sbj
Well-known member
Just curious, how do you determine that if the communication is lacking? How do you see that they are listening to our needs when there is no communication?
Any sort of roadmap for Xenforo 2.3 ?
- Thread starter surfsup
- Start date
Well, check suggestions. That will tell you otherwise.
We need more than just a forum nowadays.
whynot
Well-known member
TPerry
Well-known member
Personally, after 2 years of waiting, I've decided it will get here when it gets here. Of more concern is getting a point release out to fix the multitude of reported bugs/issues.
Other than the bug issues, my site rocks along just fine as the main interest are the add-ons that I use and not the forum itself.
oO5 Dynasty
Well-known member
X2 is not old or outdated by any means. To me it is actually amazing. Why the rush for a new version?
Frode789
Well-known member
But it is.. Yes XF works well, and it is a great software.
But while XF stand still, IPS moves forward. (just check their updates)
Your milage may vary. Some may be perfectly fine with how XF is today, which is normal for many forum admins that live in the past. It works, they community is solid, why bother right? And that's fine. But it doesn't mean that everyone wants it that way, and the software should still move forward. While others, and especially new forums which may cater more towards younger audiences, would like to see improvements in some areas.
And don't tell me you don't want general speed/optimization improvements f.ex, get out of here.
For me, the singlemost important change is in terms of content delivery and having a proper dynamic "what's new" page.
I'm just going to repeat myself as it seems like I have to these days, the usual gang of old-timer XF members just keep pestering "it works, it's fine, why all the whining?" et al, even though I and many others have explained more in detail, specifically, what we want to see.
- Alternative content front page for improved content discovery and user retention (current what's new page is barely usable, it's so bad...). The page will serve as the HOME, while forum will serve as the classic "forum list". But it is optional, so those who only want the old forum list, can of course do that.
- Live Filtering. Click and it will sort the list, for example imagine something like prefixes, and it will update the content live based on what prefixes you are marking from the sidebar. No need to wait for a full page refresh.
- Feed system. You select the content you want to see, people want the content to reflect what they are interested in viewing! Content types that you interact with more in terms of likes, views, replies, will provide you more content that we think you will like). Has media support from the main post to display directly on the front page without having to open the actual post. (f.ex the main image of the post).
- Optional Thread voting, similar to Reddit. So popular/good content goes to the top, uninteresting content stays much lower.
- Different layout for different devices for better user experience and better mobile rating by search engines etc.
- Infinite scrolling.
- WebP support. (LONG overdue!) For image heavy forums, this is a necessity. XF, in 2023, STILL does not have this.
- XF core speed/optimization to improve vital areas like LCP and CLS. Again, connected to the above point, as these are correlated to user experience, speed <-> SEO ratings. Things like:
- Lazy loading images outside of main rendering by default.
- Defer/asyc to all non-essential xore XF js by default.
- Improvements to delivery of core XF javascript that are essential for page rendering/function (can anything be trimmed/removed etc)? Almost a second for "blocking" main thread waiting for js loading. For example moving away from jquery.
- The new cookie notice is really hurting LCP.
- Font display:swap by default for making sure visitors see text while the font is loading.
- Leaner sized css.php
- Etc..
- Trending Content features. Show trending content based on replies, interactions (likes etc), views. Present content in more ways, using more metrics.
- SEO improvements. See notes from the Google developer posting here, on suggested improvements. Actually use available schema for making sure XF forums are not missing out on potentially good markups that can elevate our content in search results.
- Remove/update froala editor. So many bugs..
- Fully integrated push notifications.
- Universal "create" button from home page and forum. Then you can select the content you wish to create. It's easier and faster to create. Easier to create content -> More content made by users -> More discussions/activity -> $$.
- Improvements to the search capabilities in XF.
- Popular API integrations, for example like Zapier.
Felipo Antonoff
Member
Every system needs updating, let alone a complete and feature-rich Forum system, I don't think going from 2.2 to 2.3 needs to take years, but I know that Xenforo has a lot of improvements between subversions.
I create small to large products and almost all of them need small updates, code improvements, modernization, updating technologies, adding features, in short it is part of any system.
In case Xenforo has an excellent product, they just need to focus more on communication, maybe increase the team and have a clearer release plan, maybe big new feature releases every 6-12 months and bug releases every 1-3 months or as soon as possible.
A detail is also the Technology, really, we have PHP 8.2 since 08/12/2022 https://www.php.net/releases/index.php and as far as I know Xenforo doesn't have a 100% compatible version with it.
As far as I know Xenforo is based on the Symfony Framework https://symfony.com/releases and I don't think it's updated based on version 6 or even 5 which is LTS (I could be wrong I didn't analyze the code).
The JS used are also being updated, in short, all technology is being updated, now the Xenforo team does not seem to be standing still, but without closer communication it is difficult for us to know how the maturity of the project is in the technical matter and even of the company, until today I don't want to know how many developers work on Xenforo, so I see only 1 that is more present at least.
In short, Xenforo needs to be treated as a company that is what it is and also perhaps with a footprint more focused on Open Source with more transparency, this wins over customers and builds loyalty.
They can also post more articles, to show that they are active, each new version could make a post, teach how to create modules, finally participate more openly, but I understand that it is just ideas and that if the team is small it can be difficult.
nodle
Well-known member
I gave up a couple of weeks ago. I did my time waiting. We still don't know what's coming in 2.3 and I have a feeling it won't live up to everyone's expectations and then you are going to see people posting "I wanted almost 3 years for that"? Then one day I thought to myself. Why? Do I want to go through waiting for the next update as well? If the staff isn't communicating now, what makes me think it will change once 2.3 comes out? It will just go back to being the same thing with no communication. I'm not trying to be a downer, and I keep checking to see what comes out, but I am still waiting...
AndrewSimm
Well-known member
What they should do is change the subscription so your forum doesn't work if your license expires. At least I would feel like I was getting something for my subscription.
Wing
Well-known member
kolakube
Well-known member
I think it would be more reasonable to auto-ban all site administrators until they pay up.
FTL
Well-known member
That's a terrible idea.
They've already got that with XF Cloud anyway. If the monthly payment stops, the site stops.
Felipo Antonoff
Member
That would be too bad, as it would become a rented product and that already exists in the Cloud.
I think that if it were Open Source + Cloud it would be better, but it's hard to know what would be better for the project in the long run.
Arantor
Well-known member
Making it so the software licence is required to keep using the software is a move Woltlab looked at because they weren’t able to continue to support self hosting otherwise.
It may yet end up going that way here. And for “that’s how XF Cloud is”… sort of. There you’re paying for an ongoing service in the form of hosting, with the XF licence being kind of incidental on the side.
What is clear though is that the entire forum business is less viable than it used to be, with IPS having second thoughts about even having the self hosted version, though they have committed to IPS 5 being self hosting. No guarantee for IPS 6 though…
And going hybrid open source will make that even harder to compete successfully, not easier.
It may yet end up going that way here. And for “that’s how XF Cloud is”… sort of. There you’re paying for an ongoing service in the form of hosting, with the XF licence being kind of incidental on the side.
What is clear though is that the entire forum business is less viable than it used to be, with IPS having second thoughts about even having the self hosted version, though they have committed to IPS 5 being self hosting. No guarantee for IPS 6 though…
And going hybrid open source will make that even harder to compete successfully, not easier.
Recep Baltaş
Well-known member
- Lack of Communication: We've been told by the staff that HYS threads would be here in some weeks but no HYS and no update on that.
- Listening to customers: 2.2 brought many innovations and IMHO, and XenForo is still the best forum software out there. Yes they ignore AMP and some other features but some of them take time to develop.
Similar threads
- Locked
- Suggestion
- Question
- Locked
- Suggestion
