TalkChelsea

Invision Power Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of IP.Board 3.3.1, IP.Blog 2.5.2 and IP.SEO 1.5.2

Everyone at IPS is very proud of IP.Board 3.3.1, IP.Blog 2.5.2 and IP.SEO 1.5.2 updates. We have worked hard to create a quality, modern community platform and the feedback from our clients has been tremendous.

We are releasing the following new software:

IP.Board 3.3.1
Fully featured community platform including forums, members profiles, calendar, status system, integration, and much, much more.

IP.Blog 2.5.2
Integrated blogging software for IP.Board. Allow your members to create and manage their own blogs.

IP.SEO 1.5.2
Provides additional search engine optimization features and tools to our software such as site-maps and customisable metadata tags.

Requirements / Notes

IP.Blog and IP.SEO require IP.Board version 3.2.x or 3.3.x

Installing / Upgrading

For further assistance on installing these updates please refer to this document and for upgrading please refer to this document

If you are using the archive system, first available in IP.Board 3.3.0, then you'll need to perform an additional step after upgrading.

Security Updates for IP.Board 3.3.0, 3.2.x

IP.Board 3.3.0
Simply upgrade to 3.3.1. Contact technical support if you need assistance.

IP.Board 3.2.0, 3.2.1, 3.2.2, 3.2.3
Simply download the zip file and upload the files to your server. Directory structure has been retained so you can easily identify where to upload the files.

 3_2_3_April_Patch.zip   56.63K   1024 downloads

Gallery 4.2.0, 4.2.1
Simply download the zip file and upload the file to your server. Directory structure has been retained so you can easily identify where to upload the files.

 Gallery_4_2_1_April.zip   4.02K   575 downloads

Oh, Crap. Please don't tell us that IPS is considering this! I'm sorry but this is the worst feature ever to be created. If someone wants to create this as a hook or third party application, then I say go for it. But don't let this be a core or default feature of the forums.

Invision Power Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of IP.Board 3.3.0 and IP.Content 2.3.0!

Everyone at IPS is very proud of IP.Board 3.3.0 and IP.Content 2.3.0 updates. We have worked hard to create a quality, modern community platform and the feedback from our clients has been tremendous.

We are releasing the following new software:


IP.Board 3.3.0
Fully featured community platform including forums, members profiles, calendar, status system, integration, and much, much more.


IP.Content 2.3.0
Content management for your community - run a full web site or a simple community portal. The possibilities are endless.

Release Notes

Though IP.Board 3.3.0 and IP.Content 2.3.0 have been tested for months, you never know what you are going to get when thousands of people start using it overnight. Therefore: now that IP.Board 3.3.0 and IP.Content 2.3.0 will be used by a much larger audience we will probably come across as yet undiscovered bugs. You can expect maintenance releases as we work quickly to address any issues reported.

• We are now providing technical support and services for IP.Board 3.3.0 and IP.Content 2.3.0. As you might imagine, many thousands of clients will be asking for help so please note that if you request upgrade or install assistance that there could be a delay up to a few days to process that request.
  
• You may wish to take advantage of the automatic upload service in the client area to help upgrade your version.
  
• We may reply to this topic with hot-fix patches or notes if any critical issues come up so please use the "Follow this Topic" feature to get notified.
  
• If you experience any problems, before submitting a ticket, please disable all third party applications and hooks.
  
• You may wish to check our knowledge base for common upgrade issues.

What's new in IP.Board 3.3

In addition to this list there are countless other minor improvements and changes based on client feedback too numerous to mention. IP.Board 3.3 was all about polish so we hope you enjoy it.

Archive System: New feature to archive off topics to remove post table overhead
Warning System: New more flexible feature replaces old warning system
SEO Update: 'Dead end' links, unfriendly error pages, metadata tags, bounce rates
SEO Update: Banned users
SEO Update: Duplicate title tags, profile tabs, skin and language selectors, direct links to posts
SEO Update: Microformat and Schema Updates
SEO Update: Changes to tags, guests and unread links, title tags, soft 404s and schema additions for ratings
Performance Updates: Improving topic markers, today's top posters, post table access
Auto-share on posting: Tweet and share to Facebook when creating a topic
Reputation Updates: Like/reputation updates on a user's profile
Miscellaneous Updates: Log-in autosave, emoticons in signatures, log in as a member, duplicate forum, system schedular as a CRON and more.
Applications and Hook Updates: Application ordering, hook list update, hook settings
Moderation Tools Updates: Hide/Delete/Soft Delete consolidation and interface updates


What's new in IP.Content 2.3

AdminCP Interface Part 1 & Admin CP Interface Part 2: Significant ACP interface changes to improve consistency, usability, clarity and approachability
SEO Improvements: Duplication, header code, meta tag, page title and on-page HTML improvements, as well as a new URL memory system
Commenting & Other Enhancements: Improvements to commenting, quick navigation panel integration, reporting, reputation support and other article/database enhancements
New Features: Currently viewing plugin block and shared media field for databases
Tagging: Tag support implemented and a new tag cloud plugin block made available
Navigation Bar: Full tab control for the primary navigation bar
Relational Fields: Type-ahead relational fields and automatic cross-linking of related content
Nexus: Nexus package, purchase, support request, shipping, invoices and transaction feeds, and donation plugin block
Block Templates: New block templates functionality allowing developers to more easily share blocks and quality block templates
Odds & Ends: Updated default installation, ModCP integration, improved ACP logging, teaser paragraph article field and interface improvements

I have personally seen this working with various clients: moderators and administrators that spend so much time and energy obsessing over spammers, troublemakers, and rules rather than focusing on their good members and growing their community into something enjoyable.

Just a few points I have observed and maybe something to ponder:


IP addresses are so last century

IP.Board does allow you to ban by IP, it shows you the IP of members on posts, and has IP search tools built in. However, much of this is an artifact of a bygone era. Now don't get me wrong, IPs can be useful information but they are not the magic identifier that some people think they are.

Everyone knows that you can spoof IPs, go through a proxy, even sometimes click a button and request a new IP from your ISP. With all that knowledge in hand it stands to reason that spending any time worrying about the IP of a user is not worth it. Banning people by IP in the AdminCP, researching IPs for "multiple registrations," and all the other IP-related worry that I often see does not gain anything. Someone with the most basic knowledge can bypass it all.

Also, and this is important, if your audience is geographically-based (like a site about your local city), then you could easily end up banning entire sections of your city's local ISP. We surely do not want to ban real people.

So at the end of the day I say if you do want to obsess over IPs there are tools in our software to let you do that. But what I do when there is a troublesome member is click the ban button on their account and move on to interacting with the good members and not give the bad person a second thought.


Tracking Spammers

Along the same line as obsessing about IPs I have seen communities spend great deal of time and energy tracking, researching, and learning about spammers that register on their community. Do you do this when you get a spam email? No you just delete it and move on with your day.

There are many tools in IP.Board to help manage spammers. Be sure you have enabled them all. There are also tools in the Marketplace that can further enhance spam prevention. Of course be careful not to make it hard for the real people to register!

Even with all the tools in IP.Board and the additional tools available in the Marketplace spammers will get through. But then this is also true for your email account. Google spends a lot of time, money, and effort trying to block spam but emails still slip through. Delete those spam emails and ban those spam members on your site just as fast and then get back to what matters.


Don't be afraid to ban (but be afraid)

Yes I am contradicting myself. My scenario here is a long-time member who has always been a trouble maker but you put up with them because they post a lot and sometimes post good stuff. You have warned this person, suspended their account now and then, asked them to behave, and generally they are still a distraction. At some point you may finally have to say "as much as I hate banning people who participate this person is more trouble than they're worth."

That does happen and you should not be afraid to ban them. However, do think it through. You certainly do not want to ban people who just might need to cool down or had a simple disagreement.

In my opinion a good rule of thumb is if your moderators, you, and other members are all complaining about how that one bad apple is ruining the fun then it's time to prune. As with all my other points, doing so gets you back to what matters.

It has come to our attention that a XSS (Cross Site Scripting) attack is possible within the Admin CP. The javascript is only executed when viewing the detailed pop-up of a specific failed admin log in.

This issue exists in all IP.Board 3 versions. We recommend that everyone using these versions apply this simple one file patch.

Simply download the zip for your IP.Board version, expand the zip on your computer and upload the file to the relevant folder on your server. The directory structure is maintained in the zip so you will have no issues finding the file.

If you need assistance, please contact technical support.


IP.Board 3.2.x
 feb_3_2_x.zip   2.72K   4179 downloads

IP.Board 3.1.x
 feb-3_1_x.zip   2.76K   1068 downloads

IP.Board 3.0.x
 feb-3_0_x.zip   2.76K   375 downloads


If you are running a version of IP.Board older than those listed we highly recommend you upgrade to the latest, supported version as it will include this and other fixes.

Invision Power Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of IP.Board 3.2.1, IP.Calendar 3.2.1, IP.Content 2.2.1, and IP.Nexus 1.3.1!

These releases are the first maintenance release after our highly anticipated release of IP.Board 3.2.0 and its related applications. These releases fix many reported issues.

We are releasing the following new software:


IP.Board 3.2.1
Fully featured community platform including forums, members profiles, calendar, status system, integration, and much, much more.


IP.Nexus 1.3.1
Fully featured commerce system to sell products, membership access, advertising, digital downloads, and more. Includes tools like a support desk to help manage you clients.


IP.Content 2.2.1
Content management for your community - run a full web site or a simple community portal. The possibilities are endless.


IP.Calendar 3.2.1
Event calendar for your community with multiple calendars, public/private events, and iCal support.




What's new in IP.Board 3.2.1

Between 3.2.0 and 3.2.1 the following changes have been made:

• A setting has been added to restore the ability to have proportionate profile photo sizes in topic view (3.2.0 enforced cropped square thumbnails).
  
• The visual skin editor has been enhanced to support more areas of the board.
  
• Several enhancements have been made to the webDav integration for external skin editing.
  
• More than 170 bug fixes have been implemented to IP.Board 3.2.0.

Please read our 3.2.0 announcement for a full list of what's new in the 3.2 series!

Invision Power Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of  IP.Gallery 4.0.4 and IP.SEO 1.3.2!

Please see below for the release notes for each of these releases.

IP.Gallery 4.0.4

IP.Gallery is our community media sharing platform for IP.Board allowing you and your members to create and maintain photo and video albums.

This maintenance release fixes issues and bugs reported in 4.0.3.

Purchasing

You can purchase IP.Gallery right in your client area by clicking the green New Purchase button in the upper right corner. New clients can purchase IP.Gallery right along with IP.Board. If you an IPS Community Hosting client, IP.Gallery comes with all packages!

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

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


IP.SEO 1.3.2

IP.SEO for IP.Board aims to provide additional search engine optimization features and tools to our software. IP.Board itself already has many built-in SEO related features and this app builds on those features to extend the capabilities for those who has an interest in SEO. In addition to new capabilities, IP.SEO also looks at your configuration and gives you advice on the best way to ensure that search engines can easily index your community content and properly rank that content.

This maintenance release fixes issues and bugs reported in previous versions.

Active IP.Board license holders (and IPS Community Hosting clients) can download the IPS Marketplace app in the IPS Marketplace. Just login with the same email and password you use for the IPS client area.

The first public preview of IP.Board 3.2.0 is now available!

http://internal32.invisionpower.com

Please visit and let us know what you think. Be sure to read the welcome announcement first for guidelines on feedback.

Enjoy!

View the full article

Invision Power Services, Inc. is pleased to announce the release of  IP.Gallery 4.0.3!

IP.Gallery is our community media sharing platform for IP.Board allowing you and your members to create and maintain photo and video albums.

This maintenance release adds many popular features including:

• Warning in the ACP if watermarking image path is not correct and fixed an issue with watermarking path in general not working if it contains the character \
  
• Re-added delete album option in the userCP albums list
  
• Fixed member albums being still able to be set as root albums in the ACP
  
• Updated flash player (flowplayer) from 2.3.4 to 2.3.7
  
• Added MPG, MPEG and MKV as media formats
  
• Now the original image saved when watermarking has a unique name so members can't retrieve it by adding the orig_ prefix in the image name
  
• Original image is now deleted together with the other images (small, medium, large, thumbnail)
  
• Moderation logs are now saved for: delete album, delete/move images, approve/unapprove images
  
• Comments class: fixed several bugs with it for 'normal members' not being able to edit delete
  
• Ability to sort albums (per album basis) in both ACP and front end
  
• Ability to use 'detail' page (larger thumbs) as the default album page (per album basis) in both ACP and front end
  
• Detail page updated to include: Like box, ratings, image author, album edit, delete and slideshow links.
  
• Uploading into a child album now updates the cover images of all global parents.
  
• Container albums show the upload button and the upload form suggests they create a new album, new album dialog has container album selected as parent
  
• Watermark has been re-added with a per-album option
  
• Added a script to convert old favorites and subscription to the new 'like' system
  
• Member albums now REQUIRE a global album or another album as parent, you can't create them as 'root' albums anymore
  
• The upgrade script will move any albums like that in a temporary global album
  
• Pagination added to 'recent images' block when viewing all member's albums. It also shows all user's images, not just the ones in their own albums.
  
• Pagination added to 'recently updated albums' block on the home page.
  
• Over 80 bug fixes

Purchasing

You can purchase IP.Gallery right in your client area by clicking the green New Purchase button in the upper right corner. New clients can purchase IP.Gallery right along with IP.Board. If you an IPS Community Hosting client, IP.Gallery comes with all packages!

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

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

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!

Hi,

Are Social groups going to be a feature in version 3.2? Social groups is 1 of the most wanted feature, and as Invision Power focuses on community building, I think Social Group plays an important role in community building / forums.


Thank you.

Managing Spam Account Registrations

We are receiving reports that the number of spam bot registrations have been increasing in recent days. It is an unfortunate reality that spammers occasionally find new ways to get past even our best defenses. IPS will of course continue to work on improvements to stay ahead of them as they in turn try to stay ahead of us.

IP.Board has many built in functions and features to help to manage spam account registrations and either block or ban these accounts.


Spam Monitoring Service

Our Spam Monitoring Service is one of the best tools you can use to help protect your community from spam account registrations. The service collects anonymous data from the many thousands of IP.Board's using the service and detect trends to learn which accounts may be spammers. It then uses that data to automatically ban accounts that register on your community.

We also encourage you to report spam accounts that slip past the service by clicking the "Flag as Spammer" link on the profile popup, profile page, or in the AdminCP. When you flag an account, IP.Board reports that status back to the Spam Monitoring Service so it can learn from that information.

The Spam Monitoring Service is free to all active IP.Board license holders. To enable it just be sure your license key is setup in your AdminCP and then go to System Settings, Members, Spam Service.


reCAPTCHA

IP.Board includes support for Google's reCAPTCHA service. Enabling reCAPTCHA is another line of defense to determine if a registering account is a real human or a spam bot.

To enable reCAPTCHA visit your AdminCP and go to System Settings then Security and Privacy.


Question and Answer Challenge

Another very useful tool to stop spam bot registrations is the custom Question and Answer challenge built into IP.Board. Using this feature you can set a custom question unique to your community that only a real human could answer. For example, you might say "What color is the sky?" and, though a bot could answer that, it would have to be programmed specifically for your community which spammers would not do. Choose a unique question and you get an easy, extra layer of protection.

To enable simply go to your AdminCP and click the Question and Answer Challenge settings right on the System tab of the AdminCP home page.


Email Validation

While easily bypassed by an intelligent spam bot, make sure you also have new account email validation enabled (under Security and Privacy in AdminCP) as the email validation works alongside the Spam Monitoring Service's ability to learn spammer's email addresses.




As is also true for email spam, we will never have a 100% method to stop community spam account registrations but by utilizing the tools built into IP.Board you can certainly take real action to lessen the impact. IPS will continue to research methods to enhance spam protection.

Known Issues
After upgrading, you may receive the following error message with logging in:

"[#10193] We encountered a problem processing your login request. Please try again."

The issue is caused by outdated skin templates. Simply update your custom skin's template bits.


Manual fix
To fix the error yourself edit the template "Login Screen -> showLogInForm" and find:

			<if test="referer:|:$referer">

Add ABOVE:

			<input type='hidden' name='auth_key' value='{$this->member->form_hash}' />

Save the template and you're done. Repeat as needed for all skins.

We have put together a mini-patch for 3.1.3 which fixes the following issues:

- Warning when using JSON when the PHP JSON extension isn't available
- Twitter log in issue
- Hovercard Opera positioning issue
- Missing dashboard notifications in the Admin CP
- Members may access password only forums without complete authorization
- Security update regarding personal conversations
- Emails no being sent or being delayed

Download: http://www.invisionp...s/313Update.zip

I have put together a patch zip which resolves the following issues:

• Multiple "5030" error message emails
  
• (Safe Mode Enabled) Missing language strings from the ACP
  
• (oAuth PECL extensions) Twitter 'cannot redeclare class' / blank page issue
  
• (Non CURL) Twitter log in returns to log in form
  
• (Non .htaccess FURL) Gallery FURLs not working correctly.
  
• (Non .htaccess FURL) Facebook LIKE button incorrectly 'liking' root URL

http://www.invisionp.../310patches.zip

The main download zips have been updated at the time of this post. If you are not affected by any of these issues then you do not need to apply the patch.
Further details are available in our knowledge base: http://community.inv...knowledge-base/