xLemur

Invision Power Services, Inc. is pleased to announce enhancements to its community hosting services!

IPS Community Hosting is one of our most popular services. It offers an inexpensive way for anyone to quickly launch a community without any knowledge of servers and hosting. We automatically install your community and will apply software upgrades at your request at no additional charge. Today we are happy to enhance our services!

Disk Space

We are increasing disk space on all of our standard community hosting plans as follows:

Starter 5: 150 to 200 MB
Basic 10: 300 to 350 MB
Standard 25: 400 to 500 MB
Plus 40: 600 to 800 MB
Super 65: 800 to 1 GB

These changes will be applied automatically to all existing clients on those plans.

Post Limits

We are pleased to announce that the post limits on all packages have now been removed! All packages now feature unmetered database storage.

Included Software

Currently, if you wish to have IP.Content or IP.Nexus there is a $5 per month extra fee on qualifying packages. We are now happy to announce that as of today all community hosting packages will now include IP.Content at no extra charge. Also, IP.Nexus will now be available on Plus 40 and Super 65 at no additional charge!


We hope you enjoy these enhancements to our community hosting services and we look forward to helping your community grow!





Information for existing clients

If you are current community hosting client, the following information may be important to you. Please note your package type and situation:

Starter 5, Basic 10, Standard 25: If you wish to have IP.Content installed, please submit a support ticket request. Note that we expect a high volume of install requests so your patience on the install is appreciated.

If you are paying for $5 add-on: The $5 package will be removed and you will no longer receive invoices for this package.

A legacy plan no longer offered on our web site: Nothing will change. Your old service levels will be maintained.

Ok so there is a modification out that does this however it would be AMAZING to have the option at least to turn on username formatting throughout this site. This would be so that, for example, members show up as blue, admins as red, mods as green, etc. Their names are coloured throughout the site without the need of the modification.

I think this is a long awaited feature

Thanks,
~Shadow

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.

If you are using a version of IP.Board 3.1 less than 3.1.4 you may optionally upgrade to 3.1.4 to resolve the issue, or manually apply the following patch to your site.  To manually apply this security patch to your IP.Board 3.1.x installation:

Open /admin/applications/forums/modules_public/forums/forums.php and find

return ( isset( $this->request['L'] ) AND $this->request['L'] == 1 ) ? $this->authenticateUser() : $this->renderForum();

Change this to

return !empty( $this->request['L'] ) ? $this->authenticateUser() : $this->renderForum();

Save this file and upload to your server, overwriting the original.

IP.Board 3.0.x and Applications: End of Life Announcement

So that we can focus all of our development, support, and service efforts on the newest version 3.1 platform and create a great version 3.2, we are announcing the end of support (sometimes called end of life or EOL) for the following IPS software versions (and earlier versions):

• IP.Board 3.0.x
  
• IP.Blog 2.1.x
  
• IP.Gallery 3.1.x
  
• IP.Downloads 2.1.x
  
• IP.Content 1.2.x
  
• IP.Chat 1.0.x

Technical support, installations, and services will end for these products on June 1, 2011. On that date all technical or service requests will be advised to simply upgrade to the most recent versions of the products. We will not force upgrades but will also not be able to diagnose issues or answer questions relating to the older software. Also, on that date, IPS will no longer address any new issues or bugs reported in the older software versions.

You are of course free to continue using these older versions if you wish but IPS will no longer provide assistance after the EOL date.

Security Updates

In the event an issue is discovered impacting the security of these older versions of the software, IPS will provide a patch posted in our announcements forum. We will continue to provide security updates for several months after the EOL date based on severity of the issue.

Internet Explorer 7 Support

The next version of Internet Explorer, version 9, will soon be reaching a final, supported release from Microsoft. Once Internet Explorer 9 final is released we will begin phasing out support for Internet Explorer 7 which will then be two versions behind. This will not be an abrupt end of support but we will base our phase-out of support based on the market share and adoption rate of IE8/9 versus IE7. Issues reported that are specific to IE7 will be evaluated on a case by case basis and, depending on the severity of their impact, we will still address them. However, as a general practice, cosmetic issues or minor lack of functionality specific to IE7 will not be addressed.

Thank you to both. That makes a lot of sense now!

IPB is definitely the best forum software out there!

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!

Now that IPB3 is here, I think its really time to address the way emoticons are managed because times have changed and boards no longer have just 20 of them, many have accumulated 100's of them. Large, small, light, dark, seasonal etc.

Surely there has to be a better, less confusing way of managing them for Admins, and I seem to recall suggestions in the past have been confirmed as having to wait for IPB3 because of its improved programming structure.

Sorry I'm going back to basics here, because after several years I still don't understand or have forgotten how Emoticon Management is supposed to work in the AdminCP, and there is still no documentation for it.

I don't understand why it is that you can add numerous folders of smilies in addition to the default emotion group, if IPB doesn't automatically include them (the default folder and all additional folders or child folders) when you actually come to post? I also don't understand why you can't turn entire groups of emoticons on and off.

One possible solution...

Lets say for example you have 150 smilies on your board, consisting of:

• 50 general ones
• 50 Halloween theme
• 50 Christmas themed (a little OTT but will do as an example!).

It could just as well be large, small, adult, whatever...

You wouldn't need to have the 100 seasonal emoticons available to click all year round, and you wouldn't need to have access when posting to the Christmas ones when posting near to or at Halloween, and vice versa.

So why not have a folder for each group, and have a check box in the Emoticon Manager to instantly enable or disable each group of smilies as required, and a separate sub-screen to enable, disable or delete individual emoticons within each group, either one at a time or all?

This would make things much more manageable for this with lots of smilies, and all smilies would still show in older posts because they are still on the server, just not all in the clickable list all at once.

You could take it a step further, by adding tabs (suggested so many times before) to the Show All Emoticon box, so that clicking on default or general would show those, then a tab would be available for the Halloween, large, small etc as defined by the groups in the AdminCP Emoticon Management screen.

Invision Power Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of IP.Nexus 1.0.0!

The new IP.Nexus application is designed to help you earn money from your community both directly and indirectly. Direct options include features such as payment processing and shopping carts whereas indirect methods may be banner tracking and donations. Everyone here at IPS is very excited to introduce this new application and hope our customers will be able to take advantage of the variety of features in the product such as:

Introduction
Our first blog entry introducing IP.Nexus and a quick overview.

Developer Extensibility
Third party developers can easily extend the functionality of IP.Nexus into their own applications.

IP.Downloads Integration
Through integration with IP.Downloads you can charge your visitors for access to file downloads.

Package Types
Many package types including virtual items, physical items, recurring payments, and more.

Storefront
Easy to use storefront so your visitors can quickly order new products and services.

Processing Orders
Administration tools to make it easy for you to fulfill and review your orders.

Managing Invoices
Generate new invoices and keep track of pending invoices on existing sales.

Client Area
A single client area for your customers to manage purchases, submit support tickets, and purchase additional packages.

Donations
Set donation goals and allow your members to contribute to that goal right on your community.

Referrals
Your members can refer new members to your community via a referral link and receive commissions.

Credits
Assigning credits to an account either manually or through commissions allows a member to use their credit balance to purchase new packages or pay for renewals.

Support Desk Management, Support Desk Client Area, and Support Desk for Staff
IP.Nexus includes a robust support desk to manage interactions with your clients via a support-ticket system.

Alternate Contacts
Your clients can specify additional contacts who have the option to submit tickets and manage other account aspects on their behalf.

Incoming Email
Create support, sales, billing, and other contact email address that will route emails into IP.Nexus Support Desk

Customer History
Nearly every action performed on an account, from both your staff and your clients, is logged to provide a clear account history.

Advertisements
Expand the capabilities of IP.Board's built-in advertisements feature by uploading banners, tracking, and more.

Customer Page
A detailed overview of a customer all on one page to allow you and your staff to easily service their account.



Server Requirements

As IP.Nexus deals with financial transactions we wish to do everything we can to ensure the security of your community and business. To further this goal, IP.Nexus source will be encoded using Zend Guard. This means that your server will need the appropriate PHP capabilities installed to run IP.Nexus. You can download our system requirements script which will check your server for Zend Guard encoding support.


Purchasing

You can purchase IP.Nexus right in your client area by clicking the green New Purchase button in the upper right corner. New clients can purchase IP.Nexus right along with IP.Board. If you an IPS Community Hosting client, the IP.Nexus features are coming soon to select packages (more information will be posted regarding IP.Nexus on hosting).

Don't forget to try our free demo to see IP.Nexus in action for yourself.

If you have already purchased IP.Nexus, you can download it in your client area.






Version 1.0.1 Coming Soon

IPS is dedicated to promptly fixing any reported issues and will do so with the release of IP.Nexus version 1.0.1 very soon.

As mentioned in the release notes: because this is the first widely-distributed release there will be as yet undiscovered issues. You can expect several maintenance releases over the next several weeks. We appreciate your understanding and hope you can assist us in identifying any problems in this first supported release so we can quickly remedy them in our next updates.

Thank you all..
Just bought one IPB standard license from IPS itself.
I hope my journey with IPB goes well!

thanks guys, I was hoping its gonna be IPB for all the great stuff that you guys have, anyways I will go bug phpbb again

I have had IPB about a month now, along with IP.Downloads, IP.Gallery, IP.Content and IP.Nexus (beta), only had a few self-inflicted issues since I been using it, but they were easy enough to fix.

I have also got the vBulletin Pro Suite 4.0, which I am going to convert to IPB - the amount of useless coding is becoming worse with vB on each release.  Today I checked the amount of unresolved bugs with vB4.0.6, a staggering 1,725!!  And they are promising this and that to customers, whom think they are getting value for money, yes Internet Brands give you a good deal for your money, more bugs than you could ever wish for.  When Jelsoft owned vBulletin it was solid, especially the 3 series - then Internet Brands came along and introduced bugs not only in their new vB4 but even in an update for vB3, and that was that.  Goodbye, any solid products from vBulletin, while under Internet Brands, they are the only company that can make a bad script from a solid one.

The only thing I will be using my vBulletin license for is demonstrations of products and nothing else.  Everyday, I see problems with vBulletin because I deal with support issues, that people are told by vBulletin Support to do various tasks that have nothing to do with the actual issue. It has got to the stage now, that I even recommend IPB over vBulletin products, and people are always pleased that they made the change.  That reminds me, I will have to find if you have an affiliate system in place, because I will have more clients moving over very soon.

I must admit I was unsure of changing to IPB at first, but tried the demo out for 5 days, even though I purchased it on the 3rd day. A fine script and solid coding, I have found it quite easy to customize, then again I'm not new to coding.  I did have IPB back in the days when it was free, but now it is just amazing, I am so glad I made the switch.

Nice one IPB, I am looking forward for your new product updates! The IP.Gallery, IP.Downloads, IP.Content and the forthcoming IP.Nexus.

My goodness - threat of chargeback within a few hours of ordering?

You submitted your order twice, so the system was confused. Your account has been activated and the software will be installed soon.

As this is resolved, I will close this now. Thank you.

A security issue has been discovered in IP.Board 3.1.x that could potentially allow a malicious user to insert JavaScript or other code into your community.

The damage this sort of attack can do is drastically mitigated by IP.Board's use of HTTP-only cookies and other security measures.

As part of our continued dedication to security enhancement, we are releasing a simple patch for IP.Board 3.1.2 to address this issue. If you are running IP.Board versions less than 3.1.2 simply upgrade your software version.

Download Patch

Simply upload the attached file to: admin/sources/classes/bbcode/custom/defaults.php

 312_sept_patch.zip   11.15K   3017 downloads

The main download zip has been updated at the time of this post.