ContributorOur site is back online, and as you may have noticed, we have a new name: Invision Focus. If you remember the old site, you may not see a whole lot different here immediately, and you'd be right. We haven't changed a whole lot, and all of the old content (or at least, most of it, some legacy downloads were pruned) is still here. We have tweaked some things a bit to make the site more organized, and we also have lots more in store. Let's address what we've changed so far, and what's still to come.
Why the name change?
To understand why we changed our name, it's best to understand a bit about the history of this site. After passing ownership of Invision Modding over to Martin, I founded this site as a small place where I could distribute my mods, service my customers, do some custom work, etc., all while getting a bit of time away from those unsavory folks I tend to attract. Thus, this site was a 'refuge' for me to be doing my coding work in peace.
That's worked out great for me. I've had lots of time to really dig into the new software IPS has produced, interacted with a lot of folks to collect info on what they'd like out of the community, and have made plans for the type of site I think the resource community needs. To put that site together, I felt it was best to slap a fresh coat of paint on the current place. There's a lot of good content here already, so while a brand new site might have been an even better idea for a new type of site, keeping what resources and members we had here and just tweaking things was the best plan.
I decided on this name because it signifies how we're working with all of the items in the Invision suite, not just IP.Board. While that is the foundation of the suite, we have guys here (myself included) who have experience with all of these applications, and are willing to lend a hand to help you with them. The 'focus' part I chose because I wanted to show how we're going to be very customer-oriented. As I alluded to above, I've spent a lot of time figuring out what I think the customers want out of the community, and I want to focus this site on delivering those items.
So what's new?
Apart from the name change, we've done a lot of reorganizing. If you take a look at the Board Index, you'll see we have revamped our support forums for the Invision applications. Each official app now has it's own dedicated forum for support issues and a dedicated forum for resources (downloads and tutorials). There are also dedicated categories in the Downloads and Tutorials systems for each application. As Invision announces new applications, we fully intend to support those as well.
We've gone down to just the skins that come with IP.Board on this site. While we have plans for a new custom skin (more on that later), we want to have to maintain as few skins as possible, given IPS's new accelerated product release schedule. Fewer skins means fewer updates we have to do when applications get upgraded.
One other small thing I personally have changed is the fact that I'll be dropping the (IM) prefixes from my products. I used to use the (FSY) prefix way back in the days when I used the username FuSoYa, then went to (IM) for Invision Modding. I've not done this due to any animosity towards Invision Modding or anything like that, far from it, I just feel that the need for prefixes on resource titles is a little unnecessary these days. I've started to do this for a few updates recently, and will be doing this for all of my resources shortly.
What else you got coming?
Lots. One thing I'm working on right now is a new IP.Content based home page. The main page for it will be a pretty standard portal type site, showing the latest news, recent topics, recent resources, that sort of thing. But one thing I'm really excited about adding to this is a new wizard-style interface for people to find exactly what you need. It'll help direct you to where to get support for IP.Nexus, where to find IP.Board skins, where to get an IP.Content developer to contract for work, and similar types of things.
After that, my next project will be an author feedback system. What this will be is an application where you can review the folks in the resource community who make the files you can download. So many people say they don't know who the good folks are who can really be counted on to deliver top-quality resources, and the goal with this is to let the community share their experiences with each author so that an overall 'score' can be given to each, so that others can see if the file they want to use is from one of the good guys, or someone a bit shady.
We also have plans for a new custom skin that Graeme will be making for us. I've seen some hints of it from him, and I think it looks awesome, I hope you guys all like it too. It should really show off what you can do with the software, and will complement the home page I'm working on quite nicely.
We've got some other stuff we have planned, but we don't want to reveal all of our cards just yet. I hope the coming year finds you as excited about what we are doing here as I am. As always, let me know if you have any questions.
