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Some features may be useless to some, forgive me if I'm wrong but IPS staff only really have experience of running a large forum here? Features they see as useless are popular amongst other admins and visitors, alot of small features add to make a successful site and I can't consider an upgrade now due to alot of these features being removed, I am certain more than half my members would voice their disapproval as well. I can see why they've done it, looking at XF and thinking thats the way forward, but not everyone likes that look. How many big XF forums are there? I honestly can't see it taking off until even they improve their skin. - every XF site looks the same, boring. And now my favourite forum software is boring too.
Hope someone can remake the 3.1 skin, it may be ugly in parts but I modified it to make my site looking decent. I can't do that in 3.2 because of the plainness of every page.
#2122131 Features removed from 3.1.4
Posted
on 13 June 2011 - 07:38 AM
#2126441 Still no way to easily create navigation tabs
Posted
on 21 June 2011 - 10:20 PM
Christophe, on 21 June 2011 - 08:56 PM, said:
With all due respect look and feel has nothing to do with the issue we are discussing.
Quite honestly, I've said everything about this feature that I want to say. Not to oversimplify, but I see our debate a little like this:
You're arguing that this thread's suggestion shouldn't be considered because
- It isn't necessary
- It would be difficult to implement, and
- People could abuse it.
- Many IPS features aren't "necessary", but they improve the product
- You shouldn't be concerned with how difficult it is to implement; that's a problem to be solved by the developers, not by you, and
- Many IPS features can be abused (HTML editing, anyone?), so again, this is a non-issue.
#2126417 Still no way to easily create navigation tabs
Posted
on 21 June 2011 - 07:07 PM
Your argument is illogical, Christophe. You're saying that since the feature could be abused by adding too many menus, it shouldn't be added at all. That brand-new Visual Skin Editor will no doubt produce some hideous skins, but is that the fault of the developers? No, it's the fault of the site owners who decided they wanted cyan text on a neon green background. It's still a great feature, even though not everyone will use it as intended.
Moreover, I don't understand your "time is limited" argument. Invision sets deadlines for itself, so really, they have all the time they want. (I believe there was a discussion awhile back of people wanting to change IPS's slogan to "when it's ready".) Their only true goal is to stay ahead of their competition, and quite frankly, they're way ahead of that game. So I'm positive that if the developers thought that a navigation management system would be put to good use, they'd spend the time adding one.
Moreover, I don't understand your "time is limited" argument. Invision sets deadlines for itself, so really, they have all the time they want. (I believe there was a discussion awhile back of people wanting to change IPS's slogan to "when it's ready".) Their only true goal is to stay ahead of their competition, and quite frankly, they're way ahead of that game. So I'm positive that if the developers thought that a navigation management system would be put to good use, they'd spend the time adding one.
#2114717 Suggestion! in the features
Posted
on 28 May 2011 - 01:32 PM
If I understand the OP correctly;
If people want blogs, they'll go to Blogger or Blogspot,
If they want Flickr, they'll go to Flickr,
and if they want social networking, they'll go to Twitter or Facebook.
My opinion;
Forum software hasn't changed in a decade, for all intents and purposes. No one has done anything other than try to cash in on whatever else seems to be popular. Maybe a little innovating on what it is forums do and a little less imitating of what works for others.
If people want blogs, they'll go to Blogger or Blogspot,
If they want Flickr, they'll go to Flickr,
and if they want social networking, they'll go to Twitter or Facebook.
My opinion;
Forum software hasn't changed in a decade, for all intents and purposes. No one has done anything other than try to cash in on whatever else seems to be popular. Maybe a little innovating on what it is forums do and a little less imitating of what works for others.
#2112841 Gallery on my server - few comments after 3 days of usage
Posted
on 20 May 2011 - 10:30 PM
You gotta fire your QA team who tested Gallery 4 and also fire whoever came up with the core idea of Gallery 4. Whether it is welcomed by some or not, you do not remove core features (zip upload, image sorting, and so on; I know you added sorting back, but it wasn't there in 4.0 release) of a galley like this. You can make them optional but you do not remove them.
I've also have been looking into alternative solutions like Coppermine, but personally I'd rather stick with Galley 3.
I've also have been looking into alternative solutions like Coppermine, but personally I'd rather stick with Galley 3.
#2073987 So far, disappointed by how far Gallery 4 misses the mark
Posted
on 28 January 2011 - 09:08 PM
A quote I ran across on a blog some years ago of some potential relevance here...
"If you have profound knowledge of the cloud of problems around programming, of the higher level problems you're trying to solve, you'll do a better job programming. This is obvious, and explains why the best programs are always the ones programmers write for themselves, eg. emacs, Google, VisicIlc, etc. And it conversely explains why so many programs are so uninspired, too: if you'll never use the feature you're writing, you're not going to imbue it with brilliance, because the brilliance will never occur to you." - Moishe Lettvin
"If you have profound knowledge of the cloud of problems around programming, of the higher level problems you're trying to solve, you'll do a better job programming. This is obvious, and explains why the best programs are always the ones programmers write for themselves, eg. emacs, Google, VisicIlc, etc. And it conversely explains why so many programs are so uninspired, too: if you'll never use the feature you're writing, you're not going to imbue it with brilliance, because the brilliance will never occur to you." - Moishe Lettvin
#2073960 So far, disappointed by how far Gallery 4 misses the mark
Posted
on 28 January 2011 - 06:17 PM
Matt's statement in his Gallery Blog Manifest post:
pretty much nailed my feelings, I totally agree with that goal, it should be dead easy to just upload images and share them. That's what the members want to do, and for the external social media, it seems to do that quite well...
BUT
Why does IP.Gallery 4.0 seem to almost ignore the ability to readily share IP.Gallery Images WITHIN the IPB platform?!
Seriously... The expectation seems to to be that members will:
1. Be chatting in the forums on a topic.
2. Decide they want to show that friend an image (or several that they have uploaded at different times before).
3. Leave the forums and go to the gallery
4. Upload the image(s)
5. After they upload the image they have to click on it to bring up that image's details
6. Drop down the "Share Image" button. Don't even see this as an option for an album, though I'm sure Matt means it to be there based on his BBCode test thread.
7. Copy the BBCode for that image
STOP HERE TO CONSIDER
A large % of community users don't know what BBCode is. They wouldn't have a clue that they need to copy/paste that in order to put their image in a forum topic/post.
8. They have to go Back to the forum and start typing their reply to their friend.
9. Paste in the BBCode (that they probably didn't even know to copy, since they likely don't know BBCode or what it does) for the image IF they didn't forget and copy something else in the mean time, like a piece of text from their friend's post that they wanted to call out (many folks copy paste instead of using reply). If they did copy something else they have to start over again digging into the Gallery, because it's not really easy to find your own images/albums at the moment.
10.Repeat steps 4 through 8 several more times to put in the other images they wanted to talk about (why not just use an album? Well, maybe several pictures are already uploaded, that's VERY common in our current system, upload once and reuse them to make your point in your forum posts).
11.Hopefully our member was patient enough to go through all these steps, and didn't just throw up their hands and upload the images as attachments, and they can now *finally* submit their post.
12. When the other members are reading the post, they are often trying to compare details in the images to what the image poster was talking about... Unfortunately, every time they click a linked image they leave the forums and can't see the rest of the post. :-(.
Do we REALLY think that many community members (keeping in mind that they're NOT forum admins and don't KNOW how to use all the features of the system, or what BBCode is) are actually going to go though all that?
So...
My question is: Why is uploading images and sharing them to Facebook, Twitter etc so much vastly easier than it is to upload them to IP.Gallery and share them within the IP.Board system itself?
What about integration with the forums, when will we be able to readily use images and albums in the gallery IN the forums to facilitate the conversation?
Having images added as attachments in forums posts because that's soooooo much easier than using the reusable, searchable images in the gallery... Well, as a community builder, I cry every time I see people upload a really good image as an attachment because I know it'll be buried in that thread and never show up in the search system, never be seen by anyone looking through the gallery for that sort of image. It's a nigh-criminal waste of sometimes priceless User Generated Content. With everyone carrying a smartphone, images are an ever increasing part of the conversation, and the gallery should be evolving to be more of a gestalt with the forums rather than a more or less separate, parallel system.
I really hope that this new release carries with it the ability to quickly and easily upload images to the gallery while in the forum post editor, and to use albums and images (via a quick popup that provides access to content you have uploaded to the gallery) in a forum post. It should be an easy, seamless experience. Images/media belong in the gallery not as attachments! :-)
Along the same lines, why is the commenting on images/albums happening in an isolated stove-piped environment? Why can't we tie it into the community conversation happening in the forums topics the way we can with comments on Articles (IP.Content)?! Shouldn't that be a major goal of integrating the IP apps? Bringing that user interaction TOGETHER instead of fragmenting it into multiple different systems where it's rarely seen? Shouldn't the goal be a community PLATFORM where everything ties in together, rather than separate parallel systems that share an authentication system?
In conclusion, I heartily support Matt's goals in reworking the Gallery, and much of it is looking wonderful! I greatly appreciate his efforts, and hope that he will read this feedback as what it is intended to be:
Constructive feedback intended to show how a bit of what appears to be "Curse of Knowledge" blindness, may be preventing an appreciation of how IP.Gallery falls sort in a real world setting.
Of course, I may be totally wrong and Matt et al *totally* get the need for deeper integration, and we just haven't heard about how they are going to tackle it yet! 
James
Quote
Revolution
The "truth" of the application is very simple:
Upload some media into an album
View, discuss and share that media.
The "truth" of the application is very simple:
Upload some media into an album
View, discuss and share that media.
pretty much nailed my feelings, I totally agree with that goal, it should be dead easy to just upload images and share them. That's what the members want to do, and for the external social media, it seems to do that quite well...
BUT
Why does IP.Gallery 4.0 seem to almost ignore the ability to readily share IP.Gallery Images WITHIN the IPB platform?!
Seriously... The expectation seems to to be that members will:
1. Be chatting in the forums on a topic.
2. Decide they want to show that friend an image (or several that they have uploaded at different times before).
3. Leave the forums and go to the gallery
4. Upload the image(s)
5. After they upload the image they have to click on it to bring up that image's details
6. Drop down the "Share Image" button. Don't even see this as an option for an album, though I'm sure Matt means it to be there based on his BBCode test thread.
7. Copy the BBCode for that image
STOP HERE TO CONSIDER
A large % of community users don't know what BBCode is. They wouldn't have a clue that they need to copy/paste that in order to put their image in a forum topic/post.
8. They have to go Back to the forum and start typing their reply to their friend.
9. Paste in the BBCode (that they probably didn't even know to copy, since they likely don't know BBCode or what it does) for the image IF they didn't forget and copy something else in the mean time, like a piece of text from their friend's post that they wanted to call out (many folks copy paste instead of using reply). If they did copy something else they have to start over again digging into the Gallery, because it's not really easy to find your own images/albums at the moment.
10.Repeat steps 4 through 8 several more times to put in the other images they wanted to talk about (why not just use an album? Well, maybe several pictures are already uploaded, that's VERY common in our current system, upload once and reuse them to make your point in your forum posts).
11.Hopefully our member was patient enough to go through all these steps, and didn't just throw up their hands and upload the images as attachments, and they can now *finally* submit their post.
12. When the other members are reading the post, they are often trying to compare details in the images to what the image poster was talking about... Unfortunately, every time they click a linked image they leave the forums and can't see the rest of the post. :-(.
Do we REALLY think that many community members (keeping in mind that they're NOT forum admins and don't KNOW how to use all the features of the system, or what BBCode is) are actually going to go though all that?
So...
My question is: Why is uploading images and sharing them to Facebook, Twitter etc so much vastly easier than it is to upload them to IP.Gallery and share them within the IP.Board system itself?
What about integration with the forums, when will we be able to readily use images and albums in the gallery IN the forums to facilitate the conversation?
Having images added as attachments in forums posts because that's soooooo much easier than using the reusable, searchable images in the gallery... Well, as a community builder, I cry every time I see people upload a really good image as an attachment because I know it'll be buried in that thread and never show up in the search system, never be seen by anyone looking through the gallery for that sort of image. It's a nigh-criminal waste of sometimes priceless User Generated Content. With everyone carrying a smartphone, images are an ever increasing part of the conversation, and the gallery should be evolving to be more of a gestalt with the forums rather than a more or less separate, parallel system.
I really hope that this new release carries with it the ability to quickly and easily upload images to the gallery while in the forum post editor, and to use albums and images (via a quick popup that provides access to content you have uploaded to the gallery) in a forum post. It should be an easy, seamless experience. Images/media belong in the gallery not as attachments! :-)
Along the same lines, why is the commenting on images/albums happening in an isolated stove-piped environment? Why can't we tie it into the community conversation happening in the forums topics the way we can with comments on Articles (IP.Content)?! Shouldn't that be a major goal of integrating the IP apps? Bringing that user interaction TOGETHER instead of fragmenting it into multiple different systems where it's rarely seen? Shouldn't the goal be a community PLATFORM where everything ties in together, rather than separate parallel systems that share an authentication system?
In conclusion, I heartily support Matt's goals in reworking the Gallery, and much of it is looking wonderful! I greatly appreciate his efforts, and hope that he will read this feedback as what it is intended to be:
Constructive feedback intended to show how a bit of what appears to be "Curse of Knowledge" blindness, may be preventing an appreciation of how IP.Gallery falls sort in a real world setting.
Of course, I may be totally wrong and Matt et al *totally* get the need for deeper integration, and we just haven't heard about how they are going to tackle it yet! James
#1928380 One of the worst things about support here
Posted
on 18 March 2010 - 08:34 PM
...is I can't use Google to search for stuff.
I really wish IPS reconsider showing thread content to guests/search engines because I'm fairly sure most of what I want to know will have been asked before in the P2P forums (lets face it, no forum search is a match for Google).
Not only would it be 10 times quicker for customers, but it would help staff by not having to deal with so many repeated questions.
I really wish IPS reconsider showing thread content to guests/search engines because I'm fairly sure most of what I want to know will have been asked before in the P2P forums (lets face it, no forum search is a match for Google).
Not only would it be 10 times quicker for customers, but it would help staff by not having to deal with so many repeated questions.
#1916466 Feature Creep on IPB 3.x?
Posted
on 22 February 2010 - 02:32 PM
I love many of the new features but I get the feeling that IPB has become stuck in "Feature Creep" mode.
http://en.wikipedia....i/Feature_creep
I am worried that some of the more basic elements of the forum design are getting overlooked, in addition to releases taking longer. There are so many "small" updates that seem to span everywhere with no cohesiveness other than to make the site as "social" as possible (good in a way). It just seems like the IPB Forums software is now something different with the forums as an "add on".
One of my biggest gripes is the "clean cut" skin that was "made official" is still in beta a YEAR later. I now see other skins being talked about being final. My conclusion is that IPB has no desire to support it. They would be happy to see it die and to be forgotten. I have been waiting a year nearly to upgrade to IPB 3.x (awaiting cleancut to go final). Cleancut has had good feedback from my members when they take a look at the design. With the end of life for 2.3.4 coming in about 4 months I will be forced to upgrade and this really irks me given the cleancut situation and overall lack of skin support for something that keeps the previous look and feel for people (changing the look so drastically is akin to re-branding the look of a site so many like me are very hesitant).
My thoughts: When you try to make everyone happy and add in a lot of things, you end up not doing any of them very well. IPB may want to consider (IMO) staying focused on their "core" first and then adding these other elements second. If I were them I would have a guy full time making and supporting the official skins. They are the "forward facing" element of IPB that the end-users see. If they suck, then the forums "suck" regardless of what cool coding is behind the scenes.
http://en.wikipedia....i/Feature_creep
I am worried that some of the more basic elements of the forum design are getting overlooked, in addition to releases taking longer. There are so many "small" updates that seem to span everywhere with no cohesiveness other than to make the site as "social" as possible (good in a way). It just seems like the IPB Forums software is now something different with the forums as an "add on".
One of my biggest gripes is the "clean cut" skin that was "made official" is still in beta a YEAR later. I now see other skins being talked about being final. My conclusion is that IPB has no desire to support it. They would be happy to see it die and to be forgotten. I have been waiting a year nearly to upgrade to IPB 3.x (awaiting cleancut to go final). Cleancut has had good feedback from my members when they take a look at the design. With the end of life for 2.3.4 coming in about 4 months I will be forced to upgrade and this really irks me given the cleancut situation and overall lack of skin support for something that keeps the previous look and feel for people (changing the look so drastically is akin to re-branding the look of a site so many like me are very hesitant).
My thoughts: When you try to make everyone happy and add in a lot of things, you end up not doing any of them very well. IPB may want to consider (IMO) staying focused on their "core" first and then adding these other elements second. If I were them I would have a guy full time making and supporting the official skins. They are the "forward facing" element of IPB that the end-users see. If they suck, then the forums "suck" regardless of what cool coding is behind the scenes.
#1914409 Contributor badges
Posted
on 16 February 2010 - 07:52 PM
Ditchmonkey, on 16 February 2010 - 07:38 PM, said:
Thanks to Dawpi I have a sweet little hook to implement this badge 
[ + ]
Without any extra SQL queries! :-)
#1911573 Everything is Fine
Posted
on 10 February 2010 - 02:55 AM
Okay
Looking forward to the super duper new server.
3DKiwi
Looking forward to the super duper new server.
3DKiwi
#1907064 Overall design is very good
Posted
on 31 January 2010 - 08:18 AM
The design of IP.Board 3 is very nice.
It's looking professional, conservative and modern.
I like the clean interface. The most important things are displayed first, and the less often used functions "hide" more like the "Show more viewing options" on the forum page.
Both user and admin experience is great!
Whoever designed IP.Board, he has reserved lots of thanks from both the IPS team and the customer. Both the manager ("make it simple, easy and professional looking"), the designers and the coders who actually programmed the "hiding elements with javascript" stuff - great work!
I as a more than likely possible switcher to IPB am having a hard time to resist IPB
The design is definitely a selling point.
It's looking professional, conservative and modern.
I like the clean interface. The most important things are displayed first, and the less often used functions "hide" more like the "Show more viewing options" on the forum page.
Both user and admin experience is great!
Whoever designed IP.Board, he has reserved lots of thanks from both the IPS team and the customer. Both the manager ("make it simple, easy and professional looking"), the designers and the coders who actually programmed the "hiding elements with javascript" stuff - great work!
I as a more than likely possible switcher to IPB am having a hard time to resist IPB
The design is definitely a selling point.#1901531 Well, am I beating a dead horse?
Posted
on 20 January 2010 - 01:32 AM
broni, on 17 January 2010 - 01:30 AM, said:
Just a simple example.
I search for:
how to install Sphinx
This is what I get:
Garbage, isn't it?
Surely, very exact topic,
How to install Sphinx with IPB
is right here: http://community.inv...phinx-with-ipb/
Surely, IF I knew exact topic name and IF I searched for "how to install sphinx" (with quotes), here you're:
but this is not what the search is for.
If I use Google and I search for ipb 3 sphinx search (no quotes, or "pluses"), all relevant hits are there.
So, why IPB search can't find it?
I search for:
how to install Sphinx
This is what I get:
Garbage, isn't it?
Surely, very exact topic,
How to install Sphinx with IPB
is right here: http://community.inv...phinx-with-ipb/
Surely, IF I knew exact topic name and IF I searched for "how to install sphinx" (with quotes), here you're:
but this is not what the search is for.
If I use Google and I search for ipb 3 sphinx search (no quotes, or "pluses"), all relevant hits are there.
So, why IPB search can't find it?
Because Google has a few hundred thousand machines doing a predictive guess on what you searched for so it found relevant threads to what your searched for.
Google how ever doesn't have access to the Customer forums so it can't help you there.
Bottom line. The limitation is MySql not IPB. Learn the default operators to do a search or keep being frustrated. (Advanced Search even tells you them) They've been pretty standard for years. At least then you'll get results you can use.
Even Google supports them for Power Users. Problem now is Google has made search via their engine so easy every tom dick and harry thinks it should be that way on every site. Give every site a few billion dollars to develop and run their predictive search clusters and that might happen
(Yes I'm being sarcastic)
#1900812 Great Refund Serivce IPS [NOT!]
Posted
on 18 January 2010 - 03:35 PM
I wasn't originally going to reply to this, but the OP's attitude just frustrated me so much 
To be honest, at the end of the day, you made a complete impulse buy. Be a man and accept that you were foolish enough to purchase an ONLINE INTANGIBLE GOOD without doing any research into it.
I advise you re-read some of your previous posts and have a long hard think about the image you're creating for yourself
To be honest, at the end of the day, you made a complete impulse buy. Be a man and accept that you were foolish enough to purchase an ONLINE INTANGIBLE GOOD without doing any research into it.
I advise you re-read some of your previous posts and have a long hard think about the image you're creating for yourself
#1900718 Great Refund Serivce IPS [NOT!]
Posted
on 18 January 2010 - 02:24 PM
Buying an item in the store and buying software online are 2 different things. And your wrong about that, i can easily go to say, futureshop, buy a computer, open it up, plug it in, dislike it, go back, and say, i want a refund, and they will give me it 100%. Aslong as everything is the way i bought it.
Im just asking for a damn refund of 50 bucks. I have no use for the damn blog module. You guys are really stressing me out here. I will go to Paypal and request them to give me back my 50 dollars if i have to. Your not leaving me with any options here. I dont need the Mod. PERIOD. Im trying to be nice and get my point across.
Im just asking for a damn refund of 50 bucks. I have no use for the damn blog module. You guys are really stressing me out here. I will go to Paypal and request them to give me back my 50 dollars if i have to. Your not leaving me with any options here. I dont need the Mod. PERIOD. Im trying to be nice and get my point across.
