Hennet

Generally, apps will always require a separate CSS file if only for specific positioning data. How can you expect the core CSS to be able to position album images, etc.

We could add it in, but if you don't have Gallery then it's just CSS code you'll never use.

There's nothing wrong with app specific CSS. The whole concept of CSS is that it cascades.

Regarding specific app CSS - we will be adding this now that the apps are out in beta and the skins have been updated. It made sense to wait otherwise we'd end up updating the JSON payload often.

Once these updates have been made, they are delivered to your forum from our servers the next time you create a new VSE skin so you won't need to wait until beta 3.

This is Business 101 stuff guys.

Social media integration and innovations are the new "thing." If you're a professional with any level of talent you should know fads are important to keep up with in this rapidly-changing online world. Being able to keep up with what your users want is the mark of a successful business. I don't understand how there is any controversy about this.

If chickens became the new "thing," guess what? You should put chickens on your site! Going against that concept is like saying you don't want to make money. The same applies to social media. It's not about what you think; it's about what the customer thinks. If you can't keep up, too bad; the competition will.

Hello The Visitors:

I appreciate your interest and your performing your pre-purchase diligence.

I am the type of person that researches a large purchase endlessly (it drives me wife crazy) so I do understand to , however, we're not talking about buying a new home, or even a new car. It's a piece of software. IPS products have existed for nearly a decade, are proven and are used to power thousands of communities ranging from smallest to the most prominent. I'm not entirely sure what you're hoping to accomplish with dozens of "do you like .... ?" topics, confrontational inquiries, etc. but it seems to be approaching a line between genuine pre-sale curiosity and an attempt at stirring things up.

Try the demo. Read our feedback forums. Look at other communities that use us. Contact the sales department if you have any specific questions about our products and services. But, I think that your pre-sale research on the forums has reached a point where it's nearly become disruptive. If we're not the right solution for you, I'd certainly understand and encourage you to continue your search for the perfect solution with another vendor.

As an aside, the forums are not an adequate gauge of our level of support. Only 5% of our customer base even visit our forums and many issues cannot be addressed via the forums. Although our published ticket response times are 48 hours for non business licenses, I think you'll find most tickets are answered within a matter of a few hours, if not minutes in some cases.

Thank you again for your interest.

The Visitors, on 17 June 2011 - 09:57 AM, said:

Something that can be considered annoying, spam like and even disruptive is to generate multiple "do you like" topics when one topic would suffice.  It also make a difference where you make the topic.   Asking in the feedback forum or even in the pre-sales forum is more appropriate than the general community talk forum.  It's better and even to your benefit to use one topic to address a "do you like" question for all the products you want to ask about instead of expecting people to open up several topics just to answer the same question just for different products.  Some may want to answer in detail about the integration but may not know which topic they should answer in and so decide to not bother.  That means less information for you on top of having to hunt down and read each topic.

I find it understandable to want to learn all you can about a product before making a purchase.  For those on a limited budget, it can seem like a huge investment.  Here is a good rule of thumb that I think makes good business sense - don't buy a product if it's not going to serve YOUR needs.  I personally feel that IP.Board is an excellent product, being more reliable and sturdier than other forum products available.  However, if one of the others suits your needs better, then that is where you should go.  I recall Charles making a post once where he said that he won't try to sell something to someone if he feels that it's not right for them.  It's the same idea.

Please keep in mind that perception is everything.  Your perception is your reality.  If you are perceived as being negative or a nuisance, then even if you have the best of intentions, it won't get a very positive reception.  If you have a question, by all means ask it, just try to provide concerns in a positive manner even if the concern is a negative one. You'll find those are better received and get more constructive responses.

When it comes to ticket support, I'm new at answering the tickets and so I'm still learning.  From my experience though, no matter the volume of tickets, they get answered a.s.a.p.  The weekends aren't guaranteed but some of the staff, myself included, check in to at least address issues that are urgent in nature.  These include an admin losing access to their account/ACP, board being completely inaccessible due to a software or data glitch, etc.  We understand that when someone has a board running, that if it stops functioning over the weekend, that having a response sooner than 'the next business day' can make a huge difference in how that weekend goes for both the board owner and their visitors.

Support via the forums isn't guaranteed, however for many generic questions, it's the best option.  "How do I take my board offline?" is a simple enough question that can be answered in a topic, either by staff or by another customer.  Some questions may require a closer look, so those are best done via a ticket while others may not fall in the scope of support and so go unanswered.  It's not that we don't care, it's that we have to prioritize.

If you want to test out the product, then open a demo and try it out.  If you want to see what others have done with their sites, then ask for that.  If you have other questions, by all means ask.  But please remember to keep the questions contained in as few topics as possible and try to remain positive.  It's better to ask, "What has support been like for you?" than to ask "Does support here suck?"  If someone has a concern with support, they'll answer either one.  But the first way is less likely to get you negative reactions.

I'd argue there's no such thing as wasted space in web design.

Vikestart, on 11 June 2011 - 06:29 AM, said:

Most purchases are completed very quickly. Delays sometimes occur when the purchaser lives in certain countries or does not use the same details on account as payment type etc.

However only IPS can assist in such circumstances.

Lewis P, on 04 June 2011 - 06:39 AM, said:

I really don't understand the logic in that. If you feel the title of your forum isn't descriptive enough and therefore need a forum description it stands to reason you would always want it visible. If you hide the descriptions into an on hover popup it's clearly not important enough to even type in.

It's pretty funny actually how people get so worked up. If you actually pause and look at 3.2 compared to 3.1 you will see that, while there are new features, most of what you see in 3.2 is the same stuff in 3.1 just presented better.

I assume what people are all about when comparing to Facebook is the "Like This" button on posts? Well that is just the same old reputation feature as in 3.1 in a "like" mode where instead of the +/- buttons you get a button that says "Like This" which is hardly worthy of dire predictions in my opinion. Also, as it's what the masses expect, it will be used way more than the +/- reputation. It already has on this forum by the very people moaning about all the "oh it's like Facebook" features:



Yes, we have added some "social network" sort of features because our clients asked us to it's what the general public expect. However, we are not forcing anything on anyone. If, for some reason, you loathe the idea of people being able to like things, share content, comment on each others profiles, etc. on your community you can certainly shut those features off in the AdminCP.

Can't believe the option to add a status update has moved to the user menu. Hiding it way is ridiculous.

I like the current layout, but perhaps adding a small round icon prior to each name would help, especially if this altered colour on new unread posts.

The bold thing is good; it just miss a separator... it way it is now it seems that is one big link only.

Not seeing any speed issues and I am a long way from the server.

Just for clarification, "VNC" (when we use it, typically) is short for "View New Content".  It is the equivalent to this link:

http://community.inv...arch_app=forums

IP.Board also has a "view active content" search method, equivalent to this link:

http://community.inv...earch&do=active

In the screenshot in the blog entry, we have combined the two into one view, since they effectively do the same thing, simply with different date cutoffs.

The regular search CAN search back longer than 1 year (there is no inherent time restriction to it).

It's not because of resources or any other reason.

Realistically, if you go back "2 years" it's no longer "new content" is it?  The screenshot you saw in the blog entry is for "view new content" (the existing "view active content" has been merged into view new content, which is why you see all of those options there).  If you want to view ALL content, then you can browse the forums as normal, or perform a search to find what you want.  Content from 3 years ago is not new, however, and I can't imagine why we'd show it in the VNC interface as such.

DDH, on 07 April 2011 - 02:15 PM, said:

There is an ACP setting to control that.  Viewing a specific user's content is not the same as viewing "new" content.

If you need help changing this setting, feel free to submit a ticket or post in the tech support forum.

Invision Power Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the update of our iPhone and iPad app is now available!

You can download the update to our iPhone / iPad app in the Apple App Store. This update fixes bugs reported in previous versions. Please be sure to let us know if you experience any issues.

About the iPhone and iPad app for IP.Board

Our iOS app for IP.Board allows you and your members to easily login, browse, and post to your IP.Board community anywhere they are. The app remembers their login, has quick links to often used features, and allows your members to upload images to IP.Gallery, and even has Push notifications for new activity to encourage your members to come back to your community.

The app is free for anyone to download from the App Store and members can add the logins to all the various IP.Board-powered communities they visit to easily browse and keep up with all their conversations. Push notification service requires an active IP.Board license.



Future Improvements

This release only contains bug fixes as we wanted to get things working better before getting into new features. Upcoming improvements in the mobile space include further improvements to our iOS app, Android app, and white-label services. Here is a quick overview:

iOS

We will be further improving the stability and speed of the app. Future versions of IP.Board will also add support for other areas like IP.Gallery and IP.Blog viewing and posting blog entries on your mobile device. The iPad experience is also a big area of focus as everyone with an iPad knows how fun it is browsing communities.

Android

We know it's been promised for some time but work on the Android app is now in progress. We hope to have an update on this before IP.Board 3.2 is released!

White-label Service

We are happy to be able to announce that the white-label service is now available for our mobile apps. This service will allow you to create a privately branded version of our apps exclusively for use on your community. Please be sure to read our site for full details!