the year).

March:

• IP.Board 3.1.0 revealed to the community via updated company forums. New features include profile customization, link sharing, status updates, twitter integration, reputation viewing, ad codes, notification system, soft deletions, and more.
  
• Continued blogging about expected application updates and IP.Board 3.1.0 changes.
  
• Skin Generator service launched for free to all active license holders.

April:

• Community Hosting improvements were made allowing for free 20 user chat rooms, IP.Content available for only $5/month, and a switch from generic metrics to user-based limits.
  
• Continued blogging about application updates, and released betas of the new versions for the community to begin testing.
  
• IPS Staff is excited to hear the news that Nakisha Thomas, our Director of Customer Service, welcomes the birth of her son.

May:

• iPhone app developed and released for free to the community.
  
• Skin generator service updated.
  
• Introduced IP.Nexus as our new business platform.

June:

• IP.Board 3.1.0, IP.Gallery 3.2.0, IP.Blog 2.2.0, IP.Downloads 2.2.0, IP.Content 2.0.0, and IP.Chat 1.1.0 released. Many great improvements for all products available to customers - check out the release topic for a full list. It's impressive!
  
• IP.Board 3.1.1, IP.Gallery 3.2.1, IP.Blog 2.2.1, IP.Downloads 2.2.1, IP.Content 2.0.1, IP.Chat 1.1.1 released. Quick bug fixes for the most notable issues in the newest version.
  
• iPhone app updated to support push notifications, amongst other features.
  
• Community directory launched to allow customers free exposure to anyone using the iPhone app or browsing our company forums for any site.
  
• New IPS web site launched.

July:

• IPS conducts a donation drive for Autism research, in part to test our newest upcoming product IP.Nexus, and in addition to raising $1000 via donations from our community, IPS donated a matching $1000 to AutismSpeaks.org.
  
• IP.Board 3.1.2, IP.Gallery 3.2.2, IP.Blog 2.2.2, IP.Downloads 2.2.2, IP.Content 2.0.2, and IP.Chat 1.1.2 released. In addition to important bug fixes, this release includes enhanced SQL error display, ACP live search improvements, SQL toolbox enhancements, improvements to partial member registrations, and more.
  
• Forum support launched allowing official support via our company forums.

August:

• Website improvements to make documentation searching easier and better documentation organization.
  
• Community hosting improvements implemented.

September:

Continued blogging about upcoming updates to our software. IPS does not release roadmaps as they are too easy to stray from and you end up making promises you cannot keep which we never want to do. Instead, we post blog entries when we complete a new feature so everyone knows it's not just a mockup or an unfulfilled hope.

October:

• IP.Board 3.1.3 released.
  
• Skin generator updated and improved.
  
• Release schedule for our products announced. The first and last time IPS has done this!

November:

• IP.Nexus 1.0.0 released.IP.Nexus is our powerful ecommerce solution that allows you to monetize your IP.Board easily.
  
• IP.Content 2.1.0 released. Features include external widgets, redesigned default interface, block variable help, admin interface improvements, better forum integration, template import/export, and more.
  
• IP.Nexus 1.0.1 released. As part of our commitment to maintain and update Nexus regularly, we release our first update for Nexus only 10 days after initial release of 1.0.0.
  
• IP.Content 2.1.1 released. Resolves bugs reported since the release of 2.1.0.
  
• IP.Board 3.1.4 released. This release includes new like and comment functionality which our other application updates will be making use of.
  
• IPS Marketplace goes live. The Marketplace allows developers to sell their IPS product addons directly through our site, reaching more customers with less hassle.
  
• IP.Nexus 1.0.2 released. This release is part of our continuing effort to ensure any issues affecting your ability to monetize your site using IP.Nexus are promptly addressed.
  
• New release and quality assurance testing two-stage procedure implemented to help enhance quality assurance of releases, and to give customers a chance to test and use the software prior to actual release.
  
• IPS Staff is excited to hear the news that Lindy Throgmartin, our CEO, welcomes the birth of his son.

December

• In just a couple weeks of activity already paid out over two thousand dollars to Marketplace contributors.
  
• IP.Blog 2.3.0 released. 2.3.0 includes new like and commenting systems, Facebook like buttons on entries, tweet entry button on entries, a redesigned portal interface, improved notifications, new interfaces, and more.
  
• IP.Downloads 2.3.0 released. 2.3.0 includes IP.Nexus integration for selling downloads, an overhauled user interface, improved notifications, new like and comment system integration, and much more.
  
• IP.Nexus 1.0.3 released.

Still to come: Maintenance releases, new IP.Chat version, and IP.Gallery 4.0 reveal!



We are all looking forward to a productive 2011 and will continue to bring you the best community software around!

I Rly want this one!
i p cap / hat w/e just make that one plz or  will make it mys elf! LOL

OK guys, here is my view of IPB now I have had a chance to play with it properly on my own licence etc and what I think it is missing in comparison to vbulletin. To me these would be the key areas that should be concentrated on in order to pull vbulletin apart at the seams

Search functionality - Yep, I can see this has been mentioned over and over so not gonna go into it. You guys know what it needs and I can see your working with it.

Modification area - This needs to be easily viewable to a new customer even if they cannot download. I had to go looking for it and this shouldnt be the case. This is of most importance to a lot of people. It also doesnt seem to have the 'flashyness' of the main website and looks to me as it needs a bit of overhall in order to make it more friendly. Things like people becoming coders/designers etc once they have given so much back to the comunity are a big thing over at vb.org in my opinion and would be a great idea for here. We all know coding is competition to be the best, so give the guys something to compete with. Mod of the month, coder tags, feedback etc (yes I know some of this is there however its not visible enough to a new user)

wysiwyg editor - When I make a piece of text bold, I want to see it bold. Im not interested in the bbcode tags as a user (however I should have the option to view them if I so wish). This to a none technical user of IPB is a massive massive issue which to you or me looks like nothing. However we are the admins not the registered users who struggle to shutdown their pc without a manual.


Will add more as I find them, as its clear your aim is to beat the biggest and you are in a possition at present to do so with ease .. And personally I hope you do

On another note, if I can only find these three annoyances at present, you guys are doin damned well lol

I have put together a patch zip which resolves the following issues:

• Multiple "5030" error message emails
  
• (Safe Mode Enabled) Missing language strings from the ACP
  
• (oAuth PECL extensions) Twitter 'cannot redeclare class' / blank page issue
  
• (Non CURL) Twitter log in returns to log in form
  
• (Non .htaccess FURL) Gallery FURLs not working correctly.
  
• (Non .htaccess FURL) Facebook LIKE button incorrectly 'liking' root URL

http://www.invisionp.../310patches.zip

The main download zips have been updated at the time of this post. If you are not affected by any of these issues then you do not need to apply the patch.
Further details are available in our knowledge base: http://community.inv...knowledge-base/

Welcome to IP.Board 3.1.0 Beta 1!
Welcome to the latest development version of IP.Board 3.1.0. We're excited to reveal the product we've been working on for the past few months. This build contains all the features we've blogged about recently including the search improvements, Twitter integration, Profile Customization and more.

As always, this is a very early beta build so please expect to find the odd bug here and there. Please report any bugs found into the tracker as usual.

As always, we'd love to hear your feedback. Happy clicking!

Note: Please perform a hard refresh / delete temporary items in your browser to ensure you get the correct CSS and JS

Preview Only: IP.Board 3.1 is in preview only. It is not yet available for download. Keep an eye out for a future announcement.

What's New
Link Sharing
Easily share links from your community to Facebook, Twitter, and more. Great way to drive traffic to your community!

Status Updates
Enhancements to the existing member status system in IP.Board to include the ability to reply and more.

Topic Preview
Preview the first few lines of a topic without loading the entire topic.

View Reputation
Optionally allow your members to see who gave reputation points on their posts.

Twitter Integration
Your members can now link their account with their Twitter account!

Improved Facebook Integration
Further enhance the link between your community and Facebook to drive traffic.

Advertising Code Integration: Part 1 and Part 2
Easily place advertising code throughout your community with simple settings in the admin area.

Profile Customizations: Part 1 and Part 2
Allow your members to customize the look and feel of their profile page.

Skin Upgrader
Upgrading your skin between versions of IP.Board just became a lot easier.

Soft Delete Posts and Topics
Rather than actually deleting a post or topic you can now hide it from view to easily restore it later.

Notification System
An easier way to be notified of all the various events that happen in your community.

Modification Development Enhancements
Great tools for those that create modifications for IP.Board

Hook System Improvements
Improvements to the IP.Board hook system to make it easier for modification developers to expand the functions in the software.

Search Engine Optimization: Part 1 and Part 2
Allow search engines to better index and rank your community in results.

Search Engine Overhaul
Search engine rebuilt from the ground up introducing more flexibility and power.

Community Content System 1.0.0 Released

Many clients have expressed interest in tools that would allow them to extend IP.Board's traditional forum community functionality by providing methods of creating new pages within the IP.Board framework.  Uses for such a system span from a simple custom portal all the way through to a complete website built utilizing IP.Board's powerful backend codebase.  When your community and site systems are truly integrated, single sign on and a matching website/forum theme become much easier.

• Page Templates
  If you are creating many pages for your website you will find that they generally follow a similar structure each time.  By utilizing page templates, you can create templates complete with the full functionality of our skin system, including use of template conditionals and plugins. You can create the HTML structure once, and reuse it for some or all of your pages. Novice users can type in normal HTML code or power users can choose to use the powerful skin tags.
  
  
• Page Manager
  The core of CCS: this tool allows you to create pages, plain and simple. No fancy terminology or new methods to learn. A wizard will guide you through creating your pages, and allow you to configure things like permissions for who can view the page, which page template to use, and more. Pages can be edited as raw HTML, raw PHP, or through our traditional WYSIWYG editor using BBCode. You can also set page-types as JavaScript or CSS and the system will automatically detect those special types.
  
  
• Media Manager
  A tool to allow you to manage images and other media for your site.  You can define the root path to your file storage directory, and then create folders and upload image files within that directory via the ACP. You can move and delete files and folders from the ACP as well.
  
  
• Block Manager
  An extremely powerful tool that allows you to create "blocks" for your pages. Blocks are inserted utilizing template plugins so you can insert blocks anywhere in the CCS content or even anywhere in your forum community using the skin manager in the admin control panel. This means that content blocks you create in CCS are not just limited to that application!  There are three types of blocks you will work with:
  
  
  • Custom - create blocks by editing BBCode (using our WYSIWYG editor), raw HTML, or raw PHP. Input any information you like.
    
  • Plugins - some blocks require code to execute in order to determine what should be shown.  For instance, you may wish to show a mini-calendar on one of your pages or a login box so users can login right from your home page.  Plugin blocks allow developers to create blocks that can easily plugin to the system without having to create code modifications.
    
  • Feeds - not just limited to RSS.  You can create "feeds" of almost any type of data - forums, topics, replies, calendar events, blog entries, gallery images, download manager files, and of course traditional RSS imports.  A wizard will guide you through creating these feeds, allowing you to specify how the feed should be pulled (do you want to show the last 5 gallery images?  what about a random sampling of forum topics? how about all topics from the visitor's friends list since their last visit?) to make it simpler for you to define the block.

The system is very flexible, allowing you to do nearly anything you want, while at the same time providing a simple user interface and wizard-based approach for creating content to keep things easy for newer users. Power users can ignore all the special features and just type in raw-PHP if they prefer. The choice is up to the administrator.

The CCS supports friendly urls (you define the folders and page names while creating pages), and does not require the page output to be accessed through your forum directory. This means you can have your community at example.com/forums but your main web site can show under just example.com easily. You can use IP.Board's skin system (inheriting the forum skin) or you can elect to create raw pages without inheriting any CSS, wrapper, or JavaScript from IP.Board.

More Information

Check out these blog entries for more information:

• Blocks Overview
  
• Pages Overview
  
• Media Manager
  
• Templates

Also, our own web site (http://www.invisionpower.com) is now powered by CCS.

Pricing and Availability

As CCS is a new product and will require time to mature into the fully-featured content system we know all of our customers expect, we are introducing the product at a greatly reduced price. We have many great ideas to enhance CCS as we continue to develop the system and made a decision for this 1.0.0 release not to go overboard with features but focus on creating a stable "core" product to work with. Just wait for version 1.1.0 where we have all sorts of fun additions planned.

The introductory price for those of you wanting to start using CCS right now is just $35 with a yearly renewal of $30 for support/services/upgrades.

Not only does this reduced price give those of you who decide to buy early a great discount but it also allows us to phase in some of the product enhancements over time without having pricing pressures at the very start. As for the final price in the future: we have not yet set it so take advantage of this low price if you are interested in CCS.

Existing clients can login to the client area, click New Purchase, then choose Invision Power Board Optional Addons to purchase. Our web site will be updated with CCS information in the next week.

We are pleased to announce Invision Power Board 3.0.0 and its Applications have been released.

This is the first supported release of Invision Power Board 3.0.0! We would like to thank everyone who has helped beta test the product so we can release as stable a product as possible today.

Products Released

• Invision Power Board 3.0.0
  
• Invision Power Gallery 3.0.0
  
• Invision Power Blog 2.0.0
  
• Invision Power Downloads 2.0.0
  
• Invision Power Converge 1.1.0

Please note that this is the very first supported release of these products. As with any large software product, it can take several maintenance releases to work out most of the remaining bugs or oddities left in the software which are only discovered when many thousands of installs are done. We had an extensive beta period and a staggered launch of IP.Board 3.0.0 to catch most issues. Initial feedback on 3.0.0's first supported release has been great but, even so, we do expect to have a 3.0.1 release in the next couple weeks.


Downloading and Installing

You can download all products you have a license for in the IPS client area. There are no upgrade packs as this update requires you upload all files in the download.

Be sure to follow the install upgrade instructions. Remember that any skins, modifications, graphics, etc. on your version 2.x IPB will not work on IP.Board 3.0. You will not lose any posts or member information in the upgrade.


Technical Support

Technical support is now available for IP.Board 3.0.0 and the Applications. Please be patient during this initial launch phase as response times may be longer than normal due to the increased volume of requests. Phone support will also be delayed.

Important: If you would like our staff to install or upgrade for you, please be aware that there can be delays of many days for install or upgrade services during this initial launch phase. Whenever possible, please consider performing the install or upgrade yourself to save time waiting.



Above all: enjoy the new products! We have worked hard on the updates and wish you continued success with your online communities!







Subscriptions Manager and MS-SQL Database

The subscriptions manager and MS-SQL database driver are not yet available. They will be released separately very soon. Our apologies for the delay. Rest assured we are making these releases a priority.

New IPS Web Site

We are also launching our new company web site on invisionpower.com today. Please forgive any navigation issues on the site while we apply the new content.