News & Updates

Google has recently been stressing that sites should use secure connections (served via HTTPS) whenever possible. They have recently also started warning sites that collect password on non-secure pages and will also be updating Google Chrome to warn users when a password is being entered on a non-secure page. You can read more information at Google and a good article on Ars Technica.

There are two ways on IPS Community Suite to avoid these alerts. Keep in mind that doing nothing will not cause you any problems, your site will still work, but users will get warnings and this may impact how people perceive joining your community.

Make your Community 100% Secure

The easiest option is to make every page on your IPS Community Suite use a secure connection. To do this you would need to ensure your web host has HTTPS support enabled on your site and then simply edit conf_global.php and change the URL field to https:// and that's it.

One thing to keep in mind is that your users, if you allow it, can still paste in links to externally hosted images which might not be secure. This does not impact the security of your site but it may generate a browser warning indicating your site has "mixed content" meaning some is secure and some is not. You can optionally enable the Image Proxy feature to make externally linked images route through a proxy on your local server to maintain 100% secure content.

Only Login/Registration Forms and AdminCP Secure

If you prefer not to use HTTPS for your entire site, we do have a setting to only use secure connections for login, registration, and AdminCP. 

When the login-only secure option is enabled the quick login drop down is also disabled and instead users are sent to a full page to login. This is a small change required to avoid browser warnings. Although the quick login menu submits to a secure connection, the form field itself may show on a non-secure page which would generate a warning.

IPS Community in the Cloud

Those using IPS CiC can get secure connections for a $15 setup fee plus $5 month on our 40, 65 and 100 user Cloud plans. You can either bring your own certificate or we can provide one for you. On the 200, 450 and 750 plans, SSL is completely free - again, either your own or we can provide one.

We have had a question and answer feature in IPS Community Suite for some time and we are now happy to add Google Authenticator as another option. We have also combined the various options it a new Two Factor Authentication (2FA) section in the AdminCP with many more options.

There are also new settings to control when a user is required (or not) to setup 2FA:

You can control what areas will prompt for 2FA authentication:

And how the system should recover if a user cannot login via 2FA on their account:

An administrator can configure these settings to tailor the security needs of their community. For example, you might want to require 2FA your admins and moderators but keep it optional for your members. 

On the front end your members will see a new Account Security section under their settings area.

Once authenticated, a user will then be able to enable various security options. For example, the Google Authenticator setup shows an easy to follow setup.

We hope you enjoy this new level of system security. IPS has plans to add additional 2FA providers beyond Question and Answers and Google Authenticator. We will keep you updated!

This change will be in version 4.1.18 which is scheduled to be released in late January 2017.

Version 4.1.17 is now available!

You can upgrade by downloading in the client area or just click upgrade in your AdminCP.

Next week, IPS will be implementing the pricing changes to our product lineup that we published in 2015. In the spirit of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we are extending an opportunity to purchase a new license or add new applications to your existing suite at 15% off our current pricing.

To take advantage of this offer, please use coupon code IPSPROMO16 at checkout. This promotion is active starting now and valid until 1 December 2016 (EST) and applies to new purchases only. We are unable to retroactively apply the discount.

This promotion also applies to Community in the Cloud for your first month of service!

If you’ve been waiting to purchase a new license or add products to your suite, this is the last opportunity to obtain this level of pricing! Happy shopping!

Version 4.1.17 is in the final stages of development and will be released soon!

Check out the release notes for the full list of what's new and our preview articles for details on some of the most interesting changes:

• Better Analytics Integration
• Tag Quick Edit
• Default Warning Notes
• Custom RSS Feeds
• Word and Link Filters
• Leaderboard
• Moderation Improvements
• Security and Privacy
• Embeds and Integration

We hope you enjoy all these new additions coming in 4.1.17 and be sure to read the release notes for many smaller changes. The big feature in 4.1.17 is the new Leaderboard which we really think will enhance your community.

If you like using pre-release beta versions, the public beta of 4.1.17 will be available in the client area on 28 November. We support betas on live installs with some exceptions so give it a try if you like to be first to try the new features!

IPS Community Suite allows for integrations with quite a few third party systems and also can embed content from external sites. We have added a whole new list of embed providers where you can just paste in a link to that site and a nice box will show up. For example, if I paste this link in normally:

https://twitter.com/invisionps/status/799269691579449344

I get:

You can do that will many popular sites already and we are adding a lot more:

• codepen.io
• coub.com
• deviantart.com
• docs.com
• funnyordie.com
• gettyimages.com
• iFixit.com
• kickstarter.com
• meetup.com
• mixcloud.com
• mix.office.com
• on.aol.com
• reddit.com
• reverbnation.com
• screencast.com
• screenr.com
• slideshare.net
• smugmug.com
• ustream.tv
• Google Maps

Once you enable Google Maps under Community Enhancements by entering your Google API key you can them just paste in a link to a Google Map location. So when you paste a link to a Google Map in an editor it shows like this:

The maps are also interactive on the screen.

REST API

We have also added quite a few more endpoints, particularly in member management, to our REST API. If you are not already familiar with the REST API it is a great way to integrate external systems with IPS Community Suite. You can both fetch and modify data in the Suite via the API. REST API documentation...

Third Party Diagnostics

This is a bit more of a technical feature so feel free to skip if it does not interest you. If you use third party plugins or applications from our Marketplace or from other sites you may occasionally encounter issues in the Suite caused by those items but it is often hard to know the root issue. There are now tools in the AdminCP to show all places in the code that third party items are modifying to help with diagnosing issues. The Suite will now also try to detect if an error it encounters is referencing a third party plugin and suggest you disable it to see if the issue is resolved.

New Support Tool

Though not specifically about embeds or integrations, the new Support Tool does better help diagnose issues so I thought I would give it a nice shout out. It really does help to find server problems, database issues, or outdated files that might interfere with your site. It also makes support so much easier if you submit your ticket to us via the Support Tool as it sends along a temporary login (if you allow it) for us to use. The new design simplifies the tool down to just one step and it gives you a report and suggested actions.

This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

IPS is always auditing our software to improve security at the code-level but these improvements are not really visible to you even though they protect your site all the time. We are implementing some new features that you can use to enhance the security and privacy of your site. Many of these features depend on your personal preferences, local laws, or the policies of your own organization. Here is a list of what's new:

Birthday Control

You may wish to make birthday viewing only show to admins or you can completely disable prompting for a birthday if you consider that information sensitive.

Member Delete Name Retention

When deleting a member in the AdminCP, if you choose to keep their posts the system currently names the posts with a display name of "Guest user" where user is the previous display name of the member you deleted. You can how choose to retain their name in posts or not so you can either have it as it is now or simple "Guest" on member delete.

Password Strength

You now have two new options for password: show a strength meter and require strong passwords. You can choose to either just show the meter as a suggestion or you can also choose to enforce a password strength. You can choose between three levels of password enforcement parameters depending on how strict you choose to be.

Guest Terms Banner

There is a new option to show a guest terms of service banner when a new visitor first visits your site. You can set the text shown in the display and you can also put in two special tags to automatically link to your Terms of Service or Privacy Policy page.

Age Restrictions

We have always had COPPA support in the Suite but we have extended this to be a more generic age restriction feature. You can now set your site to reject registrations from anyone under a certain age you specify. For privacy, the birthday entered on registration is only used to calculate permission and is never stored.

This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

We have added a selection of improvements to moderator workflow and some new features to generally make moderation easier.

We have already talked about a few new moderation improvements:

• Default Warning Notes
• Tag Quick Edit
• Word and Link Improvements

Now let's go over a few more new features that are designed to help moderation.

Multi Page Actions

When you split a topic or delete replies to some content that has multiple pages you would always be redirected back to the first page and first post. This could get a bit annoying if you were previously very deep into a conversation. We now try to remember where you were and keep your place after those items are removed.

Hide Unapproved Content

Previously you had only two options when viewing content that was pending moderator approval: delete and approve. You can now choose to hide an item rather than approving it so you can remove it from the approval queue without deleting.

Moderator Actions on Reports

When a moderator changes a report status it now logs that action so other moderators can view when and who changed a status.

Display Name History

You can now see a display name history on the front end for a user. This can also be enabled for the public to see per-group if you want everyone to see the display name changes of a member.

Animated Profile Photos

You can now disable animated profile photos so your users cannot apply them to their profile. This will not go back and remove existing photos but will stop new additions.

IP Tools

The IP tools have had an update to make finding IPs with their related members and posts easier. This works with both IPv4 and IPv6.

You can also search for all uses of an IP by member or wildcard search an IP to find all uses of an IP range.

These changes to moderator tools will help you better moderate your community and allow you to focus on member interaction rather than member management. In addition to the items linked at the top of this entry we have already talked about, these small changes come together to make moderation even easier in IPS Community Suite.

This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

We are excited to announce the Leaderboard as the latest all new feature of IPS Community Suite. The new Leaderboard is designed to better highlight your most active members and content based on reputation and other metrics. The Leaderboard will greatly enhance both member and content discovery on your community.

First you will notice the new feature of member leaders based on a specific time frame. In the example above it is set to All Time showing those members with the most reputation overall on your community. It also shows the content with the most reputation for the same timeframe so you get a snapshot of both popular members and popular content in one view.

The Past Leaders tab shows the "winners" of each day in a history. The system counts all reputation made each day and logs the members who had the top reputation counts that day. Using reputation rather than post count encourages your members to post quality of quantity which is really important to any site.

Those who win the day also get a badge on their profile page to highlight that they were the member with the most reputation for a particular day.

Top Members shows you a list of all members sorted by various metrics. By default you will see members sorted by reputation but you can also easily sort by total post content Suite-wide or per-app. All of these views can be linked directly to so if you wanted a menu item to show members who post the most files in Downloads you can just directly link to that sort view.

There are various settings to control the default behavior of the Leaderboard. You can define the default view and how many members to show which is helpful to tailor it to your needs.

We hope you enjoy this initial launch of the new Leaderboard feature. We are excited about the new content and member discovery abilities this offers and look forward to adding new options to the Leaderboard as we continue to develop!

This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.

We are changing the existing Profanity Filters feature to become the new Word Filters feature. This change will allow you to define words that will initiate a moderator review before content is posted. With creative use of this new feature you can actually have the Suite self-moderate certain posts.

Right now the Profanity Filters are pretty basic. If you enter "stopword" you can have it change to *****. That's fine for basic profanity but sometimes you want to do other actions with a word. Perhaps someone might mention a competitor, you see common spam words, or you run a site targeted to children and want fine control over what is posted. There are a lot of reasons a simple replace word with *** might not be what you want.

Word Filters introduce an option to let you say "stopword" places a post in moderation queue.

So now you can define a list of words that are not necessarily profanity but are words you want to review if they are posted.

We have also extended this logic to the URL Filters which are now just called Links in the AdminCP configuration. You can now disallow all links and have a post go to approval if someone does post a link. This is also useful for sites where you need really tight control on content either for security or privacy reasons.

With the new Links feature you can also set allow/disallow list of allows links and if someone posts a link outside those lists (depending on your mode) the post will go into review.

We hope these features allow you to introduce a bit of automatic moderation to your community and you can come up with creative ways to capture posts that need review either for security, privacy, or just keeping things in order.

 This change will be in version 4.1.17 which is scheduled to be released in early December 2016.