Important changes coming December 1 -- Please read

[JohnCh]

Given the criticality, I'm placing this as a sticky post in the General forum for the time being to maximize visibility. The migration to Invision Community V5 is scheduled to begin shortly after midnight PST on December 1. The forum will be offline for approximately one day while the upgrade is completed.

 

This is a major platform upgrade, not a routine update. Think Windows 10 vs. Windows 8 or iOS 26 vs. iOS 25. Invision used this release to make significant changes to its underlying codebase, which means some aspects of the forum experience have changed.

 

What You Need to Know

 

• You will now log in using your email address, not your username.

Beginning December 1, the forum will require the email address associated with your account for sign-in. This change improves security because usernames are publicly visible, while email addresses are not.

Please verify that your email address is current and update it if necessary: https://usa7s.net/ips/settings/ Failure to do so could leave you unable to access your account.

 

• The editor has changed.

The editor toolbar is no longer customizable by the Admin, so some functions have moved or are now located within submenus. For example, to create a bulleted list, click the + icon and select Bulleted List from the menu that appears beneath.

The Preview feature has also been removed. Invision's rationale is that the editor now functions as a live preview, with formatting changes such as bold, italics, and color displayed immediately as you type.

 

• Forum view is now permanently expanded.

The Expand/Condense toggle remains available in the Activity Feed, but it has been removed from the Forums view. Thread listings will now always display a brief snippet of the opening post beneath the title.

 

• Unread Content has moved.

The Unread Content link is now located in the top navigation bar, next to the Reported Content icon on the far right.

 

• Club Membership has been renamed.

The navigation item formerly labeled Club Membership is now called Support USA7s. Club Membership remains available as a submenu under that heading.

 

• The home page has been redesigned.

The layout has been updated to address usability issues present on mobile devices.

 

Final Notes

I've worked to keep the overall look and feel of the forum as close to the current version as possible. However, some differences were unavoidable because of changes introduced by Invision.

After the migration is complete, please report any problems, bugs, or unexpected behavior in this thread so I can investigate and address them.

[Timothy Keith-Lucas]

Thank you for all your hard work to the benefit of all of us.