Advertising, Single Sign-On, CMS's, and Licensing

[Varsh]

Hi,

I am currently building a development community that is in its early stages however there is a need to have a subscription based system. With the PayPal option already integrated this has made things a lot easier however there are a few things that I am unsure of:

• Is there an option to allow for advertisements on the forums or in between posts? If not is it easy enough to create a plugin that can allow for this?
• Are there any hooks that allow for a custom website to use the member data? For instance allowing the user to sign up or sign in via the website, and also show and hide things depending on the usergroup permissions.
• If I were to find a CMS instead of building it myself, are there any recommendations that seamlessly integrate with Xenforo by using its user database instead of its own? Generally I'm not interested in Portals unless it's highly customisable.

Typically with every forum software there tends to be a 6 monthly or yearly charge for updates and support. When the support ends are you still able to download Xenforo up to the last version you paid your support fees for, or would the software be hidden from you? This is one thing I detest about Invision.

If I was to let the license run out and I happened to have some add-ons, could I only renew for the forum and select certain add-ons yet still download the last paid for version of the add-on I no longer renewed?

Finally if Xenforo v2, by chance, happened to be released shortly after I purchased the current version, would I be able to install v2 and have the license include v2 or would I have to purchase a separate license?

 

[TPerry]

Yes, you can easily (there are templates) put ads between posts (and even restrict who sees them with conditionals)


Not exactly sure what you mean by this

For instance allowing the user to sign up or sign in via the website

Are you referring to single sign on ability?

As for the second question about show/hide things... yes, again a lot you can show/hide based upon conditionals in templates. Some things may require an add-on. The question is very broad so it's hard to answer directly.

As for CMS, there is only one add-on that bridges WordPress that is even worth considering from what I understand - but I've never used it.

Unlike IPS, you can (as long as your license is not suspended) download the latest version available when your support expired - and further, unlike with IPS, you can still access the Resource Manager and continue to download add-ons even if your license is not "current".

As for XF2 - from my understanding, it will be a free upgrade, not requiring payment for use of it - no different than going from 1.4 -> 1.5.

 

[Varsh]

For the single sign-on, yes I am referring to that. With vBulletin and IPS they both have headers that are placed at the top of every PHP page that you make outside of their suites so that you can access the suites functionality. If this was available then it would make building a custom CMS very easy.

For instance with vBulletin using this script allows me to then create my own website but at the same time let me to use vB's sessions on pages that require it. From that I can grab user's data, usergroup, and anything else that is part of their account and integrate it with my site.

 

[Infopro]

allows me to then create my own website

Xenforo can do this, nothing special needed:
https://xenforo.com/community/pages/example-page/

 

[Varsh]

This is using forum based content and also "mostly static content". The content, that will be on my website, will be fully dynamic and requires a fully fledged CMS. On that page they even mentioned that it's not made for it:

A page is primarily designed as a way to include custom, mostly static content in your forum. You have full access to HTML and the entire XenForo template syntax, including some default variables (like info for the user that's browsing). It's not designed to rival a CMS or a portal.

If there's a small script that I can use similar to what I mentioned in my previous post then that would be perfect.

 

[Varsh]

Seems like I've found what I was looking for in regards to the single sign-on method, access to usergroups, and more with this: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/xenforo-sdk.2790/