atsaunier

Subscriptions Manager

We know that many customers are waiting on the Subscriptions Manager to be released so they can upgrade to IPB3. We sincerely apologize for this delay. The Subscriptions Manager update to be compatible with IPB3 is currently our number one priority.

The release coming soon will be a compatibility release for IPB3. However, we will put resources toward making a significant feature update to Subscriptions Manager once this compatibility update is stable for everyone.

We are working diligently to get this update out. Thank you for your patience and keep an eye out for an announcement.

A quick reminder to check IP.Board 3.0.0's requirements before attempting to install or upgrade. We will be maintaining the 2.3.x branch for those on outdated hosting providers who have not upgraded their server software.

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.

The system we use to generate invoice notices, reminders, and charges experienced an error in processing accounts today.

This error caused some clients to receive multiple invoice notices or reminders in their email. We sincerely apologize for the multiple emails in your inbox and will work to keep this issue from happening in the future.

A few clients may have seen multiple charges to their credit cards. These charges have already been voided and will not post to your credit card statement as a charge.

Please email billing@invisionpower.com if you have any questions.

Legacy Clients

Lifetime and Perpetual license holders should see the IP.Board 3.0.2 release announcement for updated information.

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!

Manual Patch Instruction
For power users who wish to manually update the PHP source files.

File: "admin/applications/core/modules_public/search/search.php"
Line: 207

Quote

File: "admin/applications/core/modules_public/global/lostpass.php"
Lines 75 and 439:

Quote

Here are the IPB 3.0.2 CSS changes as compared to the IPB 3.0.1 default skin.

Note: You would only need the above edits for third party skins or for CSS files you changed prior to upgrading. If you have not touched a CSS file, the upgrade would have already made these changes to that file for you.


Files affected:
ipb_editor.css
ipb_styles.css
ipb_ie.css
ipb_messenger.css
ipb_print.css



Edits in ipb_styles.css

Find:

ul.post_controls {

Replace with:

ul.post_controls,
div.post_controls {

Find:

	.author_info ul.user_fields li {
		clear: both;
		font-size: 0.9em;
		color: #718a96;
		padding-bottom: 2px;
		overflow: hidden;
	}

Add after:

.author_info ul.user_fields {
		clear: both;
	}

Find:

.author_info ul.user_fields li span {

Replace with:

.author_info ul.user_fields li span.ft,
.author_info ul.user_fields li span.fc {

Find:

.active_users span.name {
	font-size: 0.9;

Replace with:

.active_users span.name {
		font-size: 0.9em;

Find:

pre.prettyprint 		{ padding: 5px; background: #f8f8f8; border: 1px solid #c9c9c9; overflow: auto; margin-left: 10px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 110%; }

Replace with:

pre.prettyprint 		{ padding: 5px; background: #f8f8f8; border: 1px solid #c9c9c9; overflow: auto; margin-left: 10px; font-size: 11px; line-height: 140%; }

Edits for ipb_editor.css


Find:

#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .editor,

Replace with:

#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .editor{

Find & Remove (may not be there if you didn't do CSS changes from previous version):

#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .resizer {

Find:

	#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .sidebar {
		position: absolute;
		top: 0px;
		right: 0px;
		width: 194px;
		bottom: 1px;
		margin: 0;
		border-width: 1px;
		border-style: solid;
		border-color: #f6f8fa #d5dde5 #d5dde5 #f6f8fa;
	}

Replace with:

	#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .sidebar {
		position: absolute;
		top: 0px;
		right: 1px;
		width: 195px;
		bottom: 1px;
		margin: 0;
		border-width: 1px;
		border-style: solid;
		border-color: #f6f8fa #d5dde5 #d5dde5 #f6f8fa;
	}

Find:

			#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .sidebar h4 span {
				padding: 6px 0 0 6px;
				display: block;
			}

Add below:

			#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .sidebar h4 img {
				float: right;
				margin: 6px 6px 0 0;
				cursor: pointer;
			}

Find:

	#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .sidebar .emoticon_holder {
			position: absolute;
			top: 25px;
			bottom: 1px;
			width: 193px;
			overflow: auto;
		}

Replace with:

	#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .sidebar .emoticon_holder {
			position: absolute;
			top: 25px;
			bottom: 25px;
			width: 100%;
			overflow: auto;
		}

Add below that:

		#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .sidebar .emoticon_holder  td {
			padding: 5px 0;
		}
		
		#ipboard_body .show_all_emoticons {
			bottom: 0px;
			position: absolute;
			width: 100%;
			text-align: center;
			background: #e4ebf2;
			height: 25px;
		}
		
			#ipboard_body .ips_editor.with_sidebar .sidebar .emoticon_holder.no_bar {
				bottom: 0px;
			}

Find:

	#ipboard_body .ips_editor .toolbar {
		height: 30px;
		/*clear: both;*/

Remove:

/*clear: both;*/

Find & Delete (may not be there if you didn't do CSS changes from previous version)

		#ipboard_body .ips_editor .resizer .toolbar {
			background: transparent;
			border: 0;
		}

Edits for ipb_ie.css

Find:

#ipboard_body #conversation ul.post_controls {
	padding-bottom: 0;
	height: 32px;
}

Add below:

#ipboard_body #topic_mod_2 {
	padding-top: 10px;
	margin-top: -5px;
}

Find & Remove (may not be there if you didn't do CSS changes from previous version):

/*#ipboard_body .user_controls li img {
	margin: 4px 0;
}

Add in place of above or anywhere:

.post_block {
	zoom: 1;
}

Find (may not be there if you didn't do CSS changes from previous version):

#ipboard_body .user_controls li {
	margin: 0 4px 0 0;
	text-align: center;
}*/

Add in place of above or add anywhere:

pre.prettyprint { padding: 5px 5px 20px 5px; }

Edits in ipb_messenger.css

Find:

	#participants #participants_list span.name.blocked a {
		color: #ad2930;
	}

Add Below:

#space_allowance {
	clear: both;
}

Edits in ipb_print.css



Find:

html #content {
	font-size: 10pt;
}

Replace with:

html #content {
	font-size: 10pt;
		direction: rtl;
}

Find:

.posted_info {
	color: gray !important;
	font-size: 8pt !important;
	text-decoration: none !important;
	border-bottom: 1pt solid lightgray;
	padding-bottom: 3px;
}

Replace With:

.posted_info {
	color: gray !important;
	font-size: 8pt !important;
	text-decoration: none !important;
	border-bottom: 1pt solid #d3d3d3;
	padding-bottom: 3px;
}

Thanks to SmashinGarcia for making this list.

Some customers are reporting various functionality in IP.Board not working since upgrading to version 3.0.2. We have narrowed down most of these causes to one root issue which came up as we tightened security for certain functions. If you are experiencing issues with 3.0.2, please download the attached file and upload the new files. If you are not experiencing any issues (or you have not already upgraded to 3.0.2) there is no need to upload these files. Also, if you download version 3.0.2 after the time of this post you already have the updates in your download zip file.

Our apologies for the frustration this has caused some customers. We do quality assurance testing before releasing maintenance versions but these specific issues do not present themselves except under special circumstances.

Apply new files if you see any of these issues in 3.0.2:

• Emoticons and some other JavaScript functions not functioning
  
• Rich text editor disabled in some browsers
  
• Spam service database table not being created properly
  
• Error when deleting a post
  
• Users with certain character sets seeing debug information on upgrade

If you experience any other issues or need help feel free to submit a support ticket for assistance.

Changed file report:  changedFiles.txt   29.88K   1756 downloads

Skin difference report:  IPBDiff-3-0-2.html.zip   69.64K   1374 downloads

Spam Monitoring Service: Legacy License Holders

As the Spam Monitoring Service incurs additional operating costs for IPS to operate it is only available to IPS Hosting customers plus IP.Board Standard, IP.Board Business, and Community Suite license holders. Those holding old Lifetime or Perpetual licenses cannot participate in this service as that license type only includes technical support and access to product upgrades - not our new advanced services - since those services were not even conceived several years ago when those license types were offered. Of course the new spam service is our only new advanced service but we do have more planned and must begin the transition process now.

To allow those holding Lifetime or Perpetual licenses to switch to a Standard license while still recognizing their long-standing status we will offer the following methods to switch:

Lifetime License: Your first renewal date will be a full year from the date you request to switch. This means if you requested the change August 15, 2009 you would not be invoiced for any renewal charges until August 15, 2010.

Perpetual License: Your first renewal date would be 6 months from the time of your then-current renewal date. This means that if your Perpetual license support was set to expire December 19, 2009 then your new Standard license renewal would be June 19, 2010.


Finally, it is certainly not required that any Lifetime or Perpetual license holder switch to a Standard license or otherwise pay any additional fees. If you are not interested in the spam service or wish to wait until we have more advanced services in the future you can certainly do so. IPS will continue to honor your product upgrade and technical support services under the Lifetime and Perpetual licenses as we have for many years now.

Please submit a ticket if you have any questions or wish to make a change.

We are pleased to announce Invision Power Board 3.0.2 has been released.

This is the second maintenance release for IP.Board 3 and addresses various bugs and adds in some enhancements to existing features. Also, IP.Blog, IP.Gallery, and IP.Downloads have received a maintenance update.

Major Changes Since 3.0.1

Among many dozens of smaller bugs fixed, the following large changes and fixes have been made in the 3.0.2 release:

• Improved search and member list performance
  
• Date filter options for Active Content page
  
• Many improvements for Sphinx searching (i.e. ability to filter by forum, ability to search titles only, ability to group posts as topics, plugin functionality for modifying the query, and misc bug fixes)
  
• Ability to hide an application's tab on the front end, while still allowing it to be publicly accessible
  
• Improved IP address lookup tool can now support add-on applications
  
• Portal option to not pin pinned topics for articles
  
• Added link to user profile when editing a member in ACP
  
• Added display of time remaining for suspended members when editing a member in ACP
  
• Spam Monitoring Service support
  
• Ability to control image quality for Gallery images (jpg/png only)
  
• PHP version 5.3 is now supported in IP.Board except for OpenID login method. We are awaiting updates from OpenID vendors.

Downloading

You can download IP.Board 3.0.2 and any applications you have an active license for in the client area. As always, make a backup of your community before proceeding.




Spam Monitoring Service

To retrieve your key, login to your client area and go to your purchases. You will see an option to create a spam service key. Place that key in the Spam Service settings in your IP.Board 3.0.2 AdminCP.

Subscriptions Manager

The first Release Candidate of Subscriptions Manager is now available in the client area. While not the final version, feedback has been good and several clients are using it on their live site. However, we do of course suggest you wait until the final version before using it live.

MS-SQL Database Driver

The MS-SQL database driver is now available for new installations of IP.Board 3. Upgrade capability from IP.Board 2 will be available within the next two weeks.

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.

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.