[Addon ideas] Smaller Xenforo suggestions you'd like to see

Digital Doctor

Digital Doctor

Well-known member
Licensed customer
I've asked for this a few times here and there over the last 15 years.
I see Reddit has it now.

When I type u/ in Reddit (Windows, Chrome browser) it comes up with a list of people that have already contributed to the thread. It just makes so much sense.

1788535837224.webp


The Xenforo equivalent would be when I type @ ... it should bring up a list of people who have contributed to the thread.

As it is now, Xenforo won't display any clickable options until you type 2 characters, eg.

1788536130216.webp

So a blank @ should be easy to implement.

Other ideas: prioritize people you follow ? prioritize people you have @ notified in the past.

allow certain people to notify groups - @mods, @groupXYZ

allow @OP to notify the OP.

The notification system was great when it was first introduced, and has all but languished.

There is also some problem with names with spaces and the @ system.
 
Nice thread, thanks @Digital Doctor . I have added some small sugesstions below. I am aware there are addons to achieve them but I dont prefer to use addon for such as small improvements.

  1. Ability for Users to Delete Their Own Accounts
    Allow users to delete or deactivate their own accounts. This could be tied to specific user group permissions or time limitations to prevent abuse. It would reduce admin workload and easily help with GDPR compliance.
  2. Change Content Owner and Publish Date
    Add a native option for administrators and certain user groups to easily change the author and the publish date of a thread or post directly from the interface, without needing to run database queries.
  3. Built-in Thread Bumping System with Limits
    Allow users to natively bump or revive their threads. It would be great to tie this permission to specific time intervals (e.g., once every 24 hours) or a maximum number of bumps allowed per user group.
  4. "Contact Us" Form Improvements
    Enhance the Contact Us form to automatically create a thread in a designated hidden staff forum instead of just sending an email. It should also support automatically assigning prefixes based on the chosen contact reason.
  5. Custom "Post Thread" Button Text per Forum
    Allow administrators to customize the text of the "Post Thread" button for specific nodes. For example, changing it to "Post an Ad" in a marketplace node or "Ask a Question" in a support node.
  6. Advanced User Search via Custom User Fields
    Improve the user search functionality to allow filtering by Custom User Fields. This would make targeting and managing users based on specific profile data much easier.
  7. Copy User Group Permissions & Child Groups
    Introduce the ability to simply copy permissions from an existing user group when creating a new one. Additionally, supporting "Child User Groups" that inherit permissions from parent groups would be a massive time-saver.
  8. Enhanced Privacy Controls (Search Engines & Postbit)
    Provide users with more granular privacy settings. This should include options to prevent their profiles from being indexed by search engines and to hide specific postbit information from visitors.
  9. Better Management for Soft-Deleted Content
    Provide a more centralized and detailed management interface to easily filter, review, bulk-restore, or permanently delete soft-deleted threads and items.
  10. Advanced Thread Title Control System
    Implement a built-in control system for thread titles to automatically fix/prevent "ALL CAPS" titles, restrict certain words, or enforce a specific format to keep the forum clean.
  11. Real-Time User Group Promotions on Profile Changes
    Trigger user group promotions dynamically and in real-time when a user makes a profile change (like filling out a required custom field), instead of forcing the user to wait for the next scheduled cron job to run.
 
alfaNova said:
"Contact Us" Form Improvements
Enhance the Contact Us form to automatically create a thread in a designated hidden staff forum instead of just sending an email. It should also support automatically assigning prefixes based on the chosen contact reason.
Click to expand...
Such a great idea it'll be overlooked. Or how about the option: [ ] email [ ] create thread.
 
Digital Doctor said:
The Xenforo equivalent would be when I type @ ... it should bring up a list of people who have contributed to the thread.

As it is now, Xenforo won't display any clickable options until you type 2 characters, eg.

1788536130216.webp


So a blank @ should be easy to implement.

Other ideas: prioritize people you follow ? prioritize people you have @ notified in the past.

allow certain people to notify groups - @mods, @groupXYZ

allow @OP to notify the OP.

The notification system was great when it was first introduced, and has all but languished.

There is also some problem with names with spaces and the @ system.
Click to expand...
[XB] Contextual & User Group Mentions Painbaker

[XB] Contextual & User Group Mentions

Improve XenForo mentions with context-aware user suggestions and configurable group mentions.
 
I'd like an option to hide the content of off topic posts from a thread w/o deleting or moving them. It should more or less work like "soft delete" works currently, including the option to show the content of the post. Basically the same as "soft delete" but with visibility to normal users including the option to show the post on click.
 
smallwheels said:
I'd like an option to hide the content of off topic posts from a thread w/o deleting or moving them. It should more or less work like "soft delete" works currently, including the option to show the content of the post. Basically the same as "soft delete" but with visibility to normal users including the option to show the post on click.
Click to expand...

A system like this is something I've thought about A LOT over the years. In my community, we try to keep moderation as light as reasonably possible—often allowing threads to twist and turn in many different just-slightly-related directions. I find this leads to really engaging conversations and keeps people from feeling like the community is a sort of police state where their contributions are always at risk of some sort of action being taken against them. This does often carry the side effect of allowing posts lacking any real usefulness/value being left in place though.

I would love some third category for posts between visible and hidden—a sort of post purgatory—where posts in purgatory don't push threads to the top of What's New/the unread feed, only show a small blurb inline in the thread ("This post has been marked as off-topic or otherwise unhelpful." with the ability to click to view the full post just as if the viewer has the post's author ignored), don't show posts in purgatory to bots for SEO purposes, etc. The biggest complaint we hear from users about our approach is that they often will open a thread with an unread post and it just won't be worth their time. A system like this could solve that.

Maybe this theoretical post purgatory system could use XenForo's built-in up- and down-vote system as a judge of post quality? Posts with -x score could automatically be put into purgatory—but this also allows users who click to see a post in purgatory and disagree with that assessment to up-vote the post and bring it back to full prominence in the thread.

You'd probably want a user setting which would disable hiding posts in purgatory by default (just showing a little flagging message on said posts instead) and you'd probably also want the ability for a user to decide that they actually do want to have posts in purgatory show up as unread just so anyone who really does want to continue to always read everything would still have that option.

I'm a big fan of flat discussion threads from an ease of use standpoint and due to their far superior ability to house evergreen, long-term discussions, but a system like this could bring some of the post quality filtering benefits of a more Reddit-like system to XenForo's flat discussion format.
 
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I like this idea.
Digital Doctor

Thread 'Post ★Data★ (Survey / Poll / Vote / Opinion / Prediction / Bet) [engaging microcontent that your forum needs]'

Lots of time there is some heated debate in a thread, and it seems like a really good time for a poll / vote. Other time it would be nice to know what thread participants are thinking ... so a vote/poll could be a formalization of predictions / opinions (Do you disagree with the coach's decision?). There are lots of potential uses. @Bob : I think it would be good for your sports betting type clients. (Micro, adhoc bets?).

Principles:
  • must be quick to setup the poll
  • polls should be just one click (not multi-selection, no post button) ... (just one click)...

you can turn any post into a:
poll
survey
prediction
bet

essentially you create an easily clickable data collection tool in any post.

example:
1758022326128-webp.327148
 
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A forum - with "no" forums.

Versions:
(1) I think AI can categorize posts well enough just based on the content. So AI can decide which forum the post should be placed in.
(2) with voice to text technology, you should be able to just speak a post, send, and it ends up where it should go, or if a definitive location cannot be determined, then display the choices.
(will be back later).
 
The Discussion thread in the Resource Manager should appear underneath The Overview Tab.

Can anyone outline a scenario you wouldn't want that ?
 
Digital Doctor said:
The Discussion thread in the Resource Manager should appear underneath The Overview Tab.

Can anyone outline a scenario you wouldn't want that ?
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The whole thing with a separate tab for discussions is a concept thing in XF, probably caused by a technical foundation. Discussions live in the "forums" part, other content like resources live in their own world. There are a bunch of add ons that use the same mechanism, probably b/c they have to. I.e. Events Manager or AMS.

You are absolutely right that this tabs mechanism does not work well for most users and with many it does not work at all. From a UX perspective it is one of the worst parts of XF in my opinion.
 
You should be able to "Bookmark" forums and they appear as links at the top of the forum list.
on more than a few forums, I only post in one forum out of hundreds.
 
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