Invision Community News

Introducing new Page Builder tools in Invision Community 5 Widgets are an incredibly powerful tool for displaying curated content of your choice on any page of your community - and despite the extensive array of settings for customizing their data, they've often been limited in terms of their design options. But this changes thanks to the new Page Builder tools in Invision Community 5! Widget Designs Previously in version 4, widgets would often have 2 designs: one for the main content area and a more minimal version for the sidebar. This worked well, but it meant your page was very limited in terms of design as you'd typically need to use the same table-lik…

We recently announced the new Invision Community 5 editor which adds many new exciting features such as semantically correct header tags, custom boxes and more. As the new editor is a leap forward in technology, some legacy features had to be left behind. We received a lot of messages about these changes, and have created new tools based on that feedback to ensure you still have the tools you need. The new features are based around restricting some high level editor functionality for specific member groups and enabling an easy way to add custom embeds. Permission Levels Invision Community 5 puts a lot of new tools in the editor, including header tags, boxes…

We recently announced the new Invision Community 5 editor which adds many new exciting features such as semantically correct header tags, custom boxes and more. As the new editor is a leap forward in technology, some legacy features had to be left behind. We received a lot of messages about these changes, and have created new tools based on that feedback to ensure you still have the tools you need. The new features are based around restricting some high level editor functionality for specific member groups and enabling an easy way to add custom embeds. Permission Levels Invision Community 5 puts a lot of new tools in the editor, including header tags, boxes…

Invision Community v5 takes a fresh approach to tagging and content discovery. It overhauls the concept to bring content across different sections together with a beautiful new tag page. Tagging is a powerful concept but underused with Invision Community 4 due to overly complex interfaces in different areas of the suite, a confusing open tagging model option and no real benefit in content discovery beyond a simple list of content items. A driving force behind Invision Community 5 is the question of how we can help time-pressured community members find the content that most interests them. Invision Community has robust taxonomy through forum and category str…

Invision Community v5 takes a fresh approach to tagging and content discovery. It overhauls the concept to bring content across different sections together with a beautiful new tag page. Tagging is a powerful concept but underused with Invision Community 4 due to overly complex interfaces in different areas of the suite, a confusing open tagging model option and no real benefit in content discovery beyond a simple list of content items. A driving force behind Invision Community 5 is the question of how we can help time-pressured community members find the content that most interests them. Invision Community has robust taxonomy through forum and category str…

As we find ourselves with our toes over the precipice of June; signalling the half way point of the year, I thought it's a good time for an update. Apologies southern hemisphere. Invision Community 5 has been in alpha testing for a while, and a small group have found a good number of bugs, and offered their thoughts and suggestions, some of which we've implemented. During this time we've wrapped up the new editor, a boat load of UI improvements and more. We are now ready for the next stage, which is to give our alpha testers their own Cloud v5 to test with. This opens up testing for the Admin CP, and all areas without using developer mode. v5 has a lo…

Invision Community 5 has a brand new editing experience powered by a lightweight, fast React text editor built for mobile and modern browsers. The venerable CKEditor v4 at the core of our current editor is starting to show its age, so we wanted a clean slate with Invision Community v5 with an editor that was optimized for mobile use, easily extensible and had a feature set that would take us into the next era of Invision Community and beyond. The obvious choice was to consider the latest version of CKEditor, but it didn't fit our needs as it wasn't easily extensible, external plug-ins would no longer be possible, and its large footprint would affect page speed s…

Invision Community 5 has a brand new editing experience powered by a lightweight, fast React text editor built for mobile and modern browsers. The venerable CKEditor v4 at the core of our current editor is starting to show its age, so we wanted a clean slate with Invision Community v5 with an editor that was optimized for mobile use, easily extensible and had a feature set that would take us into the next era of Invision Community and beyond. The obvious choice was to consider the latest version of CKEditor, but it didn't fit our needs as it wasn't easily extensible, external plug-ins would no longer be possible, and its large footprint would affect page speed s…

Forum moderation management used to be straightforward. It was commonplace to assign a moderator to a single forum. They would be responsible for enforcing the rules, removing spam and generally modelling the behaviour you wanted to see within your community. As community management has matured and moderators are tasked with roles based on knowledge, help and support, there is a need for more nuance in managing topics within your community. For example, you may have specialists or teams of specialists who help answer questions about development, sales, or support. Topics that require this help may be posted anywhere within your community. Indeed, this featu…

Forum moderation management used to be straightforward. It was commonplace to assign a moderator to a single forum. They would be responsible for enforcing the rules, removing spam and generally modelling the behaviour you wanted to see within your community. As community management has matured and moderators are tasked with roles based on knowledge, help and support, there is a need for more nuance in managing topics within your community. For example, you may have specialists or teams of specialists who help answer questions about development, sales, or support. Topics that require this help may be posted anywhere within your community. Indeed, this featu…

Finally, one of the most requested features for clubs in Invision Community is coming with our March 2024 release: Pages databases in Clubs. You may be surprised to see a new feature being introduced for Invision Community 4 during our flow of news for Invision Community 5, but as we're committed to Invision Community 4, we wanted to continue to bring optimizations and improvements to the platform. What is the benefit of this new feature? Clubs enable communities to host multiple micro-communities with many benefits. Clubs allow more specialized and focused discussions on specific topics. This can lead to higher-quality content and a deeper exploration of nich…

Finally, one of the most requested features for clubs in Invision Community is coming with our March 2024 release: Pages databases in Clubs. You may be surprised to see a new feature being introduced for Invision Community 4 during our flow of news for Invision Community 5, but as we're committed to Invision Community 4, we wanted to continue to bring optimizations and improvements to the platform. What is the benefit of this new feature? Clubs enable communities to host multiple micro-communities with many benefits. Clubs allow more specialized and focused discussions on specific topics. This can lead to higher-quality content and a deeper exploration of nich…

Live Topics in Invision Community 5 Introduced last year, Live Topics are an innovative way to host live chat and question-and-answer sessions, complete with the option for live video integration. Live Topics effortlessly transform these events into permanent forum topics once the event concludes, allowing your members to not only interact in real-time with the rest of your community, but also continue the conversation far beyond the events conclusion. As part of Invision Community 5, Live Topics will ship with a brand new design, rich-text editors and dynamic reactions. Let’s take a look at all three improvements, starting with the new design. Fu…

Live Topics in Invision Community 5 Introduced last year, Live Topics are an innovative way to host live chat and question-and-answer sessions, complete with the option for live video integration. Live Topics effortlessly transform these events into permanent forum topics once the event concludes, allowing your members to not only interact in real-time with the rest of your community, but also continue the conversation far beyond the events conclusion. As part of Invision Community 5, Live Topics will ship with a brand new design, rich-text editors and dynamic reactions. Let’s take a look at all three improvements, starting with the new design. Fu…

Bring your community to life with the latest live community features coming to Invision Community 5. Last year we introduced new features that immediately showed who was currently reading a topic and who was replying. This feature leveraged new technologies to connect members with each other instantly. In this blog post, we'll delve into the latest live community features for Invision Community 5 and explore how they enhance our sense of togetherness within our communities. We'll examine how these features instantly notify us about new events, updates, or interactions and how they contribute to a shared sense of presence. These features go beyond the static…

As showcased in our past blogs, Invision Community 5 introduces a brand new, modern interface which brings improvements to performance, aesthetics and mobile usability. An optional side navigation panel, new view modes, light/dark modes, customizable header layouts, a search modal and a mobile navigation bar are some of the things we've showcased previously. Today, lets take a closer look at some other miscellaneous changes that we've been working on while developing Version 5, including some of the code reductions and performance improvements that we've been able to achieve in the process. For those of you who are developers, we'll also give some simple explana…

As showcased in our past blogs, Invision Community 5 introduces a brand new, modern interface which brings improvements to performance, aesthetics and mobile usability. An optional side navigation panel, new view modes, light/dark modes, customizable header layouts, a search modal and a mobile navigation bar are some of the things we've showcased previously. Today, lets take a closer look at some other miscellaneous changes that we've been working on while developing Version 5, including some of the code reductions and performance improvements that we've been able to achieve in the process. For those of you who are developers, we'll also give some simple explana…

Whether you have hours to browse a community or are short on time, scrolling through a very long topic can be more than a little frustrating when you want to follow the topic's core journey. Recently, we discussed another feature designed to help support-based communities find helpful answers quickly, but what about social topics that do not have a simple question-and-answer format? We've all come to a lengthy topic for the first time and found it a little intimidating to find the most relevant content among hundreds of posts, which don't always further the topic. These off-topic posts are important because they help social cohesion and build relationships betwe…

Just six short weeks ago, Ehren hit record on a video that changed everything for Invision Community. The blog was called "Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5," and it ripped up the rule book on what forums should look like and revealed a slick new look featuring a new forum home feed view and sidebar navigation. A lot has been discussed, but we're not even close to done! Before we bring you news of more features after Thanksgiving, I wanted to take a mid-season break to recap what we've seen so far. First up was the introduction video, which gave a broad overview of the new UI Invision Community 5 would be sporting. Ehren takes us …

Just six short weeks ago, Ehren hit record on a video that changed everything for Invision Community. The blog was called "Introducing a fresh new vision for Invision Community 5," and it ripped up the rule book on what forums should look like and revealed a slick new look featuring a new forum home feed view and sidebar navigation. A lot has been discussed, but we're not even close to done! Before we bring you news of more features after Thanksgiving, I wanted to take a mid-season break to recap what we've seen so far. First up was the introduction video, which gave a broad overview of the new UI Invision Community 5 would be sporting. Ehren takes us …