Nervosa

I am seeing the facebook conversations used more and more on websites - it seems to be common now on articles, blogs, photos etc.

I think it would be a nice addition to IPS - of course the anti-facebook crew will shoot it down but like anything it does not have to be enabled and if it is good enough for sites such as digitalspy which is a pretty big site, it is good enough for me.

Would be cool to be able to put a custom image for each category (including sub-categories), instead of the default icon, and then maybe put a "fade-out"/opacity effect (could be done using CSS3 I believe) when people mark forums as "read" Like this:



("read" category to the right, and "unread" category to the left")

(I posted in the blog entry as well but I was afraid it wouldn't be seen, so posted it here so it could at least be discussed.)

This should be part of the core package and not something one needs to purchase. Especially in the case of IPNexus. Purchasing that just to have the ability of having a contact form is beyond silly.

- Select topics (or posts) and select 'copy'. Go somewhere else, and select 'paste' from the Moderator select-box.
- Select which forums you want to backup from ACP (and a criteria for the posts: i.e. backup all posts older than ___ ).
- An addition to Prune system: instead of just removing posts from database, make static HTML pages.

This is my wish-list for IP.C as well as some other features I think may benefit the product in general even if I have no use for them at the minute. Some I've already posted in separate threads but they're better organised here.

Pages

• Menus - Some form of multi-level menu system.
• Sub pages - Add the ability to specify a page as a sub-page of another. Breadcrumbs/Menus could then be automatically generated.
• Wiki-style editing - Allow front-end edits of pages where permitted.

Database Related

• Show list of subcategories in the categories template below the category name similar to how subforums are handled in IPB. Optional like in forums.
• Allow different fields for different categories - e.g. mileage in a "cars" category but not a "car parts" category.
• Record sounds a bit techy in some places - Could this be a replaceable value on a database by database basis? site owner could define it as article, advert etc.. I added seperate language entries for articles and created new templates but the suggested method could save some work.
• In the category/listing templates "by Andy  on Today, 09:16 PM" - remove "on" when date is today or yesterday.
• User definable sort options - Most will not need to sort by record id and possibly listing all of the added custom fields is overkill as well. A multi-select box in the database options tab could be added to select which you would like users to sort by. Taking this a little further it could be extended to allow for category overrides as well, similar to how the permissions override works at a category level.
• Expiring records - I'm using databases to build a primitive classifieds system as I'm not yet confident enough with PHP skills to build a seperate app. If we could set an expiration interval so new records only appear for x days this would help me. I'm sure there would be other applications for this as well but perhaps not a priority feature for inclusion. As was mentioned in another thread a scheduled process could always be added to unapprove/delete entries.
• Input validation on custom fields - Set of default regexes for currency, alpha-numeric, alpha, numeric, e-mail address, web address, phone number as well as a custom option for the less obvious scenarios (keep it flexible).
• Output formatting on custom fields - Set of output formatting options. Capitalise, Upper case, Lower case, date formatting, number_format(), remove excessive punctuation etc...
• FURLs for records - self explanatory.
• RSS feeds with filtering - Perhaps re-use existing database feed code but re-factor for different output methods so it's not limited to RSS?
• RSS imports - choose a feed and then map rss fields to database fields - manual and scheduled imports.
• Record contributors - In addition to the default field for "Submitted by" add a "Contributed to" for all users that have submitted revisions. Could be some additional complexities when dealing with records that have had revisions made by somebody which have subsequently been removed but where there's a will there's a way .
• Watch database record - Allow individual databases to be configured so records can be subscribed to or not.

General

• Nested templates - I'm not sure the best way to improve this or whether it would be resource intensive but I'll point out the limitations I've come across in any case. When editing the database templates I found myself editing the topic_controls section but I had to edit it in 4 different places (twice in the category template and twice in the listing template). This would be multiplied further if I then added seperate database templates for another database. If templates could be nested then this repetition could be avoided.
• Consistent hooks system - Not sure how feasible this is but a consistent hooks system across all IPS products. Dealing with blocks in IP.C and then separate hooks in IPB is cumbersome. Personally I like the IP.C method as it doesn't rely on set hook points.
• Customisable WYSIWYG editor - Define which buttons are available to WYSIWYG fields. Gives some control to users but helps retain some kind of standards control on collaborative sites. Things like font-size and colour could be removed if desired.

Search Related

• Add new records to global search results - I don't have a use for the "pages" tab in global search results as the majority of my "pages" will remain static. Most new content will take the form of database records so what I would propose is, on a per database basis, add a "Show in global search results?" option which uses the database name as the tab title and then new records are shown within.

Attachments

• Insert attachment controls - When adding an image attachment into a text field some controls as to how it is displayed would be excellent. I quite like the way Wordpress handles this as it is very simple but effective. It simply gives alignment options (none, left, center, right), user definable pre-configured size options (thumbnail, medium, large, full size) and Title, Caption and Description fields. I've attached a screenshot to show you what I mean.

This feature was on a forum that I used before (MyBB) and I used it all the time.
Basically there was a directory in the admin folder named /backups/

When making an SQL backup, you had the option to create the backup in that directory, instead of downloading it.
Maybe a similar feature could be included in IPB?

Just a suggestion  

I looked and cannot find if its a setting that can be turned on. So I am guessing that there is no way to print (with formatting..don't tell me ctrl+p its rubbish)the conversations?

The way the forum handles printing of topics would be great for conversations as well. I do not know why this was not provided from the start?

Can we please have this feature in the future.

Security Update for IP.Board 3.0.2
It has come to our attention that there are two potential SQL injection vulnerabilities present in IP.Board 3.0 which can be taken advantage of via careful URL crafting.

Resolution
The attached zip contains two files which fix the issue. The files are for IP.Board version 3.0.2 only. Those still running 3.0.0 or 3.0.1 will need to upgrade to 3.0.2 as soon as possible.

The main 3.0.2 download zip was updated at 10:15 am EST August 18, 2009. If you download 3.0.2 after this time: your files are already updated.

Simply download the attached zip file and upload the files contained within to your IP.Board directory on your server. No other action is required.

 180809.zip   13.73K   7984 downloads

Support Note: While our technical support department will apply this patch for you on request for those with support service, we strongly suggest you apply this patch yourself whenever possible. Applying the patch is a simple matter of uploading files to your server and, once done, your community is instantly protected without having to wait for our technicians to do the upload for you.



Impacted Versions:
3.0.0
3.0.1
3.0.2 versions downloaded before posted time or unpatched

Not Impacted:
2.0.x
2.1.x
2.2.x
2.3.x


The vulnerability information was purchased by Beyond Security's SecuriTeam Secure Disclosure. The discoverer of the vulnerability requested to remain anonymous. IPS thanks this group for bringing it to our attention.

We are pleased to announce our new Spam Monitoring Service

Our new Spam Monitoring Service will assist with the ever-growing problem of spam account registrations on communities across the web. This service will use a central database, hosted by IPS, to track those that may try to register an account on your IP.Board-powered community and stop them from registering.


How it Works

Each time a user tries to register, your IP.Board will contact the service and report the IP address and email address attempting to register. The service will scan a list of known spammers and give the account a score of 1 - 4. There are various options you can configure to control what behavior happens based on the score such as banning the account, letting it through normally, or queuing it for approval.

By harnessing the power of the many thousands of IP.Board communities, the service can "learn" over time what accounts are spammers. For example, a real human could never register on 5 IP.Board communities in just one minute so the service would see that account as a probable spam account.

The service will also monitor the "mark as spam" feature now included in IP.Board. This means that, as you and your moderators manually mark an account as a spammer, the information is reported back to the service to help stop those accounts on your community and other IP.Board communities as well!

Through these methods we are creating a service that learns from the collective data gathered from all IP.Board communities who choose to participate in the Spam Monitoring Service.



Privacy

IPS will collect various registration information to track and catch spam accounts. Information that is not from a spammer is only kept temporarily (to detect trends so we can catch spam accounts) then deleted. The only information permanently kept is for those known to be spammers. The service is completely optional and no IP.Board is required to participate.

Activating the Service

The Spam Monitoring Service will be available in IP.Board 3.0.2 and is already being tested here on the IPS company forums. Once you have IP.Board 3.0.2, simply login to the IPS client area and activate a special key used for the service and put that key on your IP.Board AdminCP.


Pricing

To further our continuing efforts to not only enhance the products we offer but also the services around those products: this service will be offered at no additional charge to those with an active support and service license for IP.Board and for IPS hosting customers!

Introducing Community Content System

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.

Our new Community Content System lets you do all of this and more. CCS is a new application that allows you to create content for your site. Blog entries over the next several days will discuss some of its powerful features in more detail along with examples showing you just how easy it is to create website pages and other content just by clicking through the admin control panel. For now in this introduction, here is a brief overview of its main features:

• 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.


Pricing and Availability

The CCS was developed completely separately from the IPB3 and applications process allowing us to develop CCS without any delay in IPB3's development time. As such, we are happy to say we will be able to release CCS about two weeks after IPB3's first supported release! Pricing will be announced at that time.


We are sure there will be many questions about the CCS and we welcome them. Over the next several days there will be blog entries on our company blog going into greater detail on each of the core features of CCS. Hopefully all of your detailed questions will be answered then. Please accept our apologies if we may sometimes ask you to wait for the next blog update before answering your questions. Thank you!