Over the coming weeks, we'll be exploring a bunch of new features and improvements coming to our user interface including our brand new theme editor, a new mobile UI, dark mode and performance improvements thanks to a reduction in both JavaScript and CSS. To kick off this series, let’s take a closer look at the new sidebar layout and new view modes for the forum index and topic pages.
Sidebar Layout
Traditionally, Invision Community has shipped with a horizontal header and navigation bar at the top of the page, which is still available in version 5. We're introducing a brand new (and optional) sidebar layout, which can be enabled or disabled easily from within your theme settings. The sidebar not only provides convenient access to your applications, activity streams and search bar, but you can now add links to nodes for even easier access to popular or commonly used areas of your community. For example - a category from your forum, an album from the Gallery, or a product group from Commerce.
Forum Index: Feed view
One of our goals for version 5 was to re-imagine new ways for your visitors to consume content, and the sidebar layout is just one of our solutions. Table view has been the typical way of displaying forums, providing visitors with a simple summary of the most recently active topic. Grid mode introduced cover photos to forums and is a great way to make your page more visually engaging, while fluid view allows visitors to filter through a list of topics to easily focus on multiple areas of the community.
Joining these view modes in version 5 is our new Feed view. Optional cover photos and featured forum colours allow you to personalise each forum, and a list of recently active topics with snippets of the most recent reply allow you to easily see what each forum is focusing on at a glance. The topic list drops below the cover photo and converts to a scrollable list on small devices. It's our fresh take on content display, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback!
Topic pages: Compact view
In addition, Invision Community 5 also introduces a new, compact layout option for topics. We wanted to create a layout which placed focus on your content while still keeping all of the authors profile information easily accessible within a mini profile. Stats, rank, badges, reputation points and more can be found by tapping the icon at the top of every post. The mini profile strip has also been added to other areas of the software too, such as comments and reviews in applications like Gallery and Blogs, and will appear on the mobile layout when the traditional "table view" is used in topics.
Switching between the new compact view and the author sidebar view takes just seconds giving you complete control over your community.
As part of this view, you also have the choice to feature/pin the original post to the top of every page, making it a breeze for your visitors to easily understand the context of replies without navigating back to page 1. Pinned posts have a slightly larger font-size to distinguish them from replies, and we've thoughtfully truncated them on pages beyond the first to keep scrolling to a minimum.
The new sidebar layout and view modes offer a fresh and innovative approach to navigating and interacting with your community. We’re really keen to hear your thoughts on these new views and whether you’ll be unleashing them on your own sites! We appreciate that no two sites are the same, and those who are a fan of the classic header look will benefit from quick styling tools and a visual way to re-arrange the header elements which we’ll cover in a later blog.
We’re looking forward to showcasing a whole bunch of new features over the coming weeks - so stay tuned, and we’ll see you then!
What's New in Version 5.0.20
Released
This is our September maintenance release!
As well as the usual bug fixes, notable changes include:
New workflow action to move a record to another category.
Support BigMarker as a LiveTopic video provider.
Added timed quest tasks that can only be completed in a specified time frame (Professional and above).
Opensearch powered Title suggestions on create forms (Forums + Pages)
Code:
#7145 Fix ambiguous posts column in forum custom sort. #7146 Fix core/content API docblock for path-based ID lookup. #7147 Add default topic sort to club forum nodeForm. #7153 Fix TipTap 3.26 mention and attachment placeholder behavior. #7156 Fix quoted code blocks losing line breaks when syntax highlighting is applied #7159 Fix dropdown positioning in Chrome 125–128 #7162 Fix an issue where editing a database field showed two "View Format" fields #7166 Fix an activity stream perf regression #7171 Fix issues with custom theme settings and the Theme Editor #7184 Fix an issue where merging unapproved items into approved ones can leave behind queued item counts #7185 Fix an issue where empty widgets would send the Page Editor into an infinite loop #7186 Fix an issue where comment feed widgets could not be properly set to retrieve from "all containers" #7189 Title suggestions on create forms (Forums + Pages) #7192 Fix an issue where users with permission could not modify profile cover photos #7199 Fix multiple issues related to the Approval Queue #7200 Improved support for screen readers on touch devices (VoiceOver and Talkback) #7203 Fix an issue where cover photos could not be modified when editing an event #7204 Fix missing CSS from activity stream widgets #7205 Remove calls to non-existent embed.css files #7206 Fix a PHP error when paging through a topic #7207 Fix an issue where the API totalResults property was incorrect #7208 Fix an issue where item edits affected the "X time later" string between posts #7209 Fix an issue where album images were not always included in search results #7210 Change links in last post data #7211 Fix an issue where copying nodes with a custom badge did not copy the badge #7212 Hide banned members from search results and profile views #7217 Restore the "following" button when you are following a member #7218 Fix an issue where a reaction added the wrong member to a quest #7226 Adds member_badge_awarded webhook #7232 Make sure all custom fields use signed URLs #7233 Allow custom upload fields to set file types and image dimensions #7236 Cache achievement points percentile for profile badges page #7237 Fix issues with moderation checkboxes in the messenger #7238 Fix an issue where comments cannot be unfeatured in Pages (and possib… #7240 Optimise Badge Stats lookup #7247 Increase core_widget_areas.tree to MEDIUMTEXT #7251 Fix an issue with creating custom OAuth login handler methods #7252 Fix an issue with setting up a Github login handler #7253 Bulk mail improvements #7257 Added role, aria-haspopup and aria-controls attributes to dialog triggers #7258 Prevent pagination from overflowing on small devices #7264 API date filters and sort options #7266 Make core upgrade 5000022 multi-step #7268 Prevent wide images from stretching email clients #7279 Fixes an issue where "Who can create content?" setting was not being applied when set to Club moderators only. #7290 Fix an issue where the Top Members page showed the same number twice #7291 Fix an issue where users who were mentioned/quoted in a PM received double notifications #7299 Fix guests commenting on blog entries when they shouldn't be able to. #7301 Fix an issue where the editor options in the pages templates editor did not work #7304 Fixed Unfinished Upgrade UI #7310 New workflow action to move a record to another category #7313 Fix Downloads Cards/Icons storage handler move offset #7316 Fix member CSV export duplicating members #7321 Restore the "deleted by" information in the ModCP Deleted Content #7322 Fix an issue where guests were able to view poll results #7323 Fix an issue where guest posts could be marked as a solution #7324 Fix issues where censored content wasn't highlighted on submission attempts #7325 Prevent staff avatar from shrinking #7327 Ensure floated images occupy full width on mobile #7334 Fix an issue where contact us notifications with multiple recipients used the wrong name #7335 Fix an issue where advertisement renewal prices were not stored #7336 Fix moderators unable to delete features from a club #7337 Fix blog hash in online list #7338 Fix newsletter widget not showing for guests #7339 Fix an issue where paging through filtered ACP tables did not work #7342 Fix an issue where pages tables were using the ipsData--custom class #7343 Fix data in for download_new_version webhook #7349 Increase file version field to 100 characters #7350 Adjust default Report Center filters to show all open reports #7351 Added a data attribute to userLink to include the member group ID #7353 Fix some iframely embeds not working #7354 Fix Featured Content page N+1 with large tag counts #7360 Fix an issue where item average review ratings were not calculated properly #7361 Fix an issue where entering a non-numeric changelog value can throw an error #7362 Fix an issue where pages address fields could not use custom templates without maps enabled #7368 Fix an issue where saving the theme editor always redirected to the homepage #7375 Added ipsInput to <input> #7377 Fixed .hidePopover() error #7378 Removed excess space on mobile search page #7383 Fix issues with displaying advertisements on topic/forum listing pages #7384 Fix an issue where custom template forms would list invalid options #7385 Fix issues with Workflow AssignItem action #7388 Implement timed quest tasks that can only be completed in a specified time frame #7389 Fix an issue where specifying mapbox zoom level did not work properly #7413 fixes an issue where you couldn't delete a blog category #7414 Pull first image for og:image instead of last for topics #7418 Allow UI extensions to position HTML on specific form tabs #7419 Fixes Bulkmail MemberFilter returning NULL in some cases #7420 Fix error if Pixabay is temporarily unavailable #7421 Fix Postmark rejecting sending emails with a Reply-To header. #7427 Notify quest participants when a task is available #7428 Fix Content Messages not rebuilding lazy loads #7429 Bugs/lazy load missing items after upgrade from v4 #7444 Updated pagebuilder dependencies #7447 Allow users to dismiss a quest from the "active quests" banner #7450 Fix split using multi-mod not updating approval queue #7463 Identify Stripe plugin and migrate Apple/Google Pay off Sources #7464 Support BigMarker as a LiveTopic video provider #7475 Fix an issue where Stripe was not automatically taking payments where gateways were limited to specific countries. #7488 Fix archiving resetting itself on cloud even if it's not forced. #7512 Stop Redis SORT from locking up the online list #7529 Moving CMS Records does not trigger topic creation. #7530 Fix Workflow key changing when editing. #7540 Port subscription upgrade logic from v4.
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