Another forum owner considering Xenforo

hpidriver

hpidriver

Member
Hello all, I am a forum owner currently running vB 3.8 and have been for some time now. As I contemplated whether or not I should upgrade to vb4, I started frequenting another forum that ran on Xenforo. I loved the user experience, and I knew Xenforo would be a better path than vB if I were to upgrade ever. (shout out to @Jake Bunce you were amazingly helpful back at vb)

I read through a few other threads from forum owners in similar situations so I have an idea of what to expect to gain and lose. Here are my main concerns:
- paid subscriptions (check)
- itrader ratings imported (3rd party plugin would do it?)
- importing my user's pictures that exist in vb albums and photopost (this seems best, yes? - http://xenforo.com/community/resources/sonnb-xengallery-xenforo-gallery.2076/)
- any recommendations for someone who can convert vb skins to Xenforo styles?

Any other pointers or tips you would like to share with me would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
 
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Paid subscriptions will come over, automatic renewals however will not.

iTrader can be imported into either XenTrader or XenCentral Trading System

There's a few galleries which will allow for that import.

Theres a few good stylers out there, check out whats in the RM and get in touch with them! @Russ is doing a lot of cool stuff atm.
 
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hpidriver said:
Hello all, I am a forum owner currently running vB 3.8 and have been for some time now. As I contemplated whether or not I should upgrade to vb4, I started frequenting another forum that ran on Xenforo. I loved the user experience, and I knew Xenforo would be a better path than vB if I were to upgrade ever. (shout out to @Jake Bunce you were amazingly helpful back at vb)

I read through a few other threads from forum owners in similar situations so I have an idea of what to expect to gain and lose. Here are my main concerns:
- paid subscriptions (check)
- itrader ratings imported (3rd party plugin would do it?)
- importing my user's pictures that exist in vb albums and photopost (this seems best, yes? - http://xenforo.com/community/resources/sonnb-xengallery-xenforo-gallery.2076/)
- any recommendations for someone who can convert vb skins to Xenforo styles?

Any other pointers or tips you would like to share with me would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Click to expand...
I was in your position in July. I was running VB 4.2.0 I sat on that version for ever, i read good things about 4.2.2 but personally i was not impressed.
Instead of waiting for VB to get their act together i bailed and moved to XenForo.

I am not going to tell you its easy but it was the best decision i have ever made. Now that everything has settled, my users love Xenforo, my traffic is increasing, many members are returning to post that we have not seen in a while. I will never look back, I am looking forward to all the Good things Xenforo has in store, it has already been a wonderful ride :)
 
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Slavik said:
Paid subscriptions will come over, automatic renewals however will not.
Click to expand...
Good to know.

Russ said:
Thanks @Slavik,

I've done plenty of vB conversions so feel free to drop me a message (y). Best of luck on all of this, XenForo is definitely a great platform.
Click to expand...
Thanks, and I will as I tinker with a test site.

dawg said:
I am not going to tell you its easy but it was the best decision i have ever made. Now that everything has settled, my users love Xenforo, my traffic is increasing, many members are returning to post that we have not seen in a while. I will never look back, I am looking forward to all the Good things Xenforo has in store, it has already been a wonderful ride :)
Click to expand...
What sort of things presented the most difficulty in your switch? What had to "settle," as you put it?

These are exactly the type of responses I was hoping to get so thank you all.
 
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hpidriver said:
Any other pointers or tips you would like to share with me would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Click to expand...
Yes, I have a tip :D As hard as it will be try not to constantly compare old software with new. Keep in mind there is a learning curve and, for a while, you might go down the path of "it's much easier to do this on vB" but keep in your head that once you have been using XenForo for a while, you won't look back :D
 
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hpidriver said:
Good to know.


Thanks, and I will as I tinker with a test site.


What sort of things presented the most difficulty in your switch? What had to "settle," as you put it?

These are exactly the type of responses I was hoping to get so thank you all.
Click to expand...
It was just on my end. I did the whole conversion myself. My forum has over 7 million posts and is very busy, 8k posts a day. I guess it depends on the size of your forums as to how hard it would be for you. If i had to do it again today i would hire @Slavik because with all the research i did i still missed some things. Especially in the subscription and upgrade area, but i have it all sorted now.

I also did the switch live without closing my forums so my members were online trying to post during design and other stuff going on. However, now that it's behind me I am glad i did it myself because i learned a tremendous amount about XenForo. :)
 
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I've been with vB for many years... started at 3.x then went all the way up to 4.2.2.. I then made the worse decision ever... vB 5!

Where to start with vB5? !?!
Resource hungry - killing loading times for my other sites om the server
Buggy as hell - literally everything we did was workarounds to get around bugs
Lack of support and development - it took forever for bug fixes, we had to threaten to leave to get one bug fixed (which a week ago they said they had a fix to apply in the 'coming days' and it still isn't applied/released)
Lack of add ons - not much to add on which doesn't kill the loading times even more so
Mobile support - nothing works correctly on a mobile.. including line breaks!?!

I've just brought Xenforo and @Claudio is doing my integration from vB. Still mimicking my vb custom design though so should all be complete early next week.

Wow Xenforo is so much better! A hell lot less buggy too. Shout out to @Brogan for putting up with my daft questions and helping me along.

Vb site - http://apexonlineracing.com/forums

XF site (only started doing the custom design tonight after purchasing a template I can manipulate fairly easily) -
Http://apexonlineracing.com/forum

Make the move mate, you won't regret it!
 
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I have been going through the admin demo they have here. There is a fair bit to get accustomed to again, but upon initial impression I like it a lot. Is the Resource Manager necessary if none of my members will be downloading files?

A couple more questions I have -

I notice a red alert will show when I have new conversations, but the same does not happen for new alerts. Is a template edit needed or are there more appearance options I'm missing?

Is it possible to insert excerpts or thumbnails in the dropdown notifications?

And can I limit "Likes" to the first post of a thread only?

thanks everyone.
 
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1) Resource Manager would have no benefit if you guys don't download/upload/share files(unless you want to link to external sources via that? ) :)

2) there is an add-on for that, can't remember what it's called, but I have it on my forum for new posts, replies etc

3) Anything is possible with CSS (in XF it's called EXTRA.css unlike vB's Additional_CSS.css

4) Not seen an add-on for that, but I'm new myself :)
 
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Server Error
file_exists(): open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/home/mysite/public_html/forums/attachments) is not within the allowed path(s): (/tmp:/home/xfdemo/www/:/usr/bin/php)

  1. XenForo_Application::handlePhpError()
  2. file_exists() in XenForo/Importer/vBulletin.php at line 153
  3. XenForo_Importer_vBulletin->validateConfiguration() in XenForo/Importer/vBulletin.php at line 31
  4. XenForo_Importer_vBulletin->configure() in XenForo/ControllerAdmin/Import.php at line 76
  5. XenForo_ControllerAdmin_Import->actionConfig() in XenForo/FrontController.php at line 347
  6. XenForo_FrontController->dispatch() in XenForo/FrontController.php at line 134
  7. XenForo_FrontController->run() in /home/xfdemo/www/135/admin.php at line 13
Click to expand...
Did I break something or can I not import my database into the demo?
 
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0ptima said:
I recently converted my VB 3.8 forum to Xenforo
Replaced iTrader with XenCentral Trading Ssytem
Replaced Photopost with Xen Media Gallery

Make the switch, my members love Xenforo
Click to expand...

@0ptima I'm looking to make what looks like the exact same conversion you just went through. I am pondering how to handle iTrader feedback though. What made you, if anything, go with XenCentral System over XenTrader System?

Also have you ran into any issue with XenCentral? Looking at the discussion thread it seems there are several bugs.

Thanks!
 
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I started off with XenTrader and found some issues with it. Exactly a year ago, I asked the author about fixing them and even offered to contribute towards having the issues fixed and he said he had no time. It also no longer is supported.

XenCentral gets regular updates, the author is open to suggestions and the issue or two that I had was quickly solved via a support ticket. I currently have no issues with the addon, but I am hoping my latest suggestions get incorporated into the addon soon.
 
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Thanks. I think I'll start off with XenCentral then. Was just worried that support was slow, seeing the last several posts in their discussion thread remarks about bugs and no reply from the developer yet. I guess a slow reply is better than no reply and nearly a year since XenTrader has been updated.
 
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WoodiE said:
Thanks. I think I'll start off with XenCentral then. Was just worried that support was slow, seeing the last several posts in their discussion thread remarks about bugs and no reply from the developer yet. I guess a slow reply is better than no reply and nearly a year since XenTrader has been updated.
Click to expand...
XenCentral has made excellent addons, you should always trust and choose companies that have developed many addons with high rates like this one.
 
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